The Judges and the Saints

It has long been the position of this blog that "civility" as a concept is both overrated and misunderstood.

"Civility" is typically taken to constitute a virtue in and of itself when it is obviously no such thing. Chamberlain was by all accounts quite civil during his chat with Hitler at Berchtesgaden.

Truth and honesty are virtues. Civility is a mechanism that facilitates conversation among individuals or groups who have some sort of commitment to such virtues: if this is not the case, "civility" itself becomes an instrument of viciousness. See as reference the last eight years of American history.

Which is why, morally as well as empirically, "civility" ought only to be seen as referencing a certain set of discursive, cultural, and linguistic protocols that are beneficial in some situations and worse than useless in others.

So feel free to say fuck. If you're moral enough.

UPDATE. The French subtitles here are the greatest. "Prenant du crack... C'est pas funky?" Oui. (And, yes, there is a very important difference between "linguistic" and "discursive." This distinction is indeed central to my argument.)

Comments

[Batocchio]

Well put.

And I love those subtitles! Now I gotta run and listen to some MC Solaar...

[K. Ron Silkwood]

Si, c'est fooking funky.

[Me]

Fuck your civility up its fucking ass, you fucking fuck.

[LuLu]

As somone who can fucking speak French, that was the funniest fucking translation I've ever seen. Seriously.

[SteveB]

Isn't "Ensemble, nous vaincrons!" Barack Obama's new campaign slogan?

[MikeJ]

That was far from the worst translation I've ever seen. They generally got the spirit if not the lyric, and line for line translation rarely makes sense in music.

C'est vraiment dégueulasse.

[uppity kitty]

Ahhh, le fucking beau temps.
Vous n'est pas Catholic, c'est vrai?

[Doug Watts]

Poopie bites are what kids like !!!