Why You Shouldn’t Curse

by Akim Reinhardt

You shouldn’t curse. People will take you less seriously. Cursing also reveals a certain laziness on your part, suggesting that you can’t be bothered to come up with more descriptive language. In the end, when you curse, you short change both yourself and your audience. Instead, take the time to use the language more fully, more carefully, and more artfully. In so doing, your message will be clearer, more forceful, and better received.

April Fools!

Seriously, are you fuckin’ kidding me? Do you have any idea just how fucked up the world is? I’m sorry, but polite language simply will not do.

The president of the United States is a foul mouthed racist and serial sexual molester. Donald Trump has referred to neo-Nazis as “nice people,” and repeatedly called for a group of incontrovertibly innocent black teenagers (now grown men) to be executed for supposedly raping a white woman. In other words, he’s a failed lyncher. He also brags about committing sexual battery, specifically grabbing women’s “pussies,” and I think you’d be pretty naive to insist he’s never actually raped anyone. By some estimates, 1/5 of all American women have been raped; honestly, what are the odds that this nasty, little motherfucker has never been one of the millions of perpetrators during his six decades of sexual activity?

Don’t kid yourself. I need not dig deeply into the English language to adequately describe Donald Trump. The brief, direct phrase “filthy piece of shit” is not only readily available, it’s actually spot on. So are “wrinkled little scumsucker,” “soulless, orange prick,” and “soft-brained shit bag.”

The man is very worthy of such curses, and to deny that for reasons of linguistics or manners is the worst kind of prudishness. I’m not suggesting everyone should curse Donald Trump at once, although what a righteous chorus that would be. No, verbal jabs must strike in the moment each person finds most fitting. Timing is important. What’s more, I understand that some people are disinclined to spew foul language, and I would never urge them to adopt it or demand that they betray their true voice. Likewise, however, I have no patience for those who insist that I must not puncture this walking human atrocity of a POTUS with the saltiest of slings. Such insistence is wrongheaded and mindlessly censorious. Because not only is Trump morally deserving such barbs, but the harps of angels cannot render a proper ode to this shit-flinging rage monkey. No, sometimes the Devil’s tongue is called for; only it can sufficiently lick the language clean of unearned and misplaced respect.

And there are of course others. It hardly ends with Donald Trump, that bloated turd-gobbler. He is only the most powerful and press hungriest (and possibly stupidest) version of the right wing populist shit show that’s been splattering international politics for the past several years.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban is a shitty little thug.
The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte is a murderous fucking goon.
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a straight up cunt (I’m citing gender-neutral British usage, not misogynistic American usage of that word).

Nor should we fall into the trap of believing that only right wingers deserve a good verbal bitch slapping now and again. Certainly North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the commie bastard who time forgot, is a greasy marshmallow of an ass plug. And Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro is little more than a walking ass crack, although to be fair, I suspect his pretty-boy rival and possible successor Juan Guaido could easily turn out to be a right wing corporate ass puppet.

Indeed, there’s an entire gamut that runs from the laughable, stumblebum incompetence of Brit-tard Theresa May to the pure, blinding evil of the diseased, oddly taut and misshapen shaven testicles that call themselves Vladimir Putin.

And that’s only the political arena. Humanity is plagued by countless fuckwads, shit heads, and cock goblins. From spoiled, clueless celebrities to angry, humorless co-workers and selfish, nasty neighbors, you can make your own list of piss gurglers and jiz chimps.

All that overt evil, combined with the more passive and banal shortcomings of most people, have worked to transform this planet into a shitty mess. The fact that society is currently fixated on climate change as our one, big foible is likely because we’re worried about it affecting us directly, which only proves my point that on the whole, we’re a bunch of the selfish, crusty shit sticks. But it’s time to take off the blinders. The so-called Anthropocene, marked by a runaway human population boom, has ushered in everything from global deforestation to mass extinctions of other species. What’s “bad” for us is literally genocidal for countless plants and animals. We have wrought so much damage upon the Earth that it would seem unfair to describe it as anything less than “a shitty mess.”

It is important to be direct. Sometimes the dirty description is called for. Now and again, the best way to frame a shitty mess is to say it’s a shitty goddamn mess, plain and simple. If other people are discomfited by you saying so, then it’s probably not the coarseness of your language that offends them, but rather the nakedness of your sentiment. Maybe they’re more at ease with mere implication. Perhaps in order to stomach the concept of shittiness, they need to render it into something more abstract and distant, to filter it through euphemistic discussions. But now and again I prefer a forthright and visceral description. I find it to be more honest. On occasion, it seems to me that a plainspoken discussion of stench and texture is quite appropriate. Sometimes inciting a little bit of nausea is called for. It doesn’t mean we’ve gone too far. It’s simply more to the point and more emotionally authentic.

Nonetheless, savage insults and grotesque revelations of the human condition and the world it has wrought, no matter how worthy or apt, should not be dispersed willy nilly. If such powerful language is to maintain impact and avoid being unfairly injurious, it must be used responsibly. And the bedrock of responsible cursing is modesty.

So let me close by openly acknowledging that I am a gigantic, swollen asshole, a piggy little bastard, and pasty faced fucktard.

Good day.

Akim Reinhardt’s goddamn website is ThePublicProfessor.com