Destabilized

                                           Destabilized

                                      by Marco M. Pardi

“Remember, behind every silver lining, there’s a dark cloud.” George Carlin.

All comments are welcome and will receive a response.

This piece arises from an exchange of comments on the previous piece, particularly those of Austin and Julie. Specifically, the comments suggested an ongoing evolution of technology leading to a significant break with forms of human communication employed to this point. This theme has been growing in strength for some time; we nod knowingly when someone tells us even young children are so absorbed in their devices – Iphones, Ipads, and other technology enabling social media communication that they have either forgotten or never gained actual social skills. And, a great deal of space has been given to discussions of what appears to be the growing incivility of these electronically based communications.

Let’s assume for the moment the exchanges, especially on social media, have become cruder and more virulent. (While I’m sure many readers would say, “But of course they have” we might consider those readers may not have known the kids I knew so long ago. The same vulgarity, indeed the same vocabulary has been around for a long time.) Some blame this purported increase in vulgarity directed personally on the anonymity offered by screen names, and some say it is a general change in the culture. In some ways this controversy raises the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: Different languages produce different ways of thinking. For Sapir-Whorf to be relevant we would need to stipulate that the language employed by people using electronic means is somehow a different language or, at least, a form which forces or facilitates a different way of thinking. As mentioned above, I see no measurable difference in thinking. If there is a difference to be found it is in the willingness to express one’s thoughts.

But this raises another parallel. We have elsewhere considered the ageless question, Did crazy Johnny go off to war, or did war make Johnny crazy? Has there been a large reservoir of nasty people just waiting for an anonymous medium through which they could express their nastiness? Or, did the appearance of such a medium make some people nasty?

Although born in the early 1940’s, my command of American English flowered in the 1950’s. I well remember the proscriptions, especially in mass media, against saying certain words: pregnant was “in a family way” or, racier, “expecting”; menstruation was “time of the month”; and, at least one newscaster pronounced helicopter as heelicopter. Apparently it was too close to a forbidden word. Even common words could be problematic. An example comes from the exquisite 1932 Packard Twelve automobile with driver adjustable suspension via a plunger in the dashboard. An engraved plaque above the plunger read: IN-HARD : OUT-SOFT. That plaque lasted only slightly longer than the act it suggested.

Times seemed to be changing, however, when I entered the Air Force in January of ’61. While marching my Flight (85 men) across the training base I heard my WAF (Women in the Air Force) counterparts loudly berating their marching Flights with, “There’s ten thousand swingin’ dicks on this base and you ain’t gonna’ get a one less’en you get in step!!” Or, “When those left feet hit the ground I wanna’ hear them pussies suck air!!” Do young women even know these words? Colorful. Intimidating. But for some reason I just couldn’t match those inspiring words. Nor could I work up the nerve to even say Hello to my female counterparts. Since we often halted our Flights right next to each other outside the mess hall I had the opportunity to speak to the WAF Flight Commanders. But, I felt I would probably need my teeth for the meal. Still, I never took their attitude personally. Probably a good thing since on one of my assignments I had a colleague/part-time girl friend who was a British WRAC (Women’s Royal Army Corps). Born and raised in London’s notorious East End, she was lovely in a lithe but deadly sort of way. And, when even slightly irked, she would emit an unbroken, non-repeating string of words that would dull a porcupine’s quills at 50 meters.

But really, with the general loosening up just starting with Hugh Hefner’s ongoing manifestos in Playboy magazine (begun in the ’50’s), Lenny Bruce (convicted in 1964 of obscenity in speech), George Carlin (Seven Dirty Words), and Richard Pryor media began reflecting what was daily speech for many. Not only is the term pregnant acceptable now, the afternoon soap operas will show you how to get there. So, are the media catching up with culture change, or are the media driving culture change?

I’m not convinced that merely knowing the words leads to using the words. My vocabulary is fairly extensive and I sometimes arrange terms in unusual ways. In the military I occasionally heard two airmen square off in a contest known as the “Dirty Dozens”. Essentially, one throws an insult at the other. The other responds with a deeper level of insult. As a crowd gathers, which it invariably did, the insults fly back and forth until one speaker could not match or exceed the last insult of the other speaker. The outdone speaker then yielded, although the reaction of the crowd ratified the winner. Even though the two participants were nearly nose to nose no fists got thrown, and generally the insults drew huge laughs, even from the participants. And that was basically the point. The participants were playing to the audience to see who could score the best laugh line at the expense of the other. There were no vicious attacks in those laugh lines. Situation defused.

One interesting feature of these contests was that unusually foul language and actual name calling rarely occurred. In fact, the person who was truly in the wrong may emerge as the winner simply by the finesse of language implying authority and correctness. But winner was a relative term as most observers knew who was at fault.

I try hard to avoid the flame thrower exchanges I see on social media sites. I feel I do not gain anything from spending my time with them; on the contrary, they demean me as an audience member. And I have zero tolerance for the Argumentum ad Hominem tactic so often used: even relatively poorly educated Dirty Dozens combatants rarely reduced themselves to that level.

Undeniably we are exposed to and therefore aware of changes in the communication patterns we see around us. But the willingness to use foul and aggressive language has long been there. Yes, finger flick media devices, especially when registered to absurd “screen names” enable the proliferation of foul, aggressive, and even a sort of primitive communication. But providing the means is different from providing the motivation.

On other sites I have encountered people who embody the worst of the hiding sniper. I once informed a site manager that a particular comment, being clearly libelous, could bring a law suit against a site even if the person who posted the comment could not be identified. The comment was quickly withdrawn. But again, I just do not find this new. More frequent, certainly, but not new.

Is our communication pattern changing toward a more abrupt, even primitive level? I can see it narrowing. I assigned written papers in my classes. Most were submitted from a word processing program. Few were handed in written. Not thinking much about it I wrote, in longhand, comments on the papers before handing them back. One student startled me by coming up and asking me to read my comments to him. He explained that he had not been taught how to read cursive. Do they not teach that in primary school anymore. Did he get through high school like this? Is a printed name a legal signature? Does anyone care?

Some have expressed concern that our electronic communications are narrowing our speech patterns, therefore possibly our thinking patterns. Many media limit characters; Twitter is a good example. I’m not much into electronic social media, despite this blog. I barely know how to use MyFace and Your Tube and will never use Twitter or Instagram. But writing is not language. Writing is the recording of language. And, this too is nothing new. In various intelligence operations one strictly observes the communications protocol, especially when transmitting over un-encrypted media: brief and precise. That’s been around since smoke signals. But that does not mean the intelligence operative conducts everyday conversations in such ways. Granted, I’ve known some ex-military who try to do this, but they just haven’t grown up.

In my schooling I was taught Latin was the most efficient Western language. It had the most stand-alone morphemes capable of conveying a complete idea. A modern language study was carried out by University of Lyon researchers François Pellegrino, Christophe Coupé, and Egidio Marsico using English, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, and German. They listened to speakers reading aloud at their normal cadence and devised formulas for determining “information rate” per syllable. Surprisingly, English came out on top, with Japanese a distant last place.

Looking back at screen names reminds of the inside names given to Presidents. Most people are aware of Secret Service designations for each President. But within the “7^th floor” crowd at the Central Intelligence Agency one hears far more amusing designations: John F. Kennedy was “Mattress Jack”. Guess who is “Tweety Bird”.