The Coarsening of Our Culture

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe thinks we're dropping too many F-bombs in public, and I agree:

Maybe the rampant overuse of the F-word and other obscenities is actually benign — as benign as women wearing pants or interracial marriage, to mention a couple of once-inflexible taboos.

Then again, many people used to tell themselves that smoking was benign. That no harm was done by leaving dog droppings where they fell. That racial slurs were nothing to get worked up about. Are we quite sure that the relentless potty-mouthing of American culture doesn't belong in that category? A flood of profanity pollutes our public square. It's time we gave some thought to cleaning it up.

I'm reminded of a quote by General Washington:

The general is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing (a vice heretofore little known in an American army) is growing into fashion; he hopes that the officers will by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of blessing of heaven on our arms if we continue to insult it by our impiety and folly.  Added to this, it is a vice so mean and low that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.  (Quoted from the 1985-1986 Contrails, a book of knowledge given to freshman cadets at the Air Force Academy)