The Nigger Poll

[Barrister]

lol squaw.

I don't think I've ever spoken to one before, but good to know.

You know, now that I think of it.  I've never met an Indian.  At least not the Tee-pee Type.

You and I live very different lives.  I meet Indians (by the way - preferred term is Native or First Nations) on a daily basis.

[Admiral Yi]

You know, now that I think of it.  I've never met an Indian.  At least not the Tee-pee Type.

I boozed it up one time in a DC titty bar with an Indian from California who was in town to lobby on casino stuff.

[Neil]

(by the way - preferred term is Native or First Nations)

The Indians didn't use to be that finicky.

But yeah, as a prosecutor, you get to meet Indians the way CdM got to meet black people as a cop in Baltimore.  Some races are inherently criminal.

[Barrister]

(by the way - preferred term is Native or First Nations)

The Indians didn't use to be that finicky.

But yeah, as a prosecutor, you get to meet Indians the way CdM got to meet black people as a cop in Baltimore.  Some races are inherently criminal.

They said the same thing about the Ukrainians, or the Irish, once upon a time.

[Palisadoes]

(by the way - preferred term is Native or First Nations)

The Indians didn't use to be that finicky.

But yeah, as a prosecutor, you get to meet Indians the way CdM got to meet black people as a cop in Baltimore.  Some races are inherently criminal.

They said the same thing about the Ukrainians, or the Irish, once upon a time.

It is noticeable that in certain cultures crime does seem more prevalent. Indeed in the USA if the crime statistics for African-Americans were taken out of the nationwide statistics then America would have a significantly lower crime rate (about the same as western and northern European countries, IIRC).

There are many issues as to why this might be (socio-economic opportunites being perhaps the largest), but Neil is quite right in his statement that certain groups of people do adhere to a life of crime more so than some other groups of people.

[Sheilbh]

What's wrong with "cunt"? I love it when a girl uses that word haha! It's stupid to get all uptight over calling their vagina a "cunt" - it's a 4 letter word for their genitals, much like "dick" or "cock" are for a penis (neither of which is offensive, IMO). I'm quite uncaring with swearing, mind. I just see those words as expressive/emotive.

Actually it's biological.  We're hardwired to find certain words offensive - though that changes from culture to culture (though all cultures seem interested in different emphasises on excretion, copulation and the divine).

In our brain there's an older brain, it's called the basal ganglia, that we sort of evolved out of.  But it regulates certain movements, emotion and learning.  It's also linked to swearing.  There's two big things that suggest this.  One is the case of a man who had a stroke that left most of his brain undamaged.  But it damaged a part of the basal ganglia.  As a result of this while he was able to converse perfectly well in fluent grammatical sentences he couldn't swear.  He couldn't even complete a swear word when it was started.  Fu....

The other link is Tourette's Syndrome.  Which is at base hereditary abnormalities in the basal ganglia.  Hence the tics that arise with it.  It's most famous for swearing though and, according to Steven Pinker, the following words are from American Tourette's patients are most often used from most to least frequent:
fuck, shit, cunt, motherfucker, prick, dick, cocksucker, nigger, cockey, bitch, pregnant-mother, bastard, tits, whore, doody, penis, queer, pussy, coitus, cock, ass, bowel movement, fangu (fuck in Italian), homosexual, screw, fag, faggot, schmuck, blow me, wop
Now these are often part of longer sentences and there are reports of deaf Tourette's patients signing 'fuck'.

Steven Pinker suggests that one of the roles of the basal ganglia is to designate certain thoughts and desires as unthinkable - taboo - in order to keep them in check.

Historically 'cunt's always been a bad word.  But most early swear words were to do with religion and many still are in more religious cultures.  We also used to have disease swear words, 'a pox on both your houses'.  Pinker also points out that in terms of our swearing about excrement we're pretty logical; it matches the physical order.  Shit's more offensive than piss which is more offensive than fart which is more offensive than snot which is worse than spit, which isn't that bad.

But, apparently, linguistics have found, across language groups and across cultures that 'bodily secretions' prompt disgust.  Common swear words internationally involve vomit, sweat, spittle, blood, pus and 'sexual fluids'.  Shit is universal.

We put certain words, in our brain, in a place that's taboo - this is, in Pinker's theory, short-circuited when we experience anger because rage is linked to the primitive basal ganglia - now the reason that 'cunt' is in there is because we don't live in a world in which words have meanings separate to them.  The meanings of a word are made up of repeated usages in different ways.  We live within linguistic communities where 'cunt' doesn't just mean vagina but a whole series of assumptions and perjorative senses.  Similarly 'nigger' isn't just another word for a black person and, in our linguistic framework, it can't be.  Maybe in a few hundred year's Huck Finn will need notes like Shakespeare to explain the rude words ('I bite my thumb at you!') but right now it doesn't.

Incidentally with the girls I know and the friends I have 'cunt' isn't that unacceptable (it's still for things past 'fuck') because we have different set of standards and connotations than someone who has never used it, never heard but knows it's there.  A word I find very offensive about women is 'gash', which I can't stand and I don't think I'd ever say.

We live within a linguistic culture, we live within a language that is out of our control and which isn't a sort-of Platonic form of pure meaning to which we can aspire.  That's the joy of language and the fun you have with it.  As Roland Barthes puts it, it's the jouissance of the text.  Which comes from jouir, and I'm sure Francophones can explain better, means to enjoy, to experience joy, to ejaculate, to orgasm and something else.

Which reminds me of an offensive but brilliant Thom Gunn epigraph called 'Barren Leaves':

Spontaneous overflows of powerful feeling:
Wet dreams, wet dreams, in libraries congealing.

[Sheilbh]

It is noticeable that in certain cultures crime does seem more prevalent.

Indeed.  Maoris in New Zealand are fiercely criminal.  The native population in Canada and Greenland is.  In America it's African-Americans though not, you know, African-Americans.  In the UK I think Afro-Carribean males are big part of crime followed by South Asians.  In France it's North Africans.

The common theme seems to be cultures that have to some extent been separate and that have had less economic success and full social integration into wider society.  So I imagine in Morocco itself it's the Berbers who are the problem.

[Palisadoes]

[Long post by Sheilbh]
Interesting. Could the specific words be hardwired due to the language which we have learnt by a certain age? I.e. if I was born and raised in France (with British parents, though they always spoke French around me) would I be hardwired with French language swear words, and not English language ones? Moreover, is it possible to indoctrinate what words are hardwired as offensive/anti-social?

Indeed.  Maoris in New Zealand are fiercely criminal.  The native population in Canada and Greenland is.  In America it's African-Americans though not, you know, African-Americans.  In the UK I think Afro-Carribean males are big part of crime followed by South Asians.  In France it's North Africans.

The common theme seems to be cultures that have to some extent been separate and that have had less economic success and full social integration into wider society.  So I imagine in Morocco itself it's the Berbers who are the problem.

That's my theory. Those from different backgrounds who haven't adapted and assimilated into their new "host" society are inherently going to be at an immediate social (and subsequently economic) disadvantage, which would inevitably open up new doors (such as going down the path of crime).

[Admiral Yi]

Interesting stuff Shelf.

[Neil]

(by the way - preferred term is Native or First Nations)

The Indians didn't use to be that finicky.

But yeah, as a prosecutor, you get to meet Indians the way CdM got to meet black people as a cop in Baltimore.  Some races are inherently criminal.

They said the same thing about the Ukrainians, or the Irish, once upon a time.

And they were right.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting. Could the specific words be hardwired due to the language which we have learnt by a certain age? I.e. if I was born and raised in France (with British parents, though they always spoke French around me) would I be hardwired with French language swear words, and not English language ones? Moreover, is it possible to indoctrinate what words are hardwired as offensive?

I don't know.  My understanding is that linguistically we're pretty set by the time we're about 17-18 and after that no matter what we do we're stuck with the dodgy foreign accent and so on.  So that could be the case.  I don't know what you mean by the second question.

Another thing is how certain taboos change.  So while bodily excretions are a human constant, our first swear words seem to do with religion.  G.K. Chesterton said that blasphemy couldn't exist without belief and if you didn't believe him try and blaspheme Odin.  I believe in Catholic cultures many religious words got turned into blasphemous ones by linking them to sex.  I understand in some languages 'chalice' and 'tabernacle' for example are euphemisms.

In Shakespeare's time when there's a high mortality rate and when there's a lot of disease then 'pox' becomes taboo.  Certain disease just aren't mentioned except in the worst sort of curse.  So what it suggests, in the context of 'nigger' at least, is that it's offensive because racism still exists and we're uncomfortable with our history and unhappy to be perceived as racist so the word is taboo.  I don't know what other people would think, though.

All this stuff is from Steven Pinker's 'The Stuff of Thought' which I can't recommend enough.  It's very good.

[Palisadoes]

Yeah that does seem very interesting. I might check that book out.

The second question was just trying to summarise the first one (hence "moreover") incase you didn;t get what I was saying.

[Malthus]

It is noticeable that in certain cultures crime does seem more prevalent.

Indeed.  Maoris in New Zealand are fiercely criminal.  The native population in Canada and Greenland is.  In America it's African-Americans though not, you know, African-Americans.  In the UK I think Afro-Carribean males are big part of crime followed by South Asians.  In France it's North Africans.

The common theme seems to be cultures that have to some extent been separate and that have had less economic success and full social integration into wider society.  So I imagine in Morocco itself it's the Berbers who are the problem.

I dunno if that alone explains it - there are groups which are economically unsuccessful without having the reputation for criminality.

Here, it is Jamacans that are the problem.

My opinion is that the root cause is a culture that in effect glorifies the traits that make for criminality: machismo combined with lack of respect for social authorities; a sense of grevance against society at large (real or perceived); a cultural code of silence concerning violence and other offences; extreme materialsim combined with a sense that hard work is for suckers.

Some cultures for whatever reason simply have these traits in a greater degree than others.

[Lucidor]

While reading up on the Huns at Wikipedia, I came across something for all Slargoses out there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_terms_per_nationality

[Caliga]

The gratuitous use of the 'N' word in this thread deeply offends me.