I think it's much simpler: Trump is appealing to his base. Public vulgarity is in part a "class marker" (not every instance of course, but very much overall). I'm fascinated by the way Trump gives off all sorts of "lower class" signals, which is very odd since he came from wealth. But he acts like he's a blue-collar tradesman. He does not talk in the idiom of the educated professional, which almost all politicians do. This really seems to befuddle pundits, who are of course almost by definition all educated professionals. And further, venerate such class markers. Because in their world, anyone who fails to master that idiom, is very unlikely to succeed. But yet, Trump has reached some of the highest levels of political power (US President), and has a reasonable chance of doing so again. It simply does not compute in that mindset. I suspect this is a big part of where opposing Trump fails. He's able to feed off the resentment generated by any class-based attacks.
Well, yes, he's appealing to his base. But why does his base find that appealing? That's the point. Go back 40 years ago and this was definitely not the way to appeal to that audience. It's a good way to get arrested.
His base finds that appealing because he's using the public vulgarity as a class signal that he's one of them (very roughly "blue collar"), and not one of what they perceive as their enemies (very roughly "educated professionals"). As far as I understand it, your argument seems to be they should in fact be aghast at the violation of the taboo. But I think that's misreading what's going on. Different violations - e.g. Abbie Hoffman - are taken as a sign of severe disrespect for their beliefs. As an analogy, consider an article about "How come black rappers can repeatedly say [n-word] if it's supposedly so bad?". Taboos are complicated, regarding who can violate them and in what context.
There’s no “should” in my piece. It’s only an observation based on history: This one thing that conservatives spent generations fiercely opposing they now embrace. That’s it.
I don’t disagree but your point does not refute the thesis here
Trump is still selling himself as “one of you blue collar guys” using vulgarity.
Even if its signaling class membership rather than an attempt to overturn old values, it does not make it any less of an extreme departure from conservative values
I wasn't suggesting The Man lost. (As an analytical category, "The Man" leaves much to be desired.) I am suggesting, much more narrowly and simply, that conservatives who fought to keep obscene language stigmatized and marginalized lost.
Conservatives who fought to keep obscene language stigmatized didn't lose, Dan, they died out. The old obscenities simply lost their power to shock a generation which grew up with them in common parlance - and once that happened, there was no point resisting anymore. The contemporary Mrs. Grundy is the progressive scold who polices pronouns and racial idioms for compliance to the latest preferred usage. (As a Canadian, you might recall when hockey icon Don Cherry was cancelled for referring to immigrants as "those people." Nobody should utter such an obscenity on national television!) Progressives who tried to replace "looting" at BLM protests with "justice shopping" also lost. There are "victories" and "losses" on all sides of the culture war, Dan. Declaring an overall victory for one "side" or another is a bit tribalist and childish, IMO.
"The use of obscene words has long functioned as a way of suggesting, “just between us, let’s speak frankly, without the usual filters.” Huh. The moment I read that I knew it was spot-on. That's one of the things I do when I'm talking with a teenager, to make myself seem like a cool adult. There remains enough taboo around profanity that it still kinda works.
I'm reading Bob Woodward's new book "War" and he has a quote from Lindsay Graham talking to trump about MAGA: "The people that think the world is flat and we didn't go to the moon, you've got them". The people who have embraced trump as "one of them".
Fascinating piece, thank you! Really put some things into perspective for me.
It conjured for me the Howard Stern show and Trump’s semi-regular appearances there. Stern certainly stretched the envelope regarding obscenity, knocking down some of the last remaining obscenity norms…and the Donald was among his most outrageous regular guests!
And Trump *was* a Democrat, is a partier, has a wife whose done porn, cheats on her with pornstars pretty openly, etc. He is basically a walking obscenity.
And its so fascinating the inversion of what is subversive and allowable speech in public in our culture. All the obscene language and curses are pretty much OK anywhere here in progressive Philly. But watch your micro aggressions and the political correctness of your speech or you may get socially sanctioned. So we have today a new set of “obscenities”, ones that sanction previously normal values thought to be exclusionary towards marginalized groups. Just not enforced by the po-po.
But seems to me an enormous difference between social sanction among a free people and police enforcement of obscenity laws, but this seems lost on many modern “conservative” culture warriors. They have made the president their champion. Trump’s unchecked obscenity proves the left won the obscenity battle of yesteryear, but he is fighting a new battle against a new standard of obscenity, seems to me.
Would you agree that there has been an attendant loss of power in these words - at least a loss of power to shock? The F Bomb fizzles to an F Dud. And the willingness to disbelieve things and believe the fantastic can be traced to the general disillusionment of the Pentagon Papers and that whole scene, no?
My generation was encouraged to trust no one over 30 years old. Now I am in my 70s I just kept extending the mark, so now I trust no one over three digits. And yes, I am kidding, another practice that has fallen casualty to this conflict, I fear.
Interesting. I agree with most of what you write here, including the history lesson. Today, in my observation, the counter-culture has reversed. And you generally don't see the current establishment in the US or Canada using foul language in public.
"Perhaps the only precept taught me by Grandfather Wills that I have honoured all my adult life is that profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their eyes and ears to you.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus
Has Trump used the word "fuck" in one of his speeches? I ask because I don't know. Pointing to the shwag purchased by his followers doesn't really say much about Trump himself, because his following is all about them misunderstanding him.
That’s a fair point. I don’t think he has. But my column isn’t simply about one person, but rather the whole Trump phenomenon — which is why I opened with that anecdote about people chanting “bullshit” in church. That incident, to me, is more telling than anything else.
this post is several decades too late, and it misses the point toward which it advances: the counterculture did not just win; it did not just become "the culture;" it was always the bearer of a fundamentally conservative impulse.
I know all this and agree. But my article was focused only on obscenity and a Republican presidential candidate who swears constantly and inspires the crowd in a church to chant an obscenity. That is a pretty spectacular conclusion — and one that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago — to a half-century story.
Um, what other Republican presidential candidate made public swearing so routine that his presidential campaign rallies sometimes sounded like locker rooms?
why does it have to be a presidential candidate? and is it your impression that primary contestants have never used such language? or that elected officials have not done so (and worse) in the halls of congress and political events?
Presidential candidates receive by far the most scrutiny and are held to the highest standards. No, I'm not talking about private conversations. I'm talking about public events. And, no, no Republican presidential candidate has ever had so much swearing in his rallies, both from him and other official speakers. Did you see the MSG rally? A small sample: https://www.instagram.com/judahonickman/reel/DBpJy1kNbRI/
Being against vulgarity is a form of language-policing. It isn't the only form. Another form of language-policing is found in political correctness, which started to rise in the 90s. I think when being confronted with a form of language policing that they did *not* like, some conservatives started to reconsider their own language-policing of vulgarity. Opposing political correctness while also opposing vulgarity probably felt logically inconsistent to some conservatives. So they gradually started to care less-and-less about opposing vulgarity. Probably the final nail in the coffin here was the brash vulgar Trump winning after the perfectly clean-speaking Romney lost.
It should be noted that vulgarity was not particularly common on 1980s TV shows or in the culture in general. For one example, compare Star Trek: TNG and DS9 to more recent Star Trek shows, and there's a very clear shift in the amount of vulgarity found in character dialogue. So I honestly doubt the 60s counter-culture movement is the main reason why vulgarity is very prevalent today. I think the main reasons are that vulgarity rose as political correctness rose, and also the impact that the internet had.
Dan, agree that the war started in the 60's. But it is not over. Not all bad in my thinking as i have not had one right (as articulated in the Bill of Rights) deteriorate.
Trump's rise does not indicate the war is over. It indicates that the first battle is over. The next battle has begun.
In the new battle, the "man" is the left, not to be confused with liberals (the founders were liberals focused on maximizing "individual liberty"). The left is focused on maximizing "equity" between individuals as determined by declaring arbitrary groupings for comparison combined with a never ending push for the creation of new "rights", new endowments, and new subsidies (health care, day care, elder care, college, transportation, housing, food, loan forgiveness, etc.) that require a more pervasive and empowered federal government with the power concentrated in Washington DC (lessen city and states rights to govern) to achieve "equity". Marx grins in his grave...
The new battle is against those that favor big government (push toward socialism - attacks on free market economics and capitalism), the press (disinformation arm of big government hence attacks on an unregulated social media), scientists that live on public grants (thus producing confirmation biased research results to qualify for more public grants), and academia (people that have the huge egos of business owners without the proven success - a PhD is a six year bachelor's degree for people that didn't want to face real world competition).
The left created the conditions for the rise of a Trump by focusing on the flaws of the nation (inequities and statistically insignificant events combined with an oppressor/oppressed theme), differences between groups of peoples (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), and historic national mistakes. A good way to destroy the fabric of any organization including a nation...
In other words, the left has played the role of sniper instead of leader. Leaders focus on commonalities, strengths, and the future. Snipers focus on the past, flaws, and mistakes.
The left won the first battle, let's hope they do not win the war.
Well, Dan, you did say - without qualification or nuance - that the culture war that began in the 1960s is over and the conservatives lost. More than once. If you were making a "much smaller, simpler observation," you should not have begun and ended with such a sweeping and epoch-marking statement. Just a friendly suggestion, because my reading comprehension is also too low to have caught your true meaning right away.
When I was a kid in the 1960s, I thought the counterculture was all about "free love," not swear words (which even in rural, Mennonite-dominated SW Ontario were already common enough in a working-class environment). In that regard, I'll just make a smaller, simpler observation, namely that the counterculture failed abjectly in bringing about free love. The most sexually repressive (i.e. conservative) place to be in contemporary society is on a progressive university campus.
If "The Man" is "the establishment," as you say, then the counterculture *obviously* failed spectacularly. The Man has not gone anywhere; The Man has aged, it's character has changed superficially, but its control of the leading institutions is as strong as ever. Afghanistan is the 21st century Vietnam; big pharma is rivaling the military-industrial complex in its influence over the government; the deep state is so powerful and pervasive it can control the entire media-industrial complex to deep-six a story like the Hunter Biden laptop for partisan-political reasons; etc.
No, Dan, the Establishment has not lost. The Establishment now has its puppets in both political parties, and is afraid of losing control if Trump gets elected. I conjecture that the reason a lot of ordinary American Republicans aren't repulsed by the crazy things Trump and Margorie Taylor Greene say is that their statements are proof that they aren't Establishment puppets. The equally crazy shit Kamala says is proof that she IS a puppet of the Establishment - as though any more proof were needed after being parachuted into the Presidential race with zero Primary support...
The culture war ... over obscenity. And yes, conservatives who fought to keep obscenity stigmatized and marginalized lost. I don't know what's unclear about that.
DAN, here is your very own sub-title: "The long culture war is over, the counter-culture won, and Donald Trump is conservatives' final humiliation."
And here's your penultimate paragraph: "For now, let’s simply declare the long war over: The counterculture won. Conservatives lost."
Those are broad, sweeping, *political* claims.
A more mature way of looking at the matter begins with understanding that words come in and out of fashion over time, rather like clothes. "Queer" used to be a derogatory term; now it is embraced by the queer community itself. "Negro" used to be commonplace among liberals; now you would be looked at a bit askance if you used that word. Some progressives will chastise you if you say "black" when you mean African-American. "Slut" and "ho" used to be very derogatory always, but now differ in their impact depending on context. Now people take a hissy fit if you "mis-pronoun" or "dead-name" somebody. Before long, we won't be clutching pearls over these trivialities anymore. Will the progressives have suffered a humiliating defeat when that happens?
Every society needs words that shock, to provide a full range of expression. A society that is incapable of being shocked anymore is one that is in serious decline. Shock words are what obscenity is largely about. What shocks the common conscience changes from time to time, that's all. What you mean by "conservatives" are merely people who are still shocked by the older obscenities. It has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats, or politics more generally.
Oh lord, Grant. Stop it. Have you ever written a headline or a subhed? They aren't abstracts. You can't summarize arguments in them. What you can do is respect the intelligence of readers -- who will understand that when THE ENTIRE ARTICLE is about obscenity, which is only one aspect of the big, complex, and amorphous thing called 'the counterculture,' the article is about that one aspect of the counterculture. Because readers aren't idiots.
As to the rest of your comment, well, no kidding! Who advised anyone to clutch their pearls about the naughty words I myself used repeatedly? Did you miss the introduction, where I wrote: "I’m a history nerd. I’m also an aficionado of offensive language, its constantly evolving role, and what that evolution says about social change." Or the part at the end where I mentioned other uses obsencity often has in communication? Or the many, many other articles I've written about etymology and how language evolves?
Look, Grant, almost every time I write something you give it a blatantly prejudicial reading with the clear intention of finding something to loudly object to. Why bother? You don't like my writing. I get it. Please stop wasting your time reading my appalling drivel and spend your weekend doing something, anything, more productive.
You don't have to write an abstract in the sub-head or conclusion. But if "THE ENTIRE ARTICLE" was supposed to be about obscenity then - just a suggestion - that word should maybe find its way into the sub-head or conclusion. Like this:
"Trump's use of obscenity shows that he isn't an old-time conservative. He's part of his generation's counter-culture."
Maybe the problem with a more accurate sub-head or conclusion along those lines is that it wouldn't (misleadingly or suggestively) tweak the right chords to get reader engagement. IDK.
Yes, I assume basic literacy in my readers such that they can figure out that when a headline refers to something as big, complex, and amorphous as "the counterculture," but the whole article is about one aspect of that counterculture, the article is about that one aspect of the counterculture. Respect readers: I try to follow that rule.
Do you really think Trump cares anything about governing? As for "big government" and fiscal responsibility, Clinton was the last president to balance a budget. Martin was the last Prime Minister. And I take it you have no real knowledge of what a PhD is, what's involved in getting it, and the skills that are developed. Try thinking outside of shibboleths, mythologies and slogans. You'll find it refreshing.
2. I have a DPhil (Oxon), and I can say without fear of contradiction that not all doctorates are created equally. Not by a long shot. A lot of doctoral theses are garbage that show very little skill at anything academic - and the proportion of such travesties is increasing by the decade. The treasured skill nowadays seems to be to develop an ideological paradigm as far as possible in an extreme direction, or create a new form or category of victim to flagellate our ancestors about. Much of academia is an attempt to bamboozle rather than enlighten, and the closer the discipline is to political uses - jurisprudence, philosophy, sociology, communications / public policy, climate science... - the more corrupted it has become.
"The Man" beginning with the beatniks and moving on through hippies and some elements of the New Left was the military industrial complex, the capitalist system overall, the dominant role played by white middle aged men gatekeeping everything under the sun.
That is, "The Man" was all the repressive banal uptight expressions of right wingers and social conservatives in general.
"The Left" that you suggest is now "The Man" is the military industrial complex, the capitalist system overall and upper middle class toffs who think they know better how to gatekeep everything than everyone else. A kind of "Best and Brightest" for a new age.
In other words, "The Man" is mostly the same set of imperialist, militarist, capitalist bastards it has always been and if there is still a "left" out there, the "left" is still opposing "The Man".
All "The Man" has done is add a few women and some skin color variation in its public facing cohort. It hasn't become "left".
I should add that I realize that American political vocabulary is Humpty Dumptovian in nature and so words mean whatever a particular midwit wants them to mean, but you really can't fool all the people all the time with that inanity.
I think it's much simpler: Trump is appealing to his base. Public vulgarity is in part a "class marker" (not every instance of course, but very much overall). I'm fascinated by the way Trump gives off all sorts of "lower class" signals, which is very odd since he came from wealth. But he acts like he's a blue-collar tradesman. He does not talk in the idiom of the educated professional, which almost all politicians do. This really seems to befuddle pundits, who are of course almost by definition all educated professionals. And further, venerate such class markers. Because in their world, anyone who fails to master that idiom, is very unlikely to succeed. But yet, Trump has reached some of the highest levels of political power (US President), and has a reasonable chance of doing so again. It simply does not compute in that mindset. I suspect this is a big part of where opposing Trump fails. He's able to feed off the resentment generated by any class-based attacks.
Well, yes, he's appealing to his base. But why does his base find that appealing? That's the point. Go back 40 years ago and this was definitely not the way to appeal to that audience. It's a good way to get arrested.
His base finds that appealing because he's using the public vulgarity as a class signal that he's one of them (very roughly "blue collar"), and not one of what they perceive as their enemies (very roughly "educated professionals"). As far as I understand it, your argument seems to be they should in fact be aghast at the violation of the taboo. But I think that's misreading what's going on. Different violations - e.g. Abbie Hoffman - are taken as a sign of severe disrespect for their beliefs. As an analogy, consider an article about "How come black rappers can repeatedly say [n-word] if it's supposedly so bad?". Taboos are complicated, regarding who can violate them and in what context.
There’s no “should” in my piece. It’s only an observation based on history: This one thing that conservatives spent generations fiercely opposing they now embrace. That’s it.
I don’t disagree but your point does not refute the thesis here
Trump is still selling himself as “one of you blue collar guys” using vulgarity.
Even if its signaling class membership rather than an attempt to overturn old values, it does not make it any less of an extreme departure from conservative values
Bingo, ding, ding, ding, ding...
Because his base are the people that feel ignored (and worse) by the left/democrat party and their supporters/surrogates.
Maybe you are right. But maybe "The Man" didn't really lose. Maybe, he just switched sides, like the Cheneys.
I wasn't suggesting The Man lost. (As an analytical category, "The Man" leaves much to be desired.) I am suggesting, much more narrowly and simply, that conservatives who fought to keep obscene language stigmatized and marginalized lost.
Conservatives who fought to keep obscene language stigmatized didn't lose, Dan, they died out. The old obscenities simply lost their power to shock a generation which grew up with them in common parlance - and once that happened, there was no point resisting anymore. The contemporary Mrs. Grundy is the progressive scold who polices pronouns and racial idioms for compliance to the latest preferred usage. (As a Canadian, you might recall when hockey icon Don Cherry was cancelled for referring to immigrants as "those people." Nobody should utter such an obscenity on national television!) Progressives who tried to replace "looting" at BLM protests with "justice shopping" also lost. There are "victories" and "losses" on all sides of the culture war, Dan. Declaring an overall victory for one "side" or another is a bit tribalist and childish, IMO.
Grant, showing up in multiple comment threads is a bit much. Please stop.
"The use of obscene words has long functioned as a way of suggesting, “just between us, let’s speak frankly, without the usual filters.” Huh. The moment I read that I knew it was spot-on. That's one of the things I do when I'm talking with a teenager, to make myself seem like a cool adult. There remains enough taboo around profanity that it still kinda works.
I'm reading Bob Woodward's new book "War" and he has a quote from Lindsay Graham talking to trump about MAGA: "The people that think the world is flat and we didn't go to the moon, you've got them". The people who have embraced trump as "one of them".
Fascinating piece, thank you! Really put some things into perspective for me.
It conjured for me the Howard Stern show and Trump’s semi-regular appearances there. Stern certainly stretched the envelope regarding obscenity, knocking down some of the last remaining obscenity norms…and the Donald was among his most outrageous regular guests!
And Trump *was* a Democrat, is a partier, has a wife whose done porn, cheats on her with pornstars pretty openly, etc. He is basically a walking obscenity.
And its so fascinating the inversion of what is subversive and allowable speech in public in our culture. All the obscene language and curses are pretty much OK anywhere here in progressive Philly. But watch your micro aggressions and the political correctness of your speech or you may get socially sanctioned. So we have today a new set of “obscenities”, ones that sanction previously normal values thought to be exclusionary towards marginalized groups. Just not enforced by the po-po.
But seems to me an enormous difference between social sanction among a free people and police enforcement of obscenity laws, but this seems lost on many modern “conservative” culture warriors. They have made the president their champion. Trump’s unchecked obscenity proves the left won the obscenity battle of yesteryear, but he is fighting a new battle against a new standard of obscenity, seems to me.
Rome, 480 AD.
Eh
44BC
Would you agree that there has been an attendant loss of power in these words - at least a loss of power to shock? The F Bomb fizzles to an F Dud. And the willingness to disbelieve things and believe the fantastic can be traced to the general disillusionment of the Pentagon Papers and that whole scene, no?
My generation was encouraged to trust no one over 30 years old. Now I am in my 70s I just kept extending the mark, so now I trust no one over three digits. And yes, I am kidding, another practice that has fallen casualty to this conflict, I fear.
Yup. When my 92-year-old mother drops an F-bomb, I know times changed.
I think there's only one swear word left, the C-one, and the Brits toss it around like it's nothing.
Also "fuck off." I wish I could toss a "fuck off" into the mix with impunity the way Jackson Lamb does--but I can't, I'm American.
Interesting. I agree with most of what you write here, including the history lesson. Today, in my observation, the counter-culture has reversed. And you generally don't see the current establishment in the US or Canada using foul language in public.
"Perhaps the only precept taught me by Grandfather Wills that I have honoured all my adult life is that profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their eyes and ears to you.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus
Excellent. Thanks!
Has Trump used the word "fuck" in one of his speeches? I ask because I don't know. Pointing to the shwag purchased by his followers doesn't really say much about Trump himself, because his following is all about them misunderstanding him.
That’s a fair point. I don’t think he has. But my column isn’t simply about one person, but rather the whole Trump phenomenon — which is why I opened with that anecdote about people chanting “bullshit” in church. That incident, to me, is more telling than anything else.
this post is several decades too late, and it misses the point toward which it advances: the counterculture did not just win; it did not just become "the culture;" it was always the bearer of a fundamentally conservative impulse.
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3618721.html
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773600.html
I know all this and agree. But my article was focused only on obscenity and a Republican presidential candidate who swears constantly and inspires the crowd in a church to chant an obscenity. That is a pretty spectacular conclusion — and one that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago — to a half-century story.
but why is it spectacular, given that it has happened many times before?
Um, what other Republican presidential candidate made public swearing so routine that his presidential campaign rallies sometimes sounded like locker rooms?
why does it have to be a presidential candidate? and is it your impression that primary contestants have never used such language? or that elected officials have not done so (and worse) in the halls of congress and political events?
Presidential candidates receive by far the most scrutiny and are held to the highest standards. No, I'm not talking about private conversations. I'm talking about public events. And, no, no Republican presidential candidate has ever had so much swearing in his rallies, both from him and other official speakers. Did you see the MSG rally? A small sample: https://www.instagram.com/judahonickman/reel/DBpJy1kNbRI/
The right thinks they're counterculture, but it's anyone who isn't a billionaire.
His vulgarity has increased a lot lately, I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least partly due to dementia. It's a very common early symptom.
Being against vulgarity is a form of language-policing. It isn't the only form. Another form of language-policing is found in political correctness, which started to rise in the 90s. I think when being confronted with a form of language policing that they did *not* like, some conservatives started to reconsider their own language-policing of vulgarity. Opposing political correctness while also opposing vulgarity probably felt logically inconsistent to some conservatives. So they gradually started to care less-and-less about opposing vulgarity. Probably the final nail in the coffin here was the brash vulgar Trump winning after the perfectly clean-speaking Romney lost.
It should be noted that vulgarity was not particularly common on 1980s TV shows or in the culture in general. For one example, compare Star Trek: TNG and DS9 to more recent Star Trek shows, and there's a very clear shift in the amount of vulgarity found in character dialogue. So I honestly doubt the 60s counter-culture movement is the main reason why vulgarity is very prevalent today. I think the main reasons are that vulgarity rose as political correctness rose, and also the impact that the internet had.
Changing the status quo creates a new status quo. Diehards on Team Change and diehards on Team Status Quo both end up being surprised by this.
Dan, agree that the war started in the 60's. But it is not over. Not all bad in my thinking as i have not had one right (as articulated in the Bill of Rights) deteriorate.
Trump's rise does not indicate the war is over. It indicates that the first battle is over. The next battle has begun.
In the new battle, the "man" is the left, not to be confused with liberals (the founders were liberals focused on maximizing "individual liberty"). The left is focused on maximizing "equity" between individuals as determined by declaring arbitrary groupings for comparison combined with a never ending push for the creation of new "rights", new endowments, and new subsidies (health care, day care, elder care, college, transportation, housing, food, loan forgiveness, etc.) that require a more pervasive and empowered federal government with the power concentrated in Washington DC (lessen city and states rights to govern) to achieve "equity". Marx grins in his grave...
The new battle is against those that favor big government (push toward socialism - attacks on free market economics and capitalism), the press (disinformation arm of big government hence attacks on an unregulated social media), scientists that live on public grants (thus producing confirmation biased research results to qualify for more public grants), and academia (people that have the huge egos of business owners without the proven success - a PhD is a six year bachelor's degree for people that didn't want to face real world competition).
The left created the conditions for the rise of a Trump by focusing on the flaws of the nation (inequities and statistically insignificant events combined with an oppressor/oppressed theme), differences between groups of peoples (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), and historic national mistakes. A good way to destroy the fabric of any organization including a nation...
In other words, the left has played the role of sniper instead of leader. Leaders focus on commonalities, strengths, and the future. Snipers focus on the past, flaws, and mistakes.
The left won the first battle, let's hope they do not win the war.
I would suggest that’s a different debate. Mine was a much smaller, simpler observation.
Well, Dan, you did say - without qualification or nuance - that the culture war that began in the 1960s is over and the conservatives lost. More than once. If you were making a "much smaller, simpler observation," you should not have begun and ended with such a sweeping and epoch-marking statement. Just a friendly suggestion, because my reading comprehension is also too low to have caught your true meaning right away.
When I was a kid in the 1960s, I thought the counterculture was all about "free love," not swear words (which even in rural, Mennonite-dominated SW Ontario were already common enough in a working-class environment). In that regard, I'll just make a smaller, simpler observation, namely that the counterculture failed abjectly in bringing about free love. The most sexually repressive (i.e. conservative) place to be in contemporary society is on a progressive university campus.
If "The Man" is "the establishment," as you say, then the counterculture *obviously* failed spectacularly. The Man has not gone anywhere; The Man has aged, it's character has changed superficially, but its control of the leading institutions is as strong as ever. Afghanistan is the 21st century Vietnam; big pharma is rivaling the military-industrial complex in its influence over the government; the deep state is so powerful and pervasive it can control the entire media-industrial complex to deep-six a story like the Hunter Biden laptop for partisan-political reasons; etc.
No, Dan, the Establishment has not lost. The Establishment now has its puppets in both political parties, and is afraid of losing control if Trump gets elected. I conjecture that the reason a lot of ordinary American Republicans aren't repulsed by the crazy things Trump and Margorie Taylor Greene say is that their statements are proof that they aren't Establishment puppets. The equally crazy shit Kamala says is proof that she IS a puppet of the Establishment - as though any more proof were needed after being parachuted into the Presidential race with zero Primary support...
The culture war ... over obscenity. And yes, conservatives who fought to keep obscenity stigmatized and marginalized lost. I don't know what's unclear about that.
DAN, here is your very own sub-title: "The long culture war is over, the counter-culture won, and Donald Trump is conservatives' final humiliation."
And here's your penultimate paragraph: "For now, let’s simply declare the long war over: The counterculture won. Conservatives lost."
Those are broad, sweeping, *political* claims.
A more mature way of looking at the matter begins with understanding that words come in and out of fashion over time, rather like clothes. "Queer" used to be a derogatory term; now it is embraced by the queer community itself. "Negro" used to be commonplace among liberals; now you would be looked at a bit askance if you used that word. Some progressives will chastise you if you say "black" when you mean African-American. "Slut" and "ho" used to be very derogatory always, but now differ in their impact depending on context. Now people take a hissy fit if you "mis-pronoun" or "dead-name" somebody. Before long, we won't be clutching pearls over these trivialities anymore. Will the progressives have suffered a humiliating defeat when that happens?
Every society needs words that shock, to provide a full range of expression. A society that is incapable of being shocked anymore is one that is in serious decline. Shock words are what obscenity is largely about. What shocks the common conscience changes from time to time, that's all. What you mean by "conservatives" are merely people who are still shocked by the older obscenities. It has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats, or politics more generally.
Oh lord, Grant. Stop it. Have you ever written a headline or a subhed? They aren't abstracts. You can't summarize arguments in them. What you can do is respect the intelligence of readers -- who will understand that when THE ENTIRE ARTICLE is about obscenity, which is only one aspect of the big, complex, and amorphous thing called 'the counterculture,' the article is about that one aspect of the counterculture. Because readers aren't idiots.
As to the rest of your comment, well, no kidding! Who advised anyone to clutch their pearls about the naughty words I myself used repeatedly? Did you miss the introduction, where I wrote: "I’m a history nerd. I’m also an aficionado of offensive language, its constantly evolving role, and what that evolution says about social change." Or the part at the end where I mentioned other uses obsencity often has in communication? Or the many, many other articles I've written about etymology and how language evolves?
Look, Grant, almost every time I write something you give it a blatantly prejudicial reading with the clear intention of finding something to loudly object to. Why bother? You don't like my writing. I get it. Please stop wasting your time reading my appalling drivel and spend your weekend doing something, anything, more productive.
You don't have to write an abstract in the sub-head or conclusion. But if "THE ENTIRE ARTICLE" was supposed to be about obscenity then - just a suggestion - that word should maybe find its way into the sub-head or conclusion. Like this:
"Trump's use of obscenity shows that he isn't an old-time conservative. He's part of his generation's counter-culture."
Maybe the problem with a more accurate sub-head or conclusion along those lines is that it wouldn't (misleadingly or suggestively) tweak the right chords to get reader engagement. IDK.
okay, seems hard to declare a social war is over by examining one aspect of a complex society. but it is your blog.
Yes, I assume basic literacy in my readers such that they can figure out that when a headline refers to something as big, complex, and amorphous as "the counterculture," but the whole article is about one aspect of that counterculture, the article is about that one aspect of the counterculture. Respect readers: I try to follow that rule.
you call this comment respect? i will unsubscribe and move on.
Do you really think Trump cares anything about governing? As for "big government" and fiscal responsibility, Clinton was the last president to balance a budget. Martin was the last Prime Minister. And I take it you have no real knowledge of what a PhD is, what's involved in getting it, and the skills that are developed. Try thinking outside of shibboleths, mythologies and slogans. You'll find it refreshing.
1. Harper's final budget in 2015 was balanced.
2. I have a DPhil (Oxon), and I can say without fear of contradiction that not all doctorates are created equally. Not by a long shot. A lot of doctoral theses are garbage that show very little skill at anything academic - and the proportion of such travesties is increasing by the decade. The treasured skill nowadays seems to be to develop an ideological paradigm as far as possible in an extreme direction, or create a new form or category of victim to flagellate our ancestors about. Much of academia is an attempt to bamboozle rather than enlighten, and the closer the discipline is to political uses - jurisprudence, philosophy, sociology, communications / public policy, climate science... - the more corrupted it has become.
"The Man" beginning with the beatniks and moving on through hippies and some elements of the New Left was the military industrial complex, the capitalist system overall, the dominant role played by white middle aged men gatekeeping everything under the sun.
That is, "The Man" was all the repressive banal uptight expressions of right wingers and social conservatives in general.
"The Left" that you suggest is now "The Man" is the military industrial complex, the capitalist system overall and upper middle class toffs who think they know better how to gatekeep everything than everyone else. A kind of "Best and Brightest" for a new age.
In other words, "The Man" is mostly the same set of imperialist, militarist, capitalist bastards it has always been and if there is still a "left" out there, the "left" is still opposing "The Man".
All "The Man" has done is add a few women and some skin color variation in its public facing cohort. It hasn't become "left".
I should add that I realize that American political vocabulary is Humpty Dumptovian in nature and so words mean whatever a particular midwit wants them to mean, but you really can't fool all the people all the time with that inanity.