‘Get F…..red Niled!’

Beneath Peter Smith’s essay on the death of decency there is this comment from contributor and friend of Quadrant Geoffrey Luck:

Vulgarity is the denial of manners. It is the post-modernist repudiation of the absolutes of civilised behaviour. This is an ‘anything goes’ world now. Bus and train passengers may find themselves and their fellow travellers subjected to outbursts of the most vile language, and know they are without recourse.

Self-control, the ultimate sanction to ensure frictionless society, seems to have evaporated, at least in certain types and classes of people.

When there is no escape from bad manners in public what can be more ironic than campaigns for ‘respect’?

Not everybody agrees, of course, perhaps least of all Macquarie University academic Elyse “I like the idea of reclaiming the word ‘c**t’” Methven, who in a recent piece for The Conversation set out to define what might be described as the new, politically correct guide to ‘genuine’ obscenity:

…the “F**k Fred Nile” case highlights the absurdity of responding to “fleeting expletives” with criminal sanction. This is particularly so when contrasted to language which depicts homosexuality as abnormal, unnatural and sinful.

So there you have it: abusing No supporters with obscene chants is less obscene than arguing in public that the definition of marriage should not be changed.

Ms Methven’s case for verbal abuse in the cause of “tolerance” can be read in full via the link below.

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