LIFE, DEATH, HAPPINESS, SENSE, MONEY & OTHER UNCOMFORTABLE WORDS

AN ESSAY

Several weeks ago, I wrote about why human beings fear death. All living organisms cling doggedly to life. But only humans can articulate the reasons why they want to live. I concluded that people fear death because they are “sensory creatures” who derive enjoyment and meaning from their senses. Their senses allow them to stimulate their bodies, affording opportunities for pleasure and satisfaction. Death, however, causes “irreversible sensory shutdown,” precluding any further sensory input. Death cuts short our ability to experience the world with our senses. It eliminates our potential pleasures at the same time it spares us potential agonies. No matter the result, we fear it because we cannot imagine an existence without sense; we simply don’t know “what it’s like.”

Sense is everything. Generally speaking, human beings live for their senses. They want to see, hear, feel, taste and smell things that make them feel inwardly happy. Although some people profess to find happiness through the spirit or by some other intangible route, these are exceptions. For the most part, human beings work, struggle, contend, compete, strive and wrangle in order to bring joy to their senses. They engage in commerce to earn sufficient money to spend their time in a manner that allows them to positively stimulate their senses. Success in commerce allows “sensory success.” Of course, achieving success in commerce takes a very long time. Ironically, those who ultimately succeed in commerce usually do not have much time left to placate their senses. Life for most people follows a predictable pattern: Strive at all times to win in commerce, because success in commerce will provide a reliable means to positively stimulate the senses, thereby minimizing negative emotions and maximizing positive ones. Put simply, it is a race against time. People know that they only have so many days to find happiness. With every passing day, their potential for positive sensory stimulation dwindles. Life is a closing door.

This is why people fear death. Death cancels their ever-dwindling opportunity to achieve positive sensory stimulation and happiness. Death shuts down the senses: Obviously people will fear something that threatens the very capacity that makes it enjoyable to live. In modern American life, people do not just fear death; they try their best not to even think about it. They push it away with all their might. After all, American life follows a program, and death is not on the agenda. The program teaches worldly success, sensory satisfaction and happiness through material acquisition. Sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell are essential to find happiness along this path. American success means success in life and through sense. The tangible world before us is not opaque. In American life, the best things in life are right in front of our eyes: Houses, electronics, cars, bulging bank accounts, boats, overseas vacations. We can possess these things. We can see them; and so can others. Americans tailor every day in their lives to ultimately acquire these things. They work their whole lives without them for a chance to live with them. Sadly, most people do not get all the tangible items they want. But they don’t want to die because that would preclude their opportunity to get them. Still, even if they live, they probably won’t get them, either. But they can’t know that. So they prefer life to death. They want the chance to stimulate their senses in the way they always wanted—which almost never happens.

Death just does not fit in the American life program. Americans have too many other things to do. They have to get jobs, go to school, purchase land, impress their friends, make enough money to retire, go on the right vacations, find health insurance, buy the right stereo equipment, go to dance clubs, watch movies, save money on phone plans, buy a second home and send their children to college. Their goals lie in this world; they are right there for the taking. All these goals involve the senses. There is no time to think about death. It is incomprehensible. No one sees what happens after death, nor can anyone receive a report about it. Put simply, death cannot be achieved, won, savored, acquired or known. That is why it does not fit in the American life program. In a world stuffed with perceptible, achievable, tangible goals, death is the great unknown. It takes people out of the race for good. And when winning the “sensory race” is all that matters, is it surprising that death strikes terror into the competitors? People fear death because it forces them to come face to face with a startling new reality after living their lives believing that sense was the only reality.

Americans manifest their death fears in many ways, both overt and subtle. Overtly, they emotionally react when threatened with death. The law threatens death to the “worst criminals” on the assumption that death is the “worst thing” that could happen to anyone. Because no one wants to die, the law assumes that no one will engage in behavior that could lead to the death penalty. When Americans see violent events in which others die, they feel traumatized. It reminds them they don’t want to die, either. They recoil from the thought that they will not have a chance to stimulate their senses anymore or to follow their life program to potential happiness. Pain plays a role in this fear. But pain is not the main reason why people fear death. People fear death because death cuts short their anticipated life program and its opportunities for sensory stimulation. Americans overtly manifest their fear in this regard when they see others die.

Yet subtle death fears are much more interesting than overt death fears. To some extent, we can explain overt death fears on a crude biological level. Even dogs become terrified when some overpowering force threatens them with death. Self-preservation is not unique to lower mammals; human beings are no exception. Living organisms want desperately to live, and when they perceive that something might end their life, they manifest emotions consistent with a desire to live, including overt death fears. But human beings express their death fears in more subtle ways. We are the only species that uses the mouth, palate and tongue to create intelligible speech. We tend to presume ourselves “superior” to all other creatures because we can do this. We use our speech to do great things as well as treacherous things. We use our speech as much to inform as to confound. We use our speech as much to unite as divide. Although speech may set us apart from other life forms, we certainly do not always use it for abstractly beneficial purposes.

We voice our emotions through speech. Through the words we choose, we indicate how we subjectively feel about certain phenomena. We can use direct words, such as: “I am afraid.” Or we can “circumlocute” our true feelings because the truth makes us uncomfortable. We might say: “I am concerned” when we really are terrified. This is a conscious obfuscation, a self-delusion. But there are other ways in which language itself changes to reflect a pervasive, universal fear, even if the individual speaker does not experience it at the moment he says the words.

Death is a prime example. In recent decades, Americans have almost universally replaced the verb “to die” with “to pass.” George Carlin placed this “word shift” into the growing catalogue of issues about which Americans simply can no longer speak honestly. See Parental Advisory : Explicit Lyrics (1990). He was absolutely right, and for a significant reason: Because death is anathema to the American life program. American language has changed in order to express a prevailing social discomfort with—and even disapproval of—death. Because death stands in such stark philosophical opposition to the entire sense-oriented program under which most Americans live, Americans deliberately refuse to confront the uncomfortable implications. “To die” means to “cease to be.” It refers literally to the moment in which a living person—with senses, ambitions, dreams and a “life plan”—becomes a dead person—with no sensory capacity or potential for sensory stimulation at all. But “to pass” does not literally refer to that biological event. No, “to pass” implies “physical movement through, around, toward or beyond something.” It derives from the Latin word “passus,” meaning “step.” It refers to movement involving tangible objects, places or obstacles, as in: “I passed by the store this morning on the way to my mother’s house,” or “I passed through the door on my way into the office,” or “We passed each other in the hallway.” There is nothing biological or existential about it. It is about banal movement.

Metaphorically, “to pass” can also mean “to end.” But this meaning traditionally refers to events and circumstances, not to death. A wise uncle might say to his nephew: “Dear boy, fear not. For this, too, shall pass.” This did not mean someone died. It meant that some adversity would soon “go away.” And this metaphorical meaning derives from the “physical movement concept” implicit in the word “to pass.” Circumstances—like living beings—can “move through or beyond” fixed points or obstacles. In this sense “pass” does not have an existential meaning.

So Americans now say they “pass” to mean they “die.” Why? To avoid using the scary word “die.” “Die” is a simple word. But it is disconcertingly honest. It goes to the heart of existence and non-existence. It is too honest for American discourse, in which everything depends on life. Only the living can achieve success, acquire property, make lots of money, enjoy sensuous pool parties and go on vacation without financial worry. Only the living can reap commercial rewards because they have senses that those rewards can stimulate. Everything in America depends on life, because everything revolves around sensory stimulation. Death permanently removes a living being’s capacity to experience the world though the senses. Death ends any hope to achieve “success” as conceived under the “American life program.” Americans strive their whole lives to achieve that success; death undermines the entire enterprise. It even renders the enterprise absurd. It is thus little wonder that Americans refuse to even countenance the word when talking about the event to which it refers. So they choose a meaningless, harmless substitute: “To pass.”

I hate to break it to these folks. But when we die, we do not “pass” or “go” anywhere. When we’re dead, our passing days are over. Our bodies are done. They ain’t going noplace, at least under their own power.

Yet some Americans truly believe that “we never stop thinking about money or success.” Last week, I read a few pages from a book written by a “professional money coach” who counsels “executives” struggling to balance their obsession with money with “normal lives.” She wrote about some company Vice President who had to take a day off from work in order to visit his dying mother in the hospital. He felt guilty because he didn’t want to leave work or make a bad impression on the company President. The “money coach,” however, told him that his guilt was natural—and his mother would understand that he couldn’t stay long—because his mother hadn’t stopped thinking about money, either. “We never really stop thinking about money, no matter what our circumstances may be,” she wrote, referring to a dying woman she never met.

I found this shockingly asinine. As much as the “American life program” demands that we fixate our attention on “this world” and the “success” it can bring to our senses, death renders everything moot. I found it preposterous for this “money coach” to presume that a woman facing death had not stopped thinking about money when she was about to die. I can say that I do not always think about money or success, and I am not dying. And I was with my father when he was dying three years ago; I know for a fact he was not thinking about money, success or his job when confronted with non-existence. In fact, he entered an extremely reflective state in which he deeply questioned everything he had done in his life. He wondered why he spent so much energy chasing things that did not really matter. Money and success are among those things that “don’t really matter” when death looms. Yet they are the cornerstones of the “American life program;” and they entrench themselves so deeply in us that many people cannot fathom an event that makes them irrelevant.

But there are ways to accommodate both this world’s fixation on success and the existential fears that spring from contemplating death. Commerce and gain are not the only ways to stimulate our senses. We can achieve sensory happiness without material acquisition or winning a competition for limited resources. After all, these are merely external stimuli. If we can find strength within ourselves, if we can cultivate our own personalities and thoughts, then we might find value beyond commerce. To be sure, this is not a popular path to happiness. Like death, it does not rest easy with the “American life program” because it focuses on subjective meaning rather than objective material acquisition. But by looking within ourselves, we determine who we are, not what we have. And when we stop worrying about what we have, the thought of dying no longer seems so daunting. After all, if “having things” is not so important to us, what does it matter whether we leave “the world of having things?”

If we make that discovery, we are unafraid to say “die.” We do not need to delude ourselves by saying we “pass.” We “pass” the McDonald’s on the way home from work. We “die” when we stop breathing.

"SEX" IS NOT A BAD WORD ; CENSORSHIP IS

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Jeremih’s single “Birthday Sex” should have been just another R&B song about a young man’s assumed romantic prowess. When Def Jam released the single in April, audiences responded with enthusiasm: It went to #1 on the R&B charts and #4 on the pop charts. It fit the “urban love anthem” mold: A man does not buy gifts for his girlfriend on her birthday, so he gives her “birthday sex” as a replacement. And true to the smug, sexually conceited male caricature that so often appears in the R&B canon, Jeremih assures his listener that his sex is better than any material gift.

This is not an uplifting message. In fact, it is laughable. But I am not writing today to mock “Birthday Sex.” I am writing today because mainstream radio stations bleep out the word “sex” when they play the song.

Since when did “sex” become a word “bad” enough to warrant censorship? We all know that the Federal government has power to prevent us from hearing a few “really bad” words during mainstream broadcasts. See, e.g, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). But those “really bad words” are familiar vulgarities, colorful English phrases that go straight to the unrefined truth about sex and the body. We know we are not allowed to hear the words “fuck,” “shit,” “asshole” and “cock” on everyday broadcasts because those words cut to the linguistic quick about sex, excrement and “private parts.” Popular morality teaches us to revile these things, so law provides society a way to protect our ears from them. For better or worse, these traditionally “bad words” have real rhetorical punch. Their strength lies in their unabashed directness. Their strength lies in their pure Germanic derivation. No doctor or scientist mulled a Latin equivalent for these words. They are brutally honest, English core words. And to some extent, that is one reason why popular morality reviles them: Our society has an uneasy relationship with sex and the body, so it recoils from overly honest expressions about them.

But the traditional reasons for banning “bad words” do not apply to the word “sex.” “Sex,” unlike “fuck” or “shit,” is a Latin-based medical coinage, not a vulgarity. When people honestly talk about sexual conduct, they generally do not use medical terms. They use tried-and-true Germanic vulgarities. They do not say: “May we now engage in sexual activity?” In much the same way, they do not use medical coinages when referring to basic bodily functions. People do not say: “I must defecate now.” Latin does not tell the same story as German. Every English speaker knows that “shit” is a more honest word than “defecate.” Yet it ruffles feathers precisely because it so honestly describes “a coarse bodily function.” “Defecate” distances the listener from the body. That is why it is permissible to broadcast “defecate” during a daytime radio show, but not “shit.” The same reasoning should apply to “sex;” it is a medical coinage that distances the listener from the honest truth about sexual contact between human beings. In this case, however, the usual reasoning does not apply.

Why the inconsistency here? You would think that using the word “sex” instead of its coarse Germanic cousins would satisfy the decency police. After all, it purifies the language from uncomfortable honesty. “Sex” inevitably will offend fewer prudes than “fuck,” even though both words refer to precisely the same activity. But in this case, the censors bleeped out “sex,” too. In a way, I pity Jeremih. He tried his best to write a sensual song without using “traditional vulgarities” because he knew those words would be censored. Yet despite his efforts to use satisfactory words, the censors muffled him anyway.

I can only explain this new hostility toward the word “sex” by positing that popular morality does not like sexual conduct in the abstract. Although doctors created the word “sex” to make it easier to discuss sexual conduct without using uncomfortable Germanic vulgarities, apparently the subterfuge isn’t working anymore. The subject matter is apparently so uncomfortable that even Latin circumlocution can no longer suppress the shame. What can explain this if not a profound discomfort with anything concerning sexual contact between human beings? The word “sex” was supposed to disguise the raw, bodily truth about sexual conduct. It is deliberately uncolorful, undescriptive and unmemorable. But now, it is just as bad as the subject matter it was intended to conceal.

This is not just censorship. It is sloppy, incompetent censorship. A good censor has consistent reasons for suppressing certain words. For thirty years, censors at the F.C.C. consistently applied the “traditional vulgarity” test to determine whether a word “could be heard” on the airwaves. That test protected young ears from “overly honest descriptions” about sex and bodily function while preserving some “decorum” during daytime broadcasts. The test was exquisitely formal and categorical: Either the word was on the “dirty words” list or it was not. But now, the F.C.C. has scrapped the categorical approach. “Sex” was never on a “dirty words” list; it is a euphemism calculated to avoid using a word on that list. Yet now it is just as bad as the words it was intended to circumvent.

This is censorship by moral fiat, not reasoned analysis. I argue that such an approach disparages government’s obligation under the First Amendment to “make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” The Supreme Court has steadily eroded our right to speak as we please under the Constitution. But it has nonetheless always reminded government that it cannot drive certain words from discourse without compelling justifications based in reason. See, e.g, Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). The Court said that driving “traditionally vulgar words” from discourse could be justified because it was important to “protect children” and “unwilling listeners” from coarse language. F.C.C. v. Pacifica, 438 U.S. 726, 748-750 (1978). But it never said anything about words that are not “traditionally vulgar,” “shocking” or “coarse.” Viewed linguistically, the word “sex” is neither vulgar nor coarse. It is not “shocking,” either. In fact, it is supposed to take the “shock” out of traditionally “vulgar” expressions. Its capacity to give offense lies solely in the subject matter to which it refers, not the honest tone in which it describes the subject matter. By any test ever used to judge “decency” under the First Amendment, “sex” clearly passes. It is therefore shocking that the F.C.C. now decides to rewrite the law to censor a word that violates no legal standard.

If we allow the F.C.C. to drive the word “sex” from discourse, how are we supposed to “properly” talk about sex? What about shows like “Sex in the City” or songs like “Sexual Healing?” Those titles contain the word “sex.” What about a broadcast discussing “sexually transmitted diseases” or “sex therapy?” What about the countless advertisements for products addressing “sexual dysfunction” and “normal sex lives?”

In short, the word “sex” has evolved into an “acceptably neutral” means to express human sexuality without offending the decency police. We rely on it to discuss a profoundly important aspect of our lives. If it suddenly becomes as “bad” as the other “dirty words,” how are we supposed to discuss it? This may sound extreme, but we are on that path. The F.C.C. censored the word “sex” in Jeremih’s song. For all concerns and purposes, government decided that we should not hear the word because it was somehow “bad” or “offensive.” Yet “sex” is not a “bad word.” It was invented in order not to give offense. It is ironic that authorities now seek to suppress a euphemism.

I strongly resent any government attempt to control language. Our Constitution grants American citizens a broad right to speak freely. We should only tolerate restrictions on our language for the most compelling reasons. Moral awkwardness about sex does not even remotely rise to that level. Yet if we do not express our disapproval about censorship when it happens, we tacitly certify government’s power to regulate our language. That is why it is important to oppose censorship whenever it appears. “Birthday Sex” may be stupid, juvenile and absurd. But if we don’t say something to oppose government’s attempt to outlaw a perfectly legitimate word in our language, we empower government to take even more steps to muzzle us. In this case, government has applied its own moral queasiness to suppress a neutral word we all have a right to use. Moral queasiness is no justification for ignoring the First Amendment, no matter how many supersensitive mothers call to complain.

America has deep and fundamental social problems with sex. But those problems should not be allowed to impact our rights under the First Amendment. Censorship should worry us all, no matter where it appears. Our language existed before the Constitution and before the government. It is ours. As long as we do not use it to injure others or foment violence, government has no right to trespass against it. When government targets our language, we all lose expressive possibilities. Without expressive possibilities, we do not truly enjoy our rights as individuals. That is why I detest ungrounded censorship. It is not just an attack on the speaker’s expressive powers. It is an attack on us all.

I HATE EUPHEMISMS

Euphemisms both amuse and disgust me. They amuse me because I can immediately cut through their dishonesty to understand what is really going on. They disgust me because anyone who writes euphemisms takes his reader for a gullible fool.

Cowards use euphemisms because they do not want to tell the truth about an event or situation. Rather than bluntly describe an event, euphemisms obscure truth with misleadingly neutral, unthreatening language. Many people resort to euphemisms when they are uncomfortable or embarrassed about the subject matter under discussion. In order to preserve their reputations—or their weak sensibilities—they craft their words to convey as little substance as possible. Quite simply, euphemistic speakers pervert language to feel better about themselves, not their listeners. Unless the listener has some tact, he may never actually know what the speaker is talking about. And that is unfortunate, because language controls power.

Consider these two examples. First, I saw a television advertisement yesterday about a “morning after” pill. The pitch line went something like this: “Don’t worry. Take our pill if you experience a birth control methodology failure.” A what? This sounds like some kind of ultra-technical engineering flaw, not the simple thing that actually happened: “Oh shit, honey; the condom broke.” Second, in the paper recently I read about an airliner that skidded off an icy runway then burst into flames. Passengers told stories about being violently tossed around the cabin and hearing the jet engines roar with terrifying intensity before they abandoned the plane. Those were visceral, honest recollections. But what did the airline say about the incident? “It is reported that Flight so-and-so exited the runway.” Exited? Sounds pretty calm and pleasant to me. Sounds like some guy just got up from his desk, sighed, stretched, farted, grabbed a cigarette and exited the building. What about the terror, flames, destruction and misery? I guess they did not want to bring that up.

I recount these two small examples to criticize those who take their readers for fools. I fault speakers who warp language in order to avoid difficult issues. But perhaps euphemisms reveal something more troublesome about our society. No one is ever really honest, especially when there is no compulsion to be honest. Instead, people say things in a way that feels best, even if it denies the truth. That disserves everyone, including the speaker. Worse, influential speakers in both public and private life have become extremely adept at euphemism. Euphemistic language becomes more and more subtle every year. And not everyone can decipher what these speakers actually mean.

When euphemism becomes the dominant means to communicate events or ideas, confusion, obscurity and dishonesty reign. Perhaps more disturbingly, a “communicative inequality” arises between speakers and listeners. The speaker knows what happened, but does not describe what happened in a way that others can truly grasp. The listener attempts to make sense of the speaker’s euphemism, but can never gain an honest insight. Listeners are left to interpret speakers, leading to suspicion, misunderstanding and mistrust.

Cynicism is a fine antidote to euphemism. When confronted by euphemism, a cynic immediately assumes that the speaker is detailing his words in just such a way as to benefit himself, whether financially, personally or simply to feel better. That allows him to get beyond meaningless jargon and fluff such as “birth control methodology failure” to see the speaker for who he really is: A self-interested advertiser so bent upon profit that he is unwilling to honestly describe the “uncomfortable” subject matter underlying his product. After all, if the speaker said: “When the condom breaks and you get accidentally inseminated, take our pill,” he might ruffle some sensitive feathers, and not as many people would buy his product. But he would more accurately describe reality than he would by saying: “Remedially apply our product in cases of birth control methodology failure.” In sum, euphemisms serve the speaker’s interests, not the listener’s. A cynical listener knows this, and he can translate euphemism into concise, descriptive language.

Still, penetrating euphemism takes some intuition, experience and mental nimbleness. Sadly, not everyone in our society has these capacities. For them, euphemism becomes a shadow-truth: Dishonesty becomes the new honesty; obscurity becomes the new clarity. It is all they hear. Euphemism has become immersive. When powerful speakers control discourse through language, they win every time. In this country, powerful speakers have already won; and we have no choice but to listen to them. All you need to do is turn on your television and wait no more than five minutes for the commercials to start.