The Vulgarians

Jack Deatherage

(11/2021) Dad grew up with radio as I grew up with television. So his leaning forward and turning off the radio was a big deal. Settling back into the pickup truck seat he grumbled, "You don't have much talent when you have to swear to sell a song."

Forty -five years later I don't recall the song, but the word that offended him was "damn". It wasn't like he never said the word, or wasn't aware that I used it to season nearly every other sentence that came out of my arrogant young mouth. Nope, his problem was the word had gained enough public acceptance to be heard in a popular song on the radio. In Dad's mind, a line had been crossed. Civil men did not deliberately say "damn" in the hearing of women and children, let alone broadcast it around the world in a song. Vulgar words were confined to vulgar men. I can't imagine what Dad would say about the profanity vulgar people (no longer just men) unthinkingly utter now.

The veneer of civility has been peeling as long as I can remember. Cable TV, live streaming and online video blogging have stripped the veneer completely and hurled it into the abyss. I suppose it should come as no great shock to find a banner/flag for sale on Amazon proclaiming "[expletive deleted] Joe Biden and [expletive deleted)] you for voting for him". Still, seeing such a banner proudly displayed anywhere around Emmitsburg is depressing. (Amazon also sells a less vulgar version of "[expletive deleted] Joe Biden..." banner - "Let's Go Brandon" hats, tees and hoodies are available for those who are "in the know".)

What possesses the people around this place to display such a rude vulgarity where passersby can easily see it? Postmodernism, Moral relativism, Nihilism, Tribalism? Taint from all of them?

Most isms make my head hurt, but tribalism I can grasp. Tribalism - "... discriminatory behavior or attitudes towards out - groups, based on in -group loyalty" is the obvious dominate ism of the masses now, and likely always has been the driving, unspoken ism of mankind. (We ain't all that far removed from our tribal ape cousins - bonobos and chimpanzees.) Which irritates me no end because a white Nationalist and a Ku Kluxer told me decades ago that I'd one day be forced to choose a tribe, or suffer the consequences.

The struggle to lift oneself out of the primordial muck that composes Man's basic nature is difficult enough, or maybe that's just me? Why would anyone choose to wallow in tribalism and give up the effort to be more than just another feces slinging primate?

Robert A. Heinlein, once upon a time and recently a major influence on my thinking, wrote, "A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."

How so? Well, as best as I can puzzle it out - if we can't control our behavior toward others in every day, mundane interactions (saying "please" and "thank you" at the most basic level) how can we possibly debate and consider the ideas that motive the actions of others around us in any way other than tribalism?

Multiple factions of both left and right ideologies marched, fought each other, murdered, rioted, burned and looted sections of towns and cities across the country in 2020 and into 2021. Their reasoning?

"This is how I see the world! If you see it other than my way, you aren't in my tribe! You are my enemy! You will submit or be destroyed!"

Gods! How they laugh at us small -minded apes as we strut and pontificate about how we've evolved into something special. If the bonobos and chimpanzees were capable of observing us and understanding what we are I suspect they'd give up on their evolutionary path and head back to the slime pits we all crawled out of.

Heinlein also wrote, "For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization."

Of course I had to look up "sine qua non". I mean, who understands Latin these days, or maybe I'm the only ignorant left? Anyhow, Sine qua non - an essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary.

Ha! I can piece all that together and come up with an idiot's version - If we can't suppress our animal instincts, we'll cease being men and women, and civilization collapses, yet again. (It ain't like history isn't replete with such events. Our current attempt to add to the list of dead civilizations is a testament to humanity's capacity for endlessly amusing the laughing gods. Evolved? My hairy [expletive deleted]!)

I wonder if the rank and file tribalists understand how their leaders profit and live quite well at the expense of the tribe? Do they actually believe their tribe can possibly maintain the engine that keeps Western Civ humming along without the expertise of those "others" not of the tribe? Or is the goal one of controlling the "other" and forcing them to serve the tribe? (I'm really struggling to see how humanity has evolved into anything unique in all the years of knowable history.)

Marx, Lenin, Hitler and Mao cobbled together lessons learned from past generations of tribalists and attempted to create their versions of Utopia. Today's Utopians haven't come up with anything new either, other than repackaging their predecessors' tired old tropes with today's gaudy trappings. And the bonobos and chimpanzees... urr... people, are once again desperately clawing for their piece of Utopia.

What's a tired, balding, gray bearded, potbellied, six-eyed macaque supposed to do while the culture collapses?

Well, exploding into enraged rants about ideological extremes, hurling vulgar [expletive deleted]s as loudly as I can, stomping and foaming incoherently hasn't changed a single mind, and definitely has chased more than one person away - leaving me not only a village idiot, but a lunatic as well.

As one of the vulgar, the occasionally rude, obviously self -centered asses that lumbers - often uncaringly -through life, I sometimes struggle to remain marginally civil. Mostly I accomplish this by avoiding people, limiting personal contact to those I have no reason to be anything other than polite to when I encounter them at store cash registers, library kiosks, post office counters or in passing on the street. I've even managed to be civil with the town staff and elected office holders - something I doubted I'd ever be capable of after my dealings with the elect and staff of 20 and more years ago.

I like to think I've regained a sense of civility - a state that I occupied before entering high school and had shed - in large part - by the time I was freed from that torment.

Deep breath. Calm. A little "Ooomm. Mommy take me home" mantra.

Given how forgetful and lazy I am, most likely the best I can hope for is to keep my vulgar mouth shut in public. That might keep Dad from rolling over in his grave as often as I'm sure he does given all my other failures to evolve from knuckle dragging apedom to humanhood.

Vulgar - characteristic of or belonging to the masses
Rude - offensively impolite or ill -mannered
Civil - courteous and polite
                    - Robert A. Heinlein, "Friday"