Extraction from defense of Bullshit by Jeff Jarvis, "But bullshit is political speech. It is our single most precious means of expressing displeasure with the political and the powerful. Without the word bullshit, we are left with far less satisfactory means of debate. Now don’t feed me the mothers’ bromide about curse words indicating a limited vocabulary. Bullshit is the most expressive word we have in this context. In his delightful treatise On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt finds the most equivalent word to be humbug and he acknowledges, “It is more polite, as well as less intense, to say ‘Humbug!’ than to say ‘Bullshit!’ ” Humbug’s synonyms, which he lists, are similarly unsatisfying: “balderdash, claptrap, hokum, drivel, buncombe, impostuer, and quackery.” So now imagine a protestor at a televised rally against the war railing that “this war is humbug!” Doesn’t cut it. If, instead, she said that “Bush’s war is bullshit” and that were broadcast across the country, every station that carried it and the speaker herself could be fined per utterance, even into bankruptcy. If, fearing this, she censored herself, that is evidence of the chill the FCC has imposed on free political speech. If, because of that chill, a station decided to time-delay the news — a journalistically and constitutionally offensive but pragmatic necessity of the age — it could dump her words: “Bush’s war is ‘bleep.’ ” But unquestionably, that detracts from the power of her statement and that is done only because the FCC threatens fines, presumptively, for the use of the word."
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 19:48:12 +0000
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