Death & the Seven Words

In light of my last post, Derek Webb's use of profanity in a "Christian music" album (and during a concert at ACU), I was reminded of this observation from Walter Brueggemann in the interview I linked to last week (H/T to Daniel):

Walter: ...I’m just now working on a thing on George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say” and what I’m arguing is that the real reason you can’t say those words is that they remind us that we are bodies, and therefore we are fragile and we're mortal, and we’re going to die...

Dan: I wonder what George Carlin would have thought of a theologian writing on his work?

Walter: [laughing]
I'd be interested in seeing Brueggemann's analysis as this was the same argument that drove a recent study of mine published in the Journal of Psychology and Theology entitled Profanity: The Gnostic Affront of the Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. In that study I argued that profanity functions as a mortality reminder as it highlights the body in its reproductive and metabolic neediness. It light of that hypothesis, the study observed that death anxiety was positively correlated with being offended at profanity.

My blog summary of that paper can be found here, an online version of the paper here.
Full reference:
Beck, R. (2009). Profanity: The Gnostic Affront of the Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 37, 294-303.

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4 thoughts on “Death & the Seven Words”

  1. I'm struck by how explosive the urge to swear is when something happens that makes me (and pretty much everyone else I've observed) feel vulnerable--the moment of a painful injury, or perhaps dropping a gallon of milk right when I need to be out the door to work, etc. And the explosive urge to utter profanity does not--in these vulnerable moments--seem to be affected much by efforts at spiritual formation. :)

    I just read the summary, not the paper, but I didn't see you address the social/biological function of mortality reminders at these vulnerable moments. By issuing a mortality reminder, rendered with explosive energy, that simultaneously transgresses social boundaries, it seems that profanity serves as self defense: In effect, "Before you make the mistake of thinking that I'm vulnerable, let me make it clear that you're the one in a dangerous position with me right now!" Like a cornered animal growling.

    There must be literature to this effect? And I'm really hoping that it will help excuse me the next time a hammer lands on my thumb.

  2. Tacy writes "I'm struck by how explosive the urge to swear is when something happens that makes me (and pretty much everyone else I've observed) feel vulnerable-"

    I think this is a great summing up of the situational context for swearing.

    At times, I've worked in cultures where the f-bomb was used like the word smurf; it could be a verb adjective and noun in the same sentence.

    Myself, I refrain from such common use of the f-bomb, not for any moral reason, but in order to keep its power in situations where something is truly f-ed up. There is no word to replace it. One can't say "this is REALLY screwed up!" and have it carry the same gravitas as the word this lighter phrase replaces; no matter how many reallys are used, or how imperative they're made.

    I think this is how Jesus would have me handle this uniquely powerful word.

  3. It's funny to me that we use the word profanity to describe these words with the attitude we do:

    In the Temple, a huge veil separated the Holy of Holies--a place where no mere mortal could be--from the rest of the Temple. The part of the Temple where anyone could be, was called the profane; a word that means "before the threshold".

    Didn't one of the Gospel writers note that at the moment Jesus actually dies, the Temple Curtain was rent from top to bottom? a kind of tear that only God could do? and beginning a new eon where Holy and Profane mingle?

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