[bloaf]

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html

>It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

[Xeoncross]

> those words really don’t damage children much

Wait, who is this? Can they verify this claim? What does "much" mean anyway? Why damage children at all by choice?

[Zarel]

Did you click on the linked source? It says it was written by Kurt Vonnegut, who is arguing that the value of accurately depicting reality to students is more important than protecting them from whatever imagined risk of reading harsh language there is.

[jacalata]

The rest of the questions seem valid though.

[mikeash]

They are, but they're equally valid the other way. Why start with the assumption that Puritan sensibilities are OK and require everything else to prove itself?

[jacalata]

Because Vonnegut made an affirmative claim that this doesn't hurt children, and the comment was challenging that claim. I didn't notice anyone making a claim that it definitely does hurt children.

[AstralStorm]

Evidence is hard to untangle from other social factors. It is relatively safe to say that people have in the past not been sheltered from rough language and did just fine in most every culture. Sheltering children started about Victorian times I suppose, later than children got removed from dreary factory work in the generalized Western culture. (And incidentally later all kinds of work.)

So no, the onus of evidence is on people claiming that rough language hurts children in some way. (Note we're not talking about abusive language here.)

[mikeash]

The question "Why damage children at all by choice?" rests on the implication that these things damage children, and avoiding them avoids damaging children.

[norswap]

Are they? I have a deep seated feeling that this is a troll question: does the author himself really believe that coarse language hurts? Does anyone believe that when they stop and think about it?

Not every statement should require extended proofs. It's probably the case that you can't think of any children being hurt by coarse language, nor of having heard of any reporting of this. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

[bloaf]

I apologize that Vonnegut wrote his letter at a time before the internet made defensive writers of us all.

https://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-11/defensive-writing.htm...