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About the author:
Descended from old English money, Vidicon was raised by spiny echidnas in the mountainous rainforests of the North American Southeast. Lured back to society by time-traveling gray/reptiloid alien hybrids posing as renegade Jesuits, he has managed to maintain his outsider's perspective and an appetite for crunchy insects. Today, Vidicon is a world-class synchronicity surfer and an unlicensed quantum mechanic. He has a fourth-degree black belt in weird.
About his bi-weekly column:
Tales from the Third Lobe are the unfocused meanderings of the World's Smartest Moron. Topics range widely over the sciences, religion, philosophy, technology, modern culture, mysticism, Vidicon's personal history and viewpoints, and whatever pissed him off in the media last week.
View all articles by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. "Vidicon" Xalieri, 2HC Columnist...
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UnprintableWhen I write, I use a lot of naughty words. This goes against much of my training—training received from early childhood through my college years. (To this day I have not used inappropriate language in front of my parents, which, considering my age and the extent to which I use expletives on a daily basis, has to be some kind of a record.) The reason behind avoidance of the popular profanities, I have been instructed, is to avoid needlessly offending readers with the mental imagery that such terms can invoke.
Fair enough. I don't see the need to offend anyone needlessly.
However, sometimes I just have to think about the things we aren't supposed to say or write. It's like being a dog in a huge yard filled with lots of room to run and plenty of smells to explore—and periodically becoming obsessed with the fence. I turn my back to the huge expanse of territory that I'm free to call my own, put my nose through the chainlink, and wonder, "Why can't I go there?"
To continue the analogy, my owners would tell me, if I could understand them, that the fence is there for my protection. It keeps me from being picked up and impounded like a criminal. It keeps me from lunging under the tires of automobiles. It keeps me from being abducted by strangers and abused in Satanic rites.
What it really does is it keeps me in their yard. It makes me their dog.
I'm nobody's dog. Sometimes, I'm quite sure, I use profanity to make sure people know that I'm not domesticated. However, I have to admit that's vain and pointless. See, society is rife with little rules that no one particularly cares if you break. Wise authorities know the value of providing a wide range of rules that can be broken so that the people under their thumbs can feel less constrained. Nearly everyone speeds a little. Nearly everyone can put their hands on a little dope or maybe some prescription opiates that weren't prescribed for them specifically. Nearly everyone fucks off a little at work, covers it up when necessary, and managers turn their heads. People who feel like they can get away with it are happier and more productive. If there weren't already little rules that can be broken when no one is looking, our various bosses would have to make some.
That's not the whole story, though. There are lots of other things we're not supposed to broadcast than a few expletives. There are some rules governing what those things are that can help classify them for the purposes of discussion.
One thing we're not supposed to say, write, or otherwise publish is something that falsely ascribes negative qualities to someone. These actions are criminalized and have been so for thousands of years. Call it what you will: libel, slander, bearing false witness against thy neighbor ... you're not supposed to do it. People have plenty of faults without us having to invent more. Accusing people of things they haven't done can, if other people buy it, damage their relationships unfairly.
I have to say I skirt the line on this one frequently. I voice my beliefs and suspicions and expect those who read to understand that if I don't supply facts to back up what I say, then I could very well be talking out of my ass. I don't do this to attack people I don't like, but to voice my beliefs and suspicions and invite people to correct me.
I don't get a lot of debate these days so I guess I must be right most of the time.
Another section of the fence is supposed to bar us from inciting negative feelings in other people, such as fear or rage or revulsion. Frequently I don't understand this one fully, as it bars me (theoretically) from talking or writing about eight-year-old children fucking each other using fresh steaming dog turds for condoms, but it doesn't seem to stop certain press releases and speeches from Washington wherein our elected and appointed officials let us know in no uncertain terms that they don't care about the health, education, or wellbeing of the hard-working poor and their children and elderly dependents who can't subsist on the wages they earn. It's obviously not illegal or even discouraged to speak out in favor of creating environments of fear and degradation and disease and death among people who have done nothing to deserve it. In fact, not only can you speak out in favor of such things, you can actually make these theoretical situations into reality!
Regardless, it seems to be illegal to incite fear, revulsion, or hatred. These things are considered to be "hate speech" or obscenities. Unless the government does it.
Also in the category of obscenity is speech that could conceivably incite sexual feelings towards inappropriate targets, like children or animals or inanimate objects (dead people, sex toys, or staple guns for instance) or, say, anthills. Most of this is covered under the theme of "revulsion" above, but sex is such its own thing in Western society that the topic deserves extra emphasis. Much of what passes for modern politics is derived from historical mammalian urges to control who gets the best food, the most comfortable and safest place to rest—and all the poontang. When you see laws about reproduction and sex, know that they are millions-of-years-old holdovers from the biggest, nastiest apes trying to ensure that their genes are the ones that get passed on in preference to anyone else's—or otherwise attempts to ensure that the numbers of the tribe increase to the point where there is a sufficiently large workforce and/or army to compete against other tribes. These laws boil down to this: "No one is to have sex but the beautiful and the healthy and the powerful, who are all allowed to have sex with each other. There shall be no homosexuality or birth control or use of genital organs for any purpose other than reproduction. Keep sperm count high, avoid unnecessary wear-and-tear, and avoid risk of disease. We need children children children!"
"There will be no sex with children; they are unable to impregnate or conceive or raise other children. There will be no sex among family members because inbreeding is largely unhealthy; too much of it can turn a noble wolf into an idiot Pomeranian. There will be no sex with retards or gimps or midgets or lepers or fat people or ugly people; we don't need any more of those. There will be no homosexual acts or sex with animals or inanimate objects. No masturbation, no condoms or IUDs or diaphragms or pulling out early. There will be no sex in public because that could incite inappropriate sexual feelings and behaviors—although we'd prefer that all sex acts take place in public so we could voice our approval or disapproval and punish the wicked. The idea of inappropriate people having inappropriate sex fills us with disgust!"
I'm sure you get the picture. Frankly, I consider the classification of obscenity itself to be obscene. Some of the rules need changing, and we can't change the rules unless we can talk about them.
We're also not supposed to spread ideas that could encourage dangerous or inappropriate actions. We're not supposed to swap our favorite bomb recipes or document real or imagined cruelties just in case cruel people with no imaginations of their own are inspired into action or mad bombers are finally provided with the recipe that will suit their needs exactly. We are to assume that our audiences include at least one person who is criminally insane or otherwise lacks the judgment necessary to prevent them from carrying out evil acts. Thous Shalt Not Enable. Keep your dangerous knowledge to yourself. Specifically don't give it to children or the emotionally disturbed.
I have mixed feelings about that one. It's easier to defend against threats that have been considered in public, whether by deliberate discussion among the concerned or via examples given in fiction. Keeping potentially damaging technology out of the hands of the judgment-impaired is indeed a problem, because we're not really allowed to evaluate anyone's judgment until they're accused of having committed a crime. On the whole, I say put the ideas out there and hope for the best. People will frequently use an idea that has been published instead of one they are forced to come up with on their own. Having a public library of bad ideas puts us closer to having a public library of solutions and/or preventions for bad ideas, and I'm all for that. It's best to keep the real surprises to a minimum.
...and all that brings us to the final frontier of the unprintable: The Inconceivable.
The realm of the inconceivable is that set of images or sensations or imaginings that you can't put into words. This is the real realm of the unprintable. This is the section of the fence that offends me the most. All of my poetry and around half of my fiction is produced from the little mounds of dirt where I've been digging at the base of this wall. Sometimes my nails are broken and bloody from trying to rip my way through it. I batter myself senseless trying to jump over it. Sometimes I feel I can make a little progress against this wall by chewing my way through some of the others—by exercising my jaws and jumping and tunneling muscles.
In the end, though, it looks like I'm somebody's dog after all.
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Vidicon needs to watch his mouth. |
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