The Garden

If Western society is known for anything, it is known for its impatience. Westerners are accustomed to obtaining instant results in virtually all areas of their lives. We buy microwave dinners and eat at fast-food restaurants regularly—not because we think the “food” tastes good or think that it is good for us (we all know it tastes like crap and makes our bodies feel the same), but because it is an instant remedy to the “problem” of hunger—and we even use drive-thru windows because it’s too much of a hassle to get out of the damn car. We prefer surgeries and medications to balanced diets and regular exercise because, frankly, why do things the long way when surgeons and pills can do the job instantly? We even charge our credit cards to oblivion because we think it is so much more important that we have the stupid thing now rather than wait until we, god forbid, actually have the money to pay for the stupid whatever-it-is up front.

Yes, we Westerners are impatient indeed. It is no wonder, then, that we tend to approach our social problems in much the same way. When something seems to be going wrong, we figure we can simply throw more money at it to make it better, cast more laws “out there” to hopefully “catch” the problem like a fish in a net, or, in some cases, we just create a new department of such and such and tell them it’s their job to fix the such and such, as if that ever does anything.

Westerners are so impatient, in fact, that they don’t even take the time to notice if their quick-fix solutions are even working. How much less prevalent are health problems and poverty issues now that we’ve had decades of social programs? How many airline terrorists had a change of heart now that laws prevent everyone (including non-terrorists believe it or not) from bringing full-size tubes of toothpaste onto an airplane? How much more secure is the “homeland” now that there is a Dept. of Homeland Security? If there have been any changes for the better at all in these areas, they have been negligible at best. Yet, we Westerners refuse to abandon our quick-fix methodology. If these strategies have performed poorly thus far, then the fault must be one of degree, not of kind. In other words, the methodology is sound; it’s just not strong enough. The poor performance can simply be remedied, like everything else, by an increase in volume, a hotter temperature, or a higher dose. That way, no one has to change their lifestyle, their beliefs or their thinking—it all stays the same and its all familiar. It also, unfortunately, just doesn’t work.

Just like the other aspects of Western living, quick-fix solutions to social problems always provide the feeling that “this time it’ll be different, this time it just might work,” but, in the long run, always prove to be shortsighted. “Maybe this time my bacon double whopper will make me feel energized” we say, “Maybe this time our military can spread democracy and peace with force and violence” we tell ourselves, or “Maybe this time the well-dressed candidate who says he ‘cares’ will make everyone’s life better.” Time and time again, we look for simple, one-step solutions to complicated problems.

I don’t think we’ll ever make any progress socially until more people decide to quit looking for simple solutions for the answers to society’s problems. The one thing Westerners avoid like the plague is taking personal responsibility for the ills of society. Many will say that someone should do something about poverty, but few actually nominate themselves to take action. Sure, they’ll vote for a guy who says that he’ll do the work for them, but that’s as far as it goes. Many will say that we should support local businesses and avoid third-world products, but nevertheless continue to shop at Wal-Mart because it’s cheaper and easier. Many will acknowledge that crime rates are way higher than they ought to be in Western society, but few decide to jettison the old belief that criminals are simply criminals by nature in favor of the more realistic view that our society (the one we all help to create) is contributing to the problem of crime. Sure, it’s a lot easier to just round up the “bad guys” and put them behind bars than it is to fully understand why they behave the way they do, but why continue to do it if it isn’t solving anything?

In my view, the impatience of our society is one of the biggest impediments to the resolution of social problems. In order for us to make any real progress socially, we have to deal with our impatience and take it personally. The first step is to recognize that it is there, and to recognize how pervasive it is. If we don’t, we’ll continue to see the same mediocre results of old. If we do, nothing any new politician, department or law could do would be more powerful.

Several months ago I wrote an opinion piece that defended Wikipedia on the grounds that, in principle, the common criticisms over its questionable accuracy are not unique to Wikipedia—these criticisms, ultimately, apply to all information sources regardless of status or prestige. The only difference between Wikipedia and other information sources is that Wikipedia candidly tells the reader that its information is suspect, whereas other information sources tend to mask this feature. My conclusion was that readers should be more circumspect about the information they consume, regardless of the source. In fact, I argued, consumers should be even more circumspect about information sources that market themselves as distinguished “authorities” and color themselves infallible. My reasoning for this is the fact that the greater the amount of “authority” a source appears to have, the greater the temptation is in the consumer to suspend his or her scrutiny over that source of information.

The reason I bring this up is because a recent article published in The New York Times draws on this same issue in a powerful way. On Apr. 20, The Times ran an article written by David Barstow entitled “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.” The article suggested, based on The Times’ research, that a substantial number of former military experts turned “military analysts” for major media outlets have been a part of a calculated, systematic effort by Pentagon officials to favorably spin information about the war in Iraq.

In the opening paragraphs of the article, Barstow writes the following: “Hidden behind [the] appearance of objectivity… is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used [military analysts] in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found…Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.”

Barstow then goes on to explain in more detail who was implicated in this campaign and points out that much of his information was derived from some 8,000 pages of messages, emails and transcripts that The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to obtain. He further writes: “These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.”

What the thrust of this article suggests is that, despite the authoritative muscle of popular and relatively respectable sources—such as mainstream news outlets, the Pentagon, and the military analysts in question—there nevertheless remains the risk that those sources can become corrupted and engage in the dissemination of dubious information.

Now, the dissemination of dubious information is bad enough in itself, but when it is over matters of war, as Barstow’s article suggests it is in this case, then it is indeed grossly disturbing. Many lives have been lost or compromised over the wars waged in response to the information peddled by these “experts,” “analysts” and “officials;” and, if Barstow’s article is even remotely accurate, the general public ought to be alarmed at the extent to which their authoritative sources can mislead them, and outraged about the consequences of such deception. More than anything though, the general public ought to cease assuming that authoritative sources are virtually infallible, reliable sources that can be trusted without scrutiny. As it is in the case of Wikipedia, it is the responsibility of the individual to decide what is and is not worth believing, no matter who or what a given source claims to be. Even though it is wrong for authorities to abuse their power and intentionally misinform, it is still the consumer’s fault if he or she is duped by the misinformation.

Now that we have good reason to suspect that a substantial amount of the information we have been given about the still-in-progress U.S. wars are biased towards those who have vested interests in the positive characterization of these wars, it is incumbent upon us to recognize how severe the consequences of consumer negligence can be and to seriously rethink the way we absorb information about the world.

Many seem to have accepted the official story of 9/11—that 19 hijackers, led by Osama Bin Laden, flew three planes into U.S. buildings and a fourth plane into a field in Pennsylvania—since it was first proposed back in 2001. However, much like in the case of the John F. Kennedy assassination, a growing number of people have begun to question and seriously doubt the government’s version of 9/11. And, I will confess, I place myself among them. The reasons for this are many and varied, but suffice it to say here that, in general, the 9/11 skeptics (often derided as “conspiracy theorists”) argue that the nature, scale and complexity of the sequence of events from 9/11 are too great to be explained merely by 19 hijackers flying planes into buildings.

To provide a fairly straight-forward example of this, consider that on 9/11, two buildings are believed to have been struck by hijacked airliners in the World Trade Center (WTC) complex, yet three buildings in the complex completely collapsed that day (the third being a 47-story steel framed building known as WTC 7). What the 9/11 skeptics doubt is that the two airplane crashes are sufficient, by themselves, to explain the destruction of the three WTC buildings, and therefore argue that there is good reason to at least consider the possibility that something besides the airplanes contributed to the destruction of these buildings—especially WTC 7 which was not struck by a plane.

Now, I am not here to defend a 9/11 skeptic’s position on the grounds that their assertions about 9/11 are necessarily correct; rather, I am here to defend the reasons one might have in challenging an official story (like 9/11) in general, from the standpoint that it is better to debate all ideas openly than it is to restrict the range of public discourse to topics that are “politically correct,” emotionally “neutral” or otherwise believed to be “self-evident.” My motivation for this is the observation that much of mainstream society (including political networks, the mainstream media, and the U.S. population in general) have responded to 9/11 skepticism with either a high degree of ridicule, or a heavy dose of hostility—sometimes both. Individuals who have vocalized their doubts over the official story of 9/11 have had their reputations attacked, their careers jeopardized and their “patriotism” challenged simply because they believe there are serious questions about 9/11 that remain unanswered.
Having monitored the topic of 9/11 skepticism for many years now, I believe it is fair to say that mainstream media outlets have either belittled those who doubt the official 9/11 story, or completely ignored them. Consequently, much of the U.S. population (who largely relies on mainstream outlets for their information) has adopted a similar standoffish attitude about 9/11 skepticism. I believe that this general attitude is, at its least extreme, counterproductive to the interests of both the U.S. and the world’s at large; and, at its most extreme, highly dangerous. I say this because events of 9/11’s magnitude have consequences—serious consequences—for all parties involved, and any error in judgment, no matter how slight, can literally alter the lives of millions. The events of 9/11, and its subsequent interpretations, have already clearly impacted the lives of millions of people around the world (e.g. the war in Afghanistan and, to a debatable extent, the war in Iraq, as well as increases in aggressive policing and detention practices due to the so-called “war on terror”). What would the consequences to the world be if the official story of 9/11 was inaccurate in some regard?

I think it is fair to assume that most would agree that if—theoretically speaking—the official story of 9/11 was found to be flawed in a fundamental way, then a large portion of subsequent U.S. policies, both foreign and domestic, would be drastically misguided at best, and outright appalling at worst. It is with this backdrop in mind that many 9/11 skeptics (I cannot speak for all) challenge the official 9/11 story. In other words, it is out of a desire for accuracy over matters of heightened historical importance that 9/11 skeptics voice their dissenting opinions—not out of spite for a particular faction or ideology. Therefore, the standoffish attitudes that many hold toward 9/11 skeptics runs the risk of suppressing legitimate inquiries into the understanding of the events of 9/11 and, by extension, runs the risk of negatively influencing judgments made in response to 9/11. In my opinion, it is far better to take 9/11 skepticism seriously than it is to dismiss it on its face.

So my argument here is that we, as a society that purports to embrace free and open discourse about public issues, are far better off if we err on the side of too much debate (including excesses in the diversity of viewpoints) than we are to draw sweeping conclusions based on incomplete (and often times emotionally driven) pieces of information. In my opinion, 9/11 remains to this day an unsolved mystery that, in spite of its uncertainties, is dictating a significant proportion of U.S. policy. Of course, I understand that the issue is sensitive for many because, no matter how you look at it, 9/11 was a tragic event; however, reactions based on misconceptions about the event are potentially just as tragic, if not more so, than the initiating event itself.

Furthermore, the topic of 9/11 itself is educational (official story or otherwise) insofar as it integrates many elements of public interest into one pressing issue. For example, in order to discuss 9/11 and its implications, one must learn something about history, the role of government and its power structure (including emergency powers), civil liberties (and the suspension thereof), the military, national security, the news media, just war theory, morality, crash physics and high-rise engineering, the Federal Aviation Administration’s policies and regulations, foreign culture and belief, etc. To neglect to embrace this topic in public forums is a sorely missed opportunity—especially when so much effort and attention is devoted to celebrity gossip and “reality” TV in the mainstream—and, for the reasons mentioned in this article, such neglect may even be hazardous to the millions of people affected by our understanding of 9/11.

After all my years of schooling, more than anything else I have come to really appreciate the role of the classroom discussion in my educational experience. Nothing beats the process of engaging in a piece of material with my peers and a knowledgeable professor. It motivates me to clearly focus, be creative, and have fun with my newly-acquired knowledge. Far too often throughout my years of classroom involvement, however, have I seen perfectly good discussions soured by a small number of classmates that just don’t seem to “get it.”

As we all know, a classroom is full of many students—usually at least a dozen or more—and everyone is there (supposedly) to benefit from, and participate in, the class. Since there is a large number of people present in a class, there is a natural problem: How to keep everyone on the same page?
From my experience, I’ve developed the opinion that few people actually think or care about this problem—both students and professors alike. I have been involved in many a classroom discussion throughout my academic career, but I can barely remember an instance where the actual etiquette of a classroom discussion was brought up for the class to consider. The consequence of this, unfortunately, has been readily apparent to me. More often than not, a promising classroom topic falls victim to a group of classroom participants who simply fail to grasp the momentum of the discussion, and their attempt to participate often takes the discussion off on an irrelevant tangent.

I don’t think that anyone purposely wants to go off on a tangent in a class discussion, but I just don’t think the average college student has much training in the art of dialogue. Most people feel as though they are supposed to contribute something to a classroom discussion, but they aren’t always sure how to do it. What often happens is students try to say something, anything, to just get involved. And then, out of concern for the student’s feelings, no one—not even the instructor—will point out to that student that their comment was either short sighted or irrelevant. That is, of course, understandable given that we don’t want to hurt other peoples’ feelings; however, the interests of the class also deserve to be appreciated and I think it might be more worthwhile to be liberal in our criticisms of others’ comments in class.

This is not to say that a criticism must be tactless—there are many forms of constructive criticism out there that students can learn from. If they were used more regularly, I think students would learn more about the role of constructive criticism in the educational process—both how to give it and how to receive it—that would, by extension improve, the quality of subsequent classroom discussions. Sure, students will feel embarrassed and uncomfortable at times, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Is it not part of our education to build genuine confidence in ourselves? Are we not here to learn what it is like to generate an idea, present the idea to a group, and then see that idea fail? Will we not have to present and defend our ideas to others outside classroom walls in our careers? I think that giving and receiving criticism is part of the learning process and I believe that the more other students challenge each other in a class discussion, the more educational value all the students will ultimately get out of the class. So I propose that we take a more confrontational stance in our classrooms. When a fellow student makes an irrelevant comment, we should tell the student that their comment was off the mark and also tell them why—how else will they learn from their mistakes, and how else will the integrity of the class discussion be preserved?

When thinking about the national versus private health care debate, I have come to realize that there are two assumptions that both sides of the debate seem to share without much concern. These assumptions are that Western style medicine is unequivocally synonymous with “health,” and that the cost of medical diagnostic and interventionary procedures are completely normal and acceptable.

Regarding the former, I think it is fair to say that most people associate the term “health care” with what I will call “Western medicine.” That is to say that most people in the US think that “health care” is the act of going to a doctor and having their body examined and often physically “treated” in some way. What distinguishes Western medicine from other forms of medicine is its scientific, and somewhat mechanical, approach to the human body. I once worked as an emergency room clerk in a major hospital and on multiple occasions, some of the nurses I worked with relayed to me that they felt their work resembled the work of an auto mechanic. My point is that Western medicine is primarily motivated by the assumption that the human body requires regular medical “maintenance” in order to be “healthy,” and that the more medical “maintenance” the body receives, the “healthier” the body will be. In other words, it is assumed that the human body is, by nature, built to “malfunction” and will, in time, succumb to illness or disease without the aid of regular medical attention. Therefore, it is easy to see why both national health care advocates and private health care advocates alike agree that health care itself is important, and that the more health care one can receive the better.

I think there is something peculiar about this conception of “health” and “health care” though. When thinking about what counts as progress in the field of human health, the idea that “more maintenance” is synonymous with “better health” appears to twist the logic behind the term “health.” “Health,” as I think of it, refers to a body that is self-sustaining and free of dis-ease. Such a healthy body would, in theory, need less external maintenance from the medical profession, not more. Therefore, my conception of “progress” in the field of human health would include the diminished need for medical treatments altogether—something that would render the national versus private health care debate moot if it were actually realized.

This idea that progress in human health is the diminishment of need for medical attention is quite different from the idea that progress in human health is the proliferation of medical attention. The way I see it, the medical industry is no different from any other industry or bureaucracy: once it is established, it will do all it can to preserve its existence and prevent its extinction. As cold as it sounds, the medical industry, by its nature, thrives on the ill-health of humans. Therefore, the medical industry has a vested interest in humans believing that they are vulnerable without the aid of regular medical care; and, as I alluded to earlier, this is precisely the attitude most people seem to have about human health. With this in mind, I think it is worth considering how far we really want to go in our demanding of more access to medical care. The more ground the medical industry gains in convincing the public that “health” equals “medical attention,” the less likely our culture will ever wean itself off of medical dependence in the future. Not only is dependence on the medical industry undesirable for the individual (because it means the individual lacks control over their own health status), but it is also bad for the individual financially.

Much of the push for national health care is motivated by the astronomically high costs of medical diagnostic and interventionary procedures. People feel they need health insurance because they could not possibly afford to pay for medical care out of their own pocket. Now, there may or may not be good reasons for the high cost of medical care so I’m not going to say that the cost is something that could be realistically reduced (although, I suspect that the high cost of medical care is not entirely natural), but I will say that regardless of the reason for the high cost, individuals, as well as society as a whole, could benefit from a reduction in medical expenses. With this in mind, it easily follows that “progress” in the area of human health could be conceived of as the diminishment of dependence on medical care. By reducing the need for medical treatments, individuals, as well as the collective society, will relax the financial burden that expensive medical care places on them.

Of course, much of what I have to say here depends on an opposing assumption to the one commonly held by Western medicine—that is that the human body is not condemned to succumb to ill-health without the aid of regular medical attention. In other words, the assumption I am advocating here is that the human body has more self-healing capacities, and is therefore more predisposed to maintain a healthy physical condition on its own, than the Western model of medicine supposes. Consequently, “progress” in the field of human health would be to increasingly emphasize this self-healing feature of the human body, and to subsequently reduce the demand for expensive medical care. In the context of the debate over health insurance, I think it is at least worth reminding ourselves what we actually mean by “progress”—and that the Western model of health is only one model out of many from which to choose.

Ever since the events of 9/11 transpired I have been opposed (both politically and morally) to every act of violence and aggression propagated by the United States; which, of course, includes the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Since I am a relatively outspoken and opinionated person, I have, naturally, encountered a number of views that have been in opposition to my own. Among some of these opposing views (and in society in general), I have often encountered the slogan “Support Our Troops” in some form or other. When considering this slogan in the context of the enduring debate over US Military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is reason to take issue with the merits of the slogan—not specifically about the slogan’s overt message, but what the slogan implies covertly.

On the face of it, the slogan “Support Our Troops” simply implies that US troops, both as human beings and as US public servants, deserve to be ‘supported’ by the people they represent and work for, essentially on moral grounds. Simple enough. However, if you consider this slogan in the context of a debate over the merits of a war, such as the debates over Afghanistan and Iraq for example, the implications of this slogan become far more severe.

First of all, even though it looks like a statement, the phrase “Support Our Troops” is actually a command. If it were a statement, it would read something to the effect of “I Support Our Troops” or “Our Troops Deserve Support”. Instead, “Support Our Troops” is in fact telling its audience to engage in supportive behaviors towards US troops. When used in the context of a debate over the merits of war, such a command subverts the purpose of the debate—which is to establish the grounds for a particular behavior, not to trumpet the behavior in question.

Secondly, the slogan underhandedly accuses its audience of presently being unsupportive of US troops. Insofar as there is a motivation for using the slogan “Support Our Troops,” it is fair to assume that that motivation is to promote something that deserves wide acceptance, but, as of yet, has not achieved such acceptance. In this case, those who use the slogan “Support Our Troops” are A) implicitly saying that there are people who do not presently support our troops, and B) explicitly saying that those unsupportive people ought to begin supporting our troops. The problem I have with this is that it is rather crude to assume, or in fact assert, that someone is guilty of not generally ‘supporting’ US troops. Since the support of US troops is largely a moral issue, assuming that someone does not support the troops is analogous to making an unfavorable moral judgment about that person. More blatantly, the statement implies that a person is actually against the troops in some antagonistic way. In the context of an enduring debate over the merits of a war, it is unfair to attempt to stack the deck (morally speaking) against those who happen to oppose the war in question.

Thirdly, the slogan “Support Our Troops” can be (and often is) confused for a different, but related, slogan: “Support The War.” As an anti-war person, I am very familiar with my reasons for opposing wars in general, and the Afghanistan/Iraq wars in particular; these reasons, however, have nothing to do with my opinion over the merits of the support/non-support, of US troops. Despite the distinctions between supporting a war and supporting a war’s troops, I, and others like me, have nevertheless been accused of not supporting our troops as a consequence of not supporting the war the troops are involved in. In other words, when the slogan is used this way, opposing the war equals opposing the troops—a patently false claim.

Further, there is an ambiguity in the slogan concerning the term ‘support.’ ‘Support’ can basically refer to one of two things: A) support for the objective of the troops (i.e. their mission); or B) support for the lives of the troops (i.e. their well-being). Most people, regardless of their stance on the war, will agree with (B) because most people, hopefully, do not want harm to come to anyone. As far as (A) is concerned, however, many who disagree with a military’s mission will not then support the actions of the military’s troops. For example, since I oppose the war in Iraq, I do not support the objectives of the troops insofar as they involve doing violence to the people of Iraq. In other words, the more the US troops ‘succeed’ in their invasion of Iraq, the more my objective of “no invasion” diminishes. Unfortunately though I have seen and experienced instances where the ambiguity of the term ‘support’ has been manipulated in such a way as to accuse an anti-war individual of being insensitive to the well-being of the troops when what the anti-war person really meant was that they did not support what the troops were, and are, doing.

Finally, the slogan “Support Our Troops” subtly implies that the lives of American troops are more important because they are, well, American. I strongly object to this implication of the slogan because there is no moral basis for supposing that American lives are more important than, say, Iraqi civilian lives. In fact, much of my anti-war perspective depends on my compassion for all human life—both American and otherwise. Therefore, if I were to embrace a slogan that only expresses concern for “Our Troops,” I would also implicitly embrace the idea that ‘our’ people are somehow better or more important than ‘their’ people—something that I intensely oppose. Therefore if someone refuses to endorse the slogan “Support Our Troops,” it is not necessarily because they oppose our troops, but rather because they wish to support everyone involved in the conflict.

Most people seem to agree that television, while occasionally entertaining, is nevertheless a waste of time for those who watch it. When compared to other hobbies, interests and activities, television simply fails to show much promise in the area of improving one’s life. After all, no skills are really needed to watch a television program. Beyond knowing how to press buttons on a remote control, what else does someone need to know in order to watch television? There is no requirement that one be at a certain intellectual level, exercise a certain degree of creativity, nor exhibit some degree of physical fitness in order to be “successful” at television watching. Further, after watching television, no worthwhile skills are even developed or enhanced, at least none that are of any real use in daily life. Granted, one could watch something educational on the History Channel for example, but educational programming is not prevalent enough in the television industry to consider the viewers of these programs as “average” television watchers. Therefore, I think it is still fair to say that, on the whole, television watching is little more than a waste of time.

Beyond simply being a waste of time though, I think television watching is actually detrimental to one’s life. Primarily, my concern with television lies in its potential effects on its viewing populace’s thought processes. More precisely, I think television, whether viewed regularly or occasionally, has a very powerful influence on the way one ultimately interacts with their world.

Television is what I call an artificial enterprise. What I mean by that is simply that television deals in nothing other than fantasy—that is, it deals with nothing grounded in reality. The goal of television programming is to get its audience to mistake fantasy for reality—to trick the viewer into forgetting what reality even is in order to “sell” the viewer some kind of alternate reality, the fantasy reality. Everything about the fantasy reality, however, is completely fake. Of course, it is understandable as to why television studios would desire to supplant reality with fantasy—the fantasy is what viewers find so entertaining—so it’s not as though there is much of a mystery here. However, since the goal of television programming is largely motivated toward creating fantasies in the minds of its viewers, how careful should the viewers be in exposing themselves to these artificial realities? After all, it seems fair to say that television programmers are interested in both creating the most convincing of fantasies in the minds of their viewers, and dismantling viewers’ allegiance to reality itself.

If you accept my proposition that television is a completely artificial enterprise, then I suggest you consider the possibility that exposure to it actually competes with the natural world as the basis for one’s beliefs and values about the world. What I mean by this is that rather than using one’s personal experiences with other people, animals, objects, etc. in the real world, people who expose themselves to the artificial realities broadcast through television programs place an obstacle upon themselves that hinders their ability to sort out between what is real and what is not. What happens as a result of this is that people begin to behave in ways consistent with the fantasy world rather than the real world—something that couldn’t possibly be a catalyst for the improvement of human living.

My bottom line is that anyone or anything that seeks to manipulate the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality deserves serious scrutiny; yet I suspect that more often than not, television is used without a shred of scrutiny. Considering the scale to which television is, and has been, involved in peoples’ lives, it is worth reevaluating our perceptions of it.

I’ve never really understood what it is that makes a swear word a swear word.  I know what they are of course, and, even though I use them regularly, I know that they’re supposed to be censored in certain places, like this newspaper for instance.  I also know that many people consider the use of these words offensive, or at least feel offended by their use.  Nevertheless, I have yet to hear a compelling reason as to why these words should be considered taboo.

In this article I will only consider three common swear words.  I’m sure you know them and probably have used them on several occasions yourself, like the last time you stubbed your toe, cut yourself shaving, or got cut off in traffic.  However, since I am writing in a publication that abides by certain rules and regulations, I cannot state those words explicitly here.  Instead, you’ll have to use your powers of inference to figure out which words I’m talking about through the various clues spread throughout the following paragraphs.  The first clue, and probably the only one you’ll need, is that the three words rhyme with ‘suck’, ‘sit’ and ‘pass-bowl’.

Now, there are two primary ways I can think of that might qualify a word for profanity status: its definition and its aesthetics (ugliness).  I hope to show you that neither of those ways provides any insight into why these words should be censored at all.  I don’t know what I want you to actually do with that information if you agree with it, but I’ll go through the trouble of telling you anyway.  Let’s start with the definitions.

If you look at the strict definition of each of these words, you might find that some of them deal with topics that are somewhat unpleasant or uncomfortable to people, but the words are not without their non-profane synonyms.  For example, ‘sex’, ‘crap’ and ‘anus’ are not swear words but they have basically the same meaning as their swear word counterparts; and there are plenty more synonyms out there in addition to these.  So if what makes a word profane is its definition, then why wouldn’t all of these other synonyms be considered profane as well?

Perhaps it is not simply the strict definition that is worrisome, but the way that the word is used in certain contexts that makes the language offensive.  Here it makes sense to think of how swear words can be wielded as insults against others.  We’re all familiar with the various ways in which the three swear words I’m referring to can be used as insults.  Of course, being the victim of profane insults is unpleasant; but is it any more unpleasant than being the victim of non-profane insults?  If I call you a piece of crap, is that somehow more polite than the alternative?  I don’t think so, but even if it is, so what?  Aren’t insults supposed to be, well, insulting?  If I call you a ‘jerk’ or a ‘moron’, I’m still trying to hurt your feelings despite the lack of profane language.  So, even by considering context, there still doesn’t seem to be any good reason to censor these words from our vocabulary.

So how about the aesthetic quality of the words?  If the definition doesn’t matter, then maybe it has something to do with the way each word sounds when spoken—maybe the words just sound ‘ugly’ or something.  Well, if that were true, then wouldn’t we find similar sounding words just as offensive?  For example, is there something about the way the words ‘ship’, ‘shift’, ‘shrift’, ‘puck’, ‘pluck’, ‘muck’, ‘bass-pole’ ‘mass-glow’ and ‘grass-hole’ sound that make them offensive?  If there is, I sure as puck don’t see it.

Since we’re talking about aesthetics here, we should not only consider how swear words sound, but also how they look.  Think about how print media tend to display swear words in their publications.  You usually see something like “f**k”, “s**t” or “a**hole” written to “disguise” the word so that you still know what it is, but don’t have to look at it in all its disgusting glory. It’s kind of like how we censor parts of the human body in public.  Just like it’s okay for a male to reveal his nipple in public but not a female (even though they look very similar), it is likewise okay for us to see the letters ‘s’, ‘h’, ‘i’, etc, used in other words but not in swear words.  Who is this supposed to fool?  It’s not as though we don’t know what’s behind those asterisks (just like it’s not as though we don’t know what’s behind a swimsuit top for that matter) so it’s not really “concealing” anything.  So what’s the point?  Just like before, if there is something offensive about the way the word looks, then why not fuss over the way the word “hits” looks?  It has all the same letters as the s**t one does, so does that mean that ‘hits’ is therefore also offensive?  Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.

I guess what you might be able to take away from this is that you shouldn’t feel guilty if you happen to swear in the “wrong” place or in front of the “wrong” person sometimes.  If someone has a problem with your language, just ask him or her to explain why your words are problematic.  I can almost guarantee you that they will have no other excuse other than the “I don’t like it” or “it’s just wrong” sort of response.  Such a response fails to answer the “Why?” question first of all, and it also places an unwarranted burden on you to somehow be omniscient enough to know what does and does not bother a person.  Wouldn’t it be much easier to just eliminate the taboo of swear words altogether and save ourselves the f***ing headache?

Technology allows for instant communication in many different ways—that, of course, is a good thing.  Unfortunately, the affordability and ease with which people can now communicate proliferates excessive amounts of useless and annoying “junk talk”—what I consider to be a very bad thing.

Take cell phones for example.  Incredibly useful devices, these cell phones are.  Whether you’re in danger, stranded or lost, cell phones provide for the priceless convenience of contacting civilization from somewhat remote locations.  You can’t really argue against that.  In daily life though, those situations don’t arise all that often (fortunately).  However, since people continue to carry these handy little things around despite the relatively rare occurrences of real emergencies, what do people decide to do with these devices in the mean time?  I’ll tell you what they do.  They inundate their friends and acquaintances with barrages of pointless and useless communications that serve virtually no other purpose than to say “Hey!  I exist…remember?  Pay attention to me!”

Many years ago when I first began my college career, I observed a plethora of instances where students would race out the door from a class, immediately place a call, then proceed to tell the poor soul on the other end of the phone that “class was so boring today”; as if the message deserved some form of urgency.  Since then, text messaging has become commonplace and, as a result, junk talk is no longer consigned to outside of class time—people use their cell phones to message each other during class time as well as outside of it.  I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you people are sending each other, but a) it’s not important at all, and b) it’s probably more annoying than anything to the person on the receiving end.

In fact, text messaging is annoying in several ways.  First of all, it is usually referred to as “texting.”  “Texting” is a stupid word.  “Text” is only a noun or an adjective, not a verb.  You should not be able to “text” me anymore than you could “audio” me, “sentence” me or “word” me.  Second, text messaging is ridiculously difficult and cumbersome.  Phones have ten numbers.  The English alphabet has 26 letters.  Putting them together does not make life any easier.  Further, since it is obviously such a pain to type the simplest of words on a phone, most messages that are sent are short and meaningless.  On the other hand, if one desires to send a lengthy text message, they have to invest at least 5 times as much effort to type the stupid thing as they would to simply call the person.  This latter point is compounded by my next complaint: Text messaging costs more money than simple phone calls.  Think about this.  Not only does it cost extra money to send a text message, it even costs money to receive the stupid thing.  If my phone plan is any indication, it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 cents per text message for both sending and receiving.  That means a text message costs about 40 cents for the entire transmission.  Forty cents to communicate what?  “Lol” or “Omg”?  Useless!  The worst is when you get a text message asking you a question.  What are you supposed to do, type a response?  What if the answer is “yes”?  Do you really want to pay almost a quarter to say “yes” to someone over a text message when you could far more easily just tell them over the phone?

At the risk of being stereotypical or sexist, I’m nevertheless going to claim that it is overwhelmingly the females amongst us that are responsible for most of this junk talk.  Thankfully, they seem to do it mostly to each other while sparing my male counterparts and I from the burdensome task of listening and responding to this stuff; but we still get roped in on occasion.  I don’t know why women find it so important to use their cell phones endlessly–my male, practical-minded nature simply doesn’t understand.

I’ll level with you: I’m a “conspiracy theorist.” Although I think the label “not a sucker” is more accurate (not least because most others I find in the conspiracy theorist camp are still suckers), I’m not going to belabor the point. After all, what’s in a name right? Anyway, having said that, it should come as no surprise that I think the spectacle of national elections is nothing but a sophisticated charade. More to the point, I don’t think that casting ballots ultimately counts for anything.

There are two ways I could argue this point. One is to say that the voting system is broken (or corrupted) and that whatever the final tally happens to be, it does not necessarily match the popular opinion; the second is to say that, regardless of whether or not the ballot system is accurate, the quality of the “choices” listed on the ballot are not different enough from each other to count as real choices.

Regarding the former, I think it is worth appreciating how little voters actually know about how their votes are counted. For whatever reason, the majority of voters simply assume that their ballots go wherever it is they’re supposed to go and get counted exactly as they should be counted. It’s a wonderful way to live life—you know, pretending that everything works exactly as advertised—but the reality of the matter is that there is just as much reason to suspect that the system is flawed as there is to suspect that the system is flaw-less. To illustrate this point, let me draw an analogy with money.

On Sep. 10, 2001, the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publicly stated before the Defense Department the following: “According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.” Yeah, you read that right—2.3 TRILLION dollars…missing. Oops. Whether you think that was a result of simple accounting errors, gross negligence or outright corruption, it is nevertheless suggestive of how carefully our government can handle the counting and tracking of things.

If you don’t like that analogy, fine—maybe 2.3 trillion dollars isn’t comparable in value to our precious votes—but what if I told you that your own Supreme Court decided that your votes don’t need to be counted? If you bear with me, we can go back to the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. After issues of improperly tallied votes in Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that an accurate recount of the votes in question was unnecessary, and subsequently granted the election to Bush. Maybe I don’t understand because I’m not on the Supreme Court (nor am I a lawyer for that matter), but isn’t it imperative that for an election to be legitimate that all votes (especially deciding votes) be counted and counted accurately? If all votes are not counted, and your Supreme Court says they don’t need to be counted, then isn’t your voting system a little flawed? Or are things like, way different now that it’s 2008?

The second argument I have against voting is, in my opinion, the more powerful of the two, mostly because it holds irrespective of whether votes are accurately counted. This argument claims that the quality and diversity of viable presidential candidates is consistently too low to render our elections legitimate. Abstractly, to “vote” implies that one have “choices;” but more pointedly, for a vote to have “value,” the options between which the voter chooses must be diverse enough to faithfully represent all real options. In other words, the more choices a voter has to choose from, the more valuable their vote becomes. Think of it like apples. If I grab two apples from a barrel of rotten apples and ask you which one you would rather eat, regardless of which apple you ultimately choose, I’ve nevertheless discovered nothing about your taste in apples; nor have you gained anything useful in terms of lunch. Likewise, if a presidential election involves a mere two candidates, both sponsored from one of two gigantic, dogmatic, and wealthy political parties, is a choice amongst them really saying all that much? I am aware that there are third party candidates floating around (who, by the way, are consistently excluded from major televised presidential “debates”), but instead of assuming that they sufficiently fill-in the gaps left by the two major parties, why not look at all the options? Choosing not to vote is always one of those options.

What does it mean to “choose” not to vote? Despite popular belief, choosing not to vote does not mean that one is no longer politically active. On the contrary, intentional non-voters are arguably the most politically active citizens. I say this primarily because they recognize that the severity to which our country has gone astray cannot be dealt with on the level of voting alone. To put it bluntly, voting is a ridiculously simple, one-dimensional activity that literally anyone (informed or not) can do. It requires nothing in terms of intelligence, awareness or involvement. In my opinion, those that feel voting is enough to declare that they’ve “done their part” to better this country are both lazy and shortsighted—not only is voting easy, it has no prescriptive power (i.e. just because a politician says he’ll do X if you vote for him, that doesn’t mean your vote can make him do X once he’s in office).

More than anything, this country needs intelligent discourse over substantive issues—something that the empty cheerleading and sloganeering of today’s campaigns cannot possibly provide. Substantive discourse requires far more than simple “lesser of evils” thinking—it requires careful, attentive and unrestricted thought. By choosing not to vote, one not only chooses not to limit the scope of their political involvement to mere voting, but they also choose not to compromise their unique beliefs and ideas in order to fit in to one of two mainstream parties. By removing the impetus to conform to one party or another, an intentional non-voter maintains his or her integrity and ability to think clearly and openly, thus preserving their capacity to participate in substantive discourse.

Albert Einstein is supposed to have said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; voting sure has been tried over and over again, why think this upcoming election will be any different?