When are we going to realise that swearing really is big and clever?Not only that, but that laughing at others is what truly sepeartes us from animals. Some would suggest empathy or love might be, but I've seen both of those emotions from my cats, yet none of my feline friends have ever had to sit down from laughing so hard, when I've stood bare footed in a pile of their faeces.
There are of course plenty of people out there who'd rather not listen, or read, that kind of thing. I totally agree with their right not to. I'm certainly not going to go and drag them kicking and screaming into a room to watch Scum with me. Although there would be an obvious comedy value in that.
So why should people who don't like the vulgar side of life insist that those who do be stopped from doing so?
There seems to be a growing minority of people that insist that we live in a decadent society. One that is in serious need of changing. On that headline alone, perhaps I'd agree, but their villain is always and solely the media, and those that create it. It will never lie with the policy makers and human rights do-gooders who have allowed our kids to run ferral, and our terrorists to be home in time for tea. Heaven forbid. It always has to lie at the feet of the media.
I have come in for some flak myself this week for crossing the lines of decency and taste. My crime? Saying the word "minge" on a football fanzine. It might not have been completely appropriate, granted, but it certainly didn't warrant the calls on an assosciated forum for me to "come on there and explain myself." I said minge. I did not offer up a human sacrfice to Kali the god of blood.
Lets also look at the context of it all. It took place on a football fanzine, places known for their laddy human and coarse attitudes. Anyone who went on that site who might have been genuinely offended by a word such as minge, would probably have been best advised to give it a miss.
And to suggest that I "explain myself," was laughable. Allow me to explain. I have written a lot of articles for the fanzine over a number of years. I text updates to said website during the game to keep fans informed about whats happening if they can't make it. I do this for free, because I love the club, and I want to do the best I can for my fellow fans. If I choose to swear on there, then I swear on there. I don't have to do anything for anyone, and If I chose to, I could just stop. I'd lose nothing at all. In fact, it'd be a lot less hassle.
I must admit, I enjoy the fact that I can reply so honestly about what others think about me. I'm sure that Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross have plenty of things they'd like to say about those who turned on them for their gag. And whilst perhaps their stunt was a tad childish, it certainly didn't deserve the reaction that followed. I don't envy the fact that they have careers to safeguard. Perhaps my reaction would be muted had I got a six figure salary to save.
But in this surely there's a more worrying problem. Had Ross or Brand dared to question the reaction they faced, then it goes without saying the hatred would have intensified. It simply wouldn't have been worth the effort to try and fight back. Perhaps had they done so, the rumours that have circulated around internet forums and media circles might well have reached the publics ears. That they did not, and in doing so, the full truth was never revealed, is a sad indictment of the mob justice attitude that prevails in these moral panic situations.
On this day of all days, when we celebrate the efforts of those who died to protect our way of life, it shocks and scares me that we can allow such hot headedness to trample all over our God given right to free speech, something that countless people risked and lay down their lives to protect.
We in the Western World, and not just this nation, have a distinct inability to accept our own failings. We would rather think that rather than accept that we still have an ounce of the savage left in us, that we are being manipulated, conned, into doing wrong, by the evil man behind the TV screen, when in truth all we want is things our own way.
