Of course the appeals court was correct in ruling that the "fleeting expletive" should no longer be punished by fines when they inadvertently sneak onto the air. But before we all dance in the streets cursing like Dick Cheney with an irritable bowel, maybe we should stop for a moment and think about what type of society we would like to live in.
I grew up in New York City as a teenager but had lived in Los Angeles for the last fifteen years before I moved back to New York this year. Since I have been back I have heard the word, "motherfucker" several thousand times out on the streets. Ninety-five percent of those accusing others of maternal incest are the middle schoolers across from my kids' public elementary school. "Motherfucker" is easily the most dominant word in their vocabulary; everything else is just grout. If Martin Scorsese were passing by them he'd blush (and his film, Casino has more fpm's ("fucks-per-minute" than any other movie besides Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth according to the Family Media Guide).
My foul-mouthed neighborhood middle schoolers aren't the only ones, however. The retailer French Connection U.K. is now mainly known for its "cheeky" logo (FCUK). "Fuck Frank Gehry" t-shirts were recently written about in The New Yorker. Bus ads for the new Die Hard scream "YIPPEE KI YAY M[otherfucker]." I saw a young woman on the subway wearing a t-shirt that said, "What the fuck you lookin' at?" Fortunately her child in the stroller in front of her was not yet of reading age.
Is all this ugly anger making the world a more pleasant place in which to live?
As in many things, South Park got it just right. Back in 2001 the episode, "It Hits the Fan," is about a cop show being the first to utter the word, "Shit." It instantly becomes the must-see event of the season and soon all the networks are flooding the airwaves with obscenities. In the end, however, the boys realize that although it's great to have free speech, some words are best used only fleetingly, otherwise they devolve into meaninglessness.
Look, when I'm only around adults I talk about any and everything. I'm a writer and I delight in a rich vocabulary. However when my kids are around there are very many concepts that they are not yet equipped for. I don't think it's such a bad thing that we try to carve out for them a sweet place in which they can grow.