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"No Cussing Club" - now in 32 States & 11 Countries!
Not Sarastro
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Saw this on one of those ridiculous Yahoo! videofeeds which are usually good for a laugh due to the utterly dire headline journalism (ie "Men Catch Big Shark: Might Be Largest Ever Caught!" when a 5 second Yahoo search reveals that it is under half the size / weight of the largest recorded, etc etc).
This particular one involves a 14-year old boy who started a "No Cussing Club" in Pasedena. The following is his description of how it all got started:
There are several ideas I find pretty disturbing here. The obvious ones are the ridiculous focus on swearing as some gateway social evil, the idea that we should eliminate even the tiniest propensity for bad behaviour in order to defeat the big social ills, etcetera etcetera.
But there is something more sinister here. "Leave people better than you found them!"? According to who? Well, apparently just according to the kid, as he earlier says, "they didn't know that it was bothering me". The assumption is that because the majority, accepted norm is bothering this one kid, his offense is enough reason to try and make everyone else stop. "Positive Peer Pressure"? Positive according to whom? In the television interview I saw, he added that he began the club when they moved to high-school, and all his friends "who I never thought would cuss" started swearing; he didn't like the peer pressure and wanted them to "be who they used to be". So...instead of learning to live & let live, he started using his own form of peer pressure, except this time to enforce a minority view on the majority. Not to mention attempting to freeze his friends in the state where he liked them most, and being utterly resistant to change, or even their right to change. There is a huge amount of selfishness, control-freakery & plain wrong in that thinking.
To be clear; it isn't even the kid that bothers me. He's 14 years old, he probably comes from a family background which supports this kind of thinking, he's a kid and it's his job to be naive and judgemental. What is disturbing is that his ideas are being taken seriously. Both by parents, schools and such happy to jump on the bandwagon, but far worse - it seems - by public officials in Pasedena. City council, local police chief all nod approvingly. They're elected officials, who wants to disagree with the 14-year old boy on a political crusade?
But these are precisely the people who should be saying; fuck off kid! This is censorship of free speech in its most insidious form, because what is being said is utterly harmless, the scope of the censorship so vast, and it is a total perversion of the basic reasoning for free speech - ie an imposition of minority views on a majority, rather than protection of minority views from the majority. When he petitions the council to ban swearing in the City of Pasedena...they listen? They even consider it for a second?
Why is such a fundamentally un-American movement gaining speed without a whimper of protest? Worse, is offence to the few overriding the views of the many now the cultural status quo?
This particular one involves a 14-year old boy who started a "No Cussing Club" in Pasedena. The following is his description of how it all got started:
Hi, my name is McKay Hatch.
I am 14 years old. I started the No Cussing Club at my junior high school in South Pasadena, California in 2007. A lot of kids at my school, and some of my friends, would cuss and use dirty language all the time. They did it so much, they didn't even realize they were doing it. It bothered me so much that one day I challenged them to stop! They were shocked. They didn't know that it was bothering me. They didn't even realize how much they were doing it until I said something. I was actually surprised at how they reacted; they accepted my No Cussing Challenge. But some of the kids said they didn't know how to stop. That's when I started the No Cussing Club.
We could help each other by reminding and supporting each other not to cuss. Word spread at my school and a month later the No Cussing Club had 50 members.
People in my city that I didn't even know were asking me how they could become members. Now there are NCC members all across the United States and other countries.
Through the No Cussing Challenge I realized that I could use POSITIVE PEER PRESSURE on my friends. If my friends could say no to cussing, how much easier will it be for them to say no to drugs, violence, and pornography.
Our NCC Motto is: LEAVE PEOPLE BETTER THAN YOU FOUND THEM!
There are several ideas I find pretty disturbing here. The obvious ones are the ridiculous focus on swearing as some gateway social evil, the idea that we should eliminate even the tiniest propensity for bad behaviour in order to defeat the big social ills, etcetera etcetera.
But there is something more sinister here. "Leave people better than you found them!"? According to who? Well, apparently just according to the kid, as he earlier says, "they didn't know that it was bothering me". The assumption is that because the majority, accepted norm is bothering this one kid, his offense is enough reason to try and make everyone else stop. "Positive Peer Pressure"? Positive according to whom? In the television interview I saw, he added that he began the club when they moved to high-school, and all his friends "who I never thought would cuss" started swearing; he didn't like the peer pressure and wanted them to "be who they used to be". So...instead of learning to live & let live, he started using his own form of peer pressure, except this time to enforce a minority view on the majority. Not to mention attempting to freeze his friends in the state where he liked them most, and being utterly resistant to change, or even their right to change. There is a huge amount of selfishness, control-freakery & plain wrong in that thinking.
To be clear; it isn't even the kid that bothers me. He's 14 years old, he probably comes from a family background which supports this kind of thinking, he's a kid and it's his job to be naive and judgemental. What is disturbing is that his ideas are being taken seriously. Both by parents, schools and such happy to jump on the bandwagon, but far worse - it seems - by public officials in Pasedena. City council, local police chief all nod approvingly. They're elected officials, who wants to disagree with the 14-year old boy on a political crusade?
But these are precisely the people who should be saying; fuck off kid! This is censorship of free speech in its most insidious form, because what is being said is utterly harmless, the scope of the censorship so vast, and it is a total perversion of the basic reasoning for free speech - ie an imposition of minority views on a majority, rather than protection of minority views from the majority. When he petitions the council to ban swearing in the City of Pasedena...they listen? They even consider it for a second?
Why is such a fundamentally un-American movement gaining speed without a whimper of protest? Worse, is offence to the few overriding the views of the many now the cultural status quo?
Not Sarastro on
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'Cause I got that vibe.
Or at least, they don't openly ask for donations.
EDIT: For more of the really quite staggering selfishness displayed in this thinking, and also hints at the influence of his parents in all this (they wrote a book!) see the following news article on the subject:
http://www.nocussing.com/images/NoCussing_Layout_1.pdf
The kid is fourteen and naive.
Of course he thinks a no swearing club is in order.
Harmless and kind of cool.
Honestly, if a US councillor can't at least break even PR-wise by extoling the values of free speech, even if it's against an ickle cwoote 14-wear owd, there is something pretty wrong.
Either that or start using new and interesting curse words, like the quaint ones we Britishers use. Eventually, he would get so confused he'd have to campaign against any word said in frustration or anger.
This club isn't anything unamerican. It's the same as any other club. Just sillier since its focus seems to be limited to a specific area of verbal etiquette.
He's petitioning Pasedena City Council to institute his policy.
So, yes, he is trying to stop free speech.
(PS This was in the Yahoo feed, which has disappeared, I'm trying to find another source)
PPS Ok, found video in my history:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=4226712&cl=4575013&src=news
“Clean language,” he continued, “is the
sign of intelligence and always demands
respect.”
Sigh. So naive.
"Calls for Pasadena to become an official 'No Cussing Zone'"
Sounds pretty much like banning swearing to me, or at least an anti-swearing city policy, which would be a politically-sanctioned infringement of free speech.
It's not exactly willpower if you don't like cussing.
And I do agree that it's an exercise that can help with greater problems in life. But a vast majority of people aren't going to buy into it. I wouldn't mind a club like that existing at a school I would attend as a child, so long as the club doesn't make a habit of regularly bothering me for talking the way I like to talk, but I doubt all the members of it will be as altruistic about it as the boy who started it all.
I really think that the only people who can comfortably go through life without cursing are people who have nothing to really curse about, because blurting out "Fuck" or "Shit" or "Son of a bitch" can be quite therapeutic sometimes. If I got mad, I'm fully capable of going "Crap" Or "Darn" or "Shoot" but, those words just seem to tame and silly, I'd only end up further frustrating myself by saying them.
He's altruistic? What's altruistic about imposing your view on others; he didn't like other people swearing, so instead of accepting their right to do so, he tries to change them? Or more accurately: keep them the way he liked them.
A club for people who don't want to swear; I'm fine with that. An evangelical (for want of a better word) club demanding others don't swear; that has problems.
This addresses my second point; whether the no swearing policy has merit itself or not, is that merit really so great to justify a culture of moulding others into your image of what is good, rather than tolerating differences?
Not even vaguely. Unless swearing is made a crime, it's not an infringement on anything. It's just a statement from the city council saying "we don't like swearing". A lot of cities no doubt call themselves "no litter zones" (or functionally similar terms), but that doesn't infringe your right to litter. Don't overreact to petty things.
He's no more imposing his views on others than you are inflicting your views on me by talking about them. If he'd started a Democrats club, would he be trying to imposing his views on others? No. He's exercising his right not to be friends with people who swear. Do I think it's silly? yes. Do I think it's in any way sinister or bad? no.
If that image looks like Natalie Portman?
YES
I can't see him maintaining his attitude into his college years, unless he either doesn't attend, or manages to get a degree of some sort without ever leaving his hometown.
Because you don't want to, right? Very clever. The point of the club though, is to help his friends who already swear but would like to stop doing so.
As Sarastro said, the point is he's trying to force his view upon people who are outside the club.
Plus the perception of cursing as evil is moronic.
I'm sorry, but that just isn't what is described in what I've posted.
First, his reasoning is exactly what I said; read his own words. He didn't like his friends changing & swearing, he wanted to keep them the same and have them not swear.
Second, he 'challenged' them not to swear & actively tried to convert them, as it were. Do they have the freedom to say no, presumably. Still, he is not simply being reactive & guarding his own ground, he is proactively trying to change people.
It's that mindset that I have a problem with, the assumption that his offence gives him the right to try and stop other people offending him, whether them actually stopping is voluntary or not.
Also:
Yes, and almost every school has a punishment for breaking it. Which is the school version of making it illegal. Furthermore, in plenty of places, 'no litter' zones mean precisely that; with fines or even serious police action (Hong Kong, Singapore) for disobedience.
Furthermore, I think there is a whole grey area on the likely involvement of parents, school & various other forms of pressure to make kids comply with the 'no cussing' idea. I highly doubt it is as simple as the wee 14-yr old prophet going out, preaching the good news, and having disciples willingly flock to him.
That's really my only concern here.
My only problem with it is that he seems to be attaching swearing to other negative behaviors, when Swearing is harmless in of itself. The only people that are bothered in any way by cursing are the people who are bothered in any way by cursing. As much as I like to curse, it doesn't mean I can't censor myself when around certain people whom I know don't want to hear certain things. Not to mention I'm just as able to make a well-thought out statement without relying on swearing to fill in any of the sentences, let alone every other word I say.
I personally feel that a swear word, applied in the right place in a sentence, can only amplify the meaning behind a statement. But, of course, that's just my opinion.
Now I just think of them, abstractly, as really useless words. Does calling an object something vulgar somehow make it more real? Does using a sexual term in your sentence somehow increase it's truth? I used to swear alot. But now if I swear once a week it's a lot. It just seems ultimately pointless to me. On the whole I think the kid is being idealistic, but I respect him for actually standing up for something that he believes in.
STEAM
How is he trying to force them? Has he formed a militia? No, he's just saying he doesn't want to be friends with them if they swear. That's well within his rights, as it is within mine or yours to say, not be friends with someone who injects heroin into their balls, or habitually sings loud and obnoxious rugby songs, or smells bad.
Yes, the perception of cursing as evil is moronic. He didn't say it was "evil". He said it was uneducated and whatever. I don't agree with him, but I know that there are definite social advantages to learning not to swear, and at best it's an entirely neutral act. People are losing their shit over this for no reason. Beware of outrage fatigue.
...I also don't see any indication that the italicised is true. It certainly isn't written in what I posted from their site, even considering the obviously biased source. It says he told them he found their swearing offensive, and challenged them not to do it. It does not say he challenged them not to swear because they were crying about how swearing was making them so unhappy.
But the basic premise of the club states that they don't cuss. This tells me that if I join the club I am agreeing to not cuss. I would hardly call that an evangelical idea demanding I don't swear. And what's wrong with having a no cussing rule? When you decided to get a driver's license you studied, took a written test, took the driving test, and got a license. Having a license comes with certain rules that if not obeyed would require the loss of the license that you voluntarily tried to get.
Are you allowed to cuss freely in the courtroom? Do judges thing it’s just your freedom of speech? I wonder why.
Hey if you want to cuss then by all means f-bomb away. I don't think people are any less intelligent if they cuss. Why not let this boy have his club? I can't fathom how nut cussing is hurting anyone in the world. If you do not agree then just don't join his club. Remember that he challenged his friends to stop cussing. They took the challenge. He never said he would disown them as friends if they didn't, or at least I didn't read anything that said that. Chill out and let the kid have some fun. Why don't you go out and start a cussing club and see how many people you get and compare the two if it bothers you so much. Ah... but then you'd have to impose evangelical ideas on other people... I swear that people today get upset over the stupidest things.
Actually, his family/friend motto seems to be "If you want to hang with us, don't cuss" so I don't think that's entirely true, Warchild.
So what's the relevance? We're not talking about Singapore, we're talking about America, and what this club does is no different from what already happens. Is the rule about not swearing in school a violation of your free speech? In real, practical terms? Is it fuck.
and he does have that right. he isn't forcing anybody, and no one is going to join the group if they don't want to stop swearing. Pretty much everyone is going to try and change something they perceive as negative about someone else at some point in their life, and to claim it as some terrible and sinister thing is ridiculous. In the end, the kid is just a douchebag. You can't legislate against douchebags. Besides, what's the solution? Tell him he can't have his club? disband it? That's a far more serious violation of free speech. Let the baby have his bottle.
See I don't get the impression he's standing up for something he believes in so much as he's standing up for something his parents believe in to try to win their affection which he presumably doesn't think he can gain otherwise.
No, my solution, as I already said, is to have precisely this kind of discussion; preferably that's exactly what the City council should have done when he presented to them. It's not a violation of free speech, it's using the original intent of free spech to self-regulate. Let the idiocy out.
So, CT, Warchild, once you've finished with the particular example - any comment on the part I have been asking about? Namely whatever social trends might underpin this kind of behaviour? Because that is precisely the point of discussions like this: it's not useless outrage, it's a way to avoid us as a society sleepwalking into norms we later regret.
I actually don't see anything wrong with that motto. ;-)