| It isn't that simple. I work really hard at editing out profanity when I write online. The reality is that I swear like a sailor and the running joke in the family is to quote that movie line "you go into a bar and sailors come running out." I basically use the eff word like other people use very. So when I write something full of profanity, it doesn't suggest I have really strong feelings about it or am trying to attack or insult people. It usually means I was writing while tired, distracted or a bit under the weather and failing to put in the extra effort to mind my Ps and Qs. I am aware that it causes problems at times for me to use so much profanity when I post things online. It isn't uncommon for me to go back and try to edit out the worst of it after I post it. But the converse of that is this: it takes extra effort for me to come up with alternate phrasing and this takes bandwidth away from me focusing on more substantive elements. If someone actually thinks I have good ideas and they want to know what I think about something, they will get more useful info from me more frequently if they don't give me shit constantly about how my foul mouth is an excuse to just not listen to the substance of my points. There are plenty of people who punctuate their speech with colorful language. Colorful language can be a rich way to express some concepts and trying to clean it up can actually lose something. So given that I am hardly the only person on the planet who just habitually peppers their speech with profanity, I think one use of this standard is to agree to ignore that element as a minor style detail in order to focus on the substance of their ideas. People from bad neighborhoods often have foul mouths. Expecting them to politely and articulately elucidate their points without profanity can be a form of classist and racist gatekeeping that excludes them from serious discourse. I don't have an easy answer for you. I do try to clean up my language when speaking "in public" whether online or off. I just wanted to note that the issue is more complicated than that. |