Not a single living creature on the planet has achieved such “success” in self-destruction as man. Today, most people methodically and purposefully dig their own grave: some with a spoon, some with a glass, some with a computer mouse, spending day and night in the virtual reality of computer games.
And self-destructive forms of behavior have become so familiar to us that it is already considered the norm. And for a healthy lifestyle you need good reasons, at least a serious illness that simply does not allow you to continue to engage in self-destruction. It gets ridiculous: in order to give up alcohol or meat, you need to find an “excuse” for others - for what reason a person no longer intends to destroy himself. And sometimes it’s easier for a person to say that illness does not allow him to further destroy himself than to hear that he “fell into a sect.”
And there are a huge number of methods of self-destruction that are perceived as the norm in society today. Unfortunately, some of them remain popular even among those who lead a healthy lifestyle. One of these phenomena is swearing or swear words.
Even among spiritual practitioners, there is a certain layer of people who adhere to the theory that swearing is an original Russian phenomenon, these are words that carry powerful energy, and with them one can, as they say, “push through reality.” Such people usually give some completely wild examples that, they say, at a construction site or in the army you can’t do without swearing at all, they say, swearing is almost a tool for creation under certain conditions. However, it is as old as time. If a person has any bad habit, in most cases it is much easier for him to subsume an entire philosophical concept under this habit than to simply make an effort and overcome his limitation.
However, there is some truth in this theory. Swear words actually carry powerful energy, but this is energy that destroys us. An atomic bomb is also powerful energy, but, presumably, there are few people who want this bomb to whistle over their city. The situation with swear words is approximately the same: it is powerful energy, but it is designed to destroy our body and psyche.
People swear to be like everyone else
This is the most common reason. And it is widespread primarily among guys.
Once I was listening to a lecture on psychology, and the lecturer described the following situation. Imagine a teenage child studying at school. He studies well, behaves civilly, speaks politely with teachers. Everyone says about him: “What a good boy!”
And this child leaves school after school. He goes home and sees a crowd of hooligans coming towards him. As soon as he notices them, he immediately begins to spit, swear, and behave cheekily. Not a trace remained of the former “good boy”.
Why does this happen? What does the student want to say with this behavior to those hooligans who come towards him?
“Don't hit me. I'm just like you. Why do you need to beat me?
Another situation. Imagine that a conscript soldier is transferred from one unit to another for some reason. This other part is an already formed team, where it is customary to swear. The soldier finds himself in this new team and sees that everyone uses obscenities in their speech. If he doesn't swear, he will immediately attract attention. They can even “check” him: “Come on, say “...”.” Don't you swear? Cultural or what?”
So it turns out: either oppose yourself to the entire new team, become a “black sheep” in society, or become like everyone else. That is, start speaking the language that all other participants in society speak.
The power given to the word
When a person utters at least one word, through this word he also transfers his energy to you. If the person's energy was negative, then you are likely to be affected by the person's words as the water in your body will absorb that energy.
That is, you will also be saturated with this negative energy.
If a person swears all the time, then they are likely to send a lot of negative energy to you, even if the swear words are not intended for you.
People swear to be higher in the social hierarchy
Let's assume that there is a conditional class where children do not swear. Well, let’s say that such a class exists.
A new student enters the class. He notices that none of the children around use mats. And he starts swearing. Not in front of the teachers, of course, but during recess or when everyone is going home after school. In general, he finds time for this.
For what? To assert yourself. Swearing in our “proper” class is something forbidden. And the new kid wants to show the children around him: “Look, you can’t, but I can!” I’m not afraid of anything, I’m cooler than all of you!”
Pain tolerance
Everyone is familiar with such situations when you can accidentally hit your elbow on a sharp object and experience sharp and very unpleasant pain for a few moments. People who are accustomed to using foul language find it much easier to endure this state, since they can swear a lot. This may seem strange, but scientists have found that such a release of negative energy can have a pain-relieving effect.
The basis of swearing is fear
Two of the three reasons that I described above boil down to one thing - fear. A person swears because he is afraid. Afraid of loneliness. He is afraid of being rejected, of not realizing his ambitions, of remaining an outcast forever.
By using swear words in speech, a man or woman is trying to “win back” their place in society and show their strength.
Paying attention
In this article I am not considering situations where a person uses obscenities to insult another. I'm talking about situations where obscene language becomes part of a person's everyday vocabulary. With insults, everything is clear and transparent.
WHICH NEURONS ARE “RESPONSIBLE” FOR STORING
We all know that human speech is not a completely controlled process, especially emotional speech.
In recent years, scientists have been exploring the neural mechanisms of foul language by studying the brains of patients with Tourette syndrome.
Tourette syndrome is a rare neurological disorder of unknown origin, characterized by nervous tics, grimacing, and involuntary shouting of obscenities. Such painful, irresistible swearing was called “coprolalia” (from the Greek “kopros” - feces, dirt and “lalia” - speech).
Why are we drawn to “forbidden” swearing and why is swearing generally “forbidden”
Indeed, why is swearing “taboo”? And why are some of us so drawn to this “forbidden” fruit?
To answer this question, let's go back many, many centuries.
In terms of human evolution, swearing was progress, not regression. People realized that in order to take revenge on the offender, there is no need to shed blood. You can just say the word.
And the question arose about what words to say. What words can hurt another person to the heart.
For any ancient tribe, family feelings and blood ties were very important. And the worst insult that could be inflicted on a man or woman is to talk about an intimate relationship with the person closest to him or her - his mother.
Hence this category - “swearing” words.
Why are there such negative attitudes towards them in intellectual and cultural circles? Because these are the most disgusting words that exist in the language. These are words that were created to insult a person's most precious possession.
Unfortunately, few people know about this “backstory” and few people talk about it. And children, teenagers, and then older boys and girls think that swearing is just something forbidden and therefore interesting. The Forbidden fruit is sweet.
“Swearing carries a powerful charge of cultural degradation.” Part 1
Dirty language is practically the “norm” of modern life. What is a mat? Why is it taboo in a society that thinks about its present and future? What does swearing from the throats of teenagers and girls mean?.. The editor of the website “Culturologist” Andrey Karpov tells the Caucasian Geopolitical Club about the essence of the phenomenon.
— Dear Andrei Vladimirovich, we all know from childhood that swearing is bad (we learn a little later that it is sinful). Why exactly? Why is swearing “bad words,” as they say in childhood, or foul language, as it is defined in adulthood? Why is the Church so attentive to this sin?
— Previously, they used to say about a person who swears: he swears in black. Swearing is generally bad. But our people put swearing separately, giving it the definition of black (i.e. especially bad) swearing.
Swearing generally has two roots. One is a verbal duel: when confronting the enemy, the warriors first tried to hit the enemy with a word. Hence, in fact, the synonym for swearing is swearing. If we argue with the people who surround us in everyday life, we assign them the image of an enemy, which, of course, is a crime against the commandment of love. But historical memory (for example, in the form of folklore) preserves scenes of altercations with real enemies, returning the abuse to its original meaning, and then it is perceived positively.
The other root is even darker. This is a pagan magical worldview. Swear words often look like curses. In ancient times, a person believed that the word has real power, and by wishing evil on another person publicly, you can really bring misfortune down on his head. But even in ancient times, people understood that such actions simply do not happen. Calling evil to your service, you will have to serve it too. A sacrifice is needed. There will be a price to pay for the curse.
The spirit of magic, evaporated from other swear words, accompanied the swearing for a long time. The essence of swearing is that a person swears with forbidden words. According to the logic of the black victim, the greater the crime you commit, the greater the reward the forces of evil give you. If you say something that is forbidden to say, your words acquire special evil power. Therefore, it is no coincidence that swearing always resulted in the desecration of sacred objects. Foul language has become a sign of conscious service to evil. That is why, in traditional Russian culture, a foul-mouthed person was considered a person who challenged society; Yes he was. Naturally, society had a negative attitude towards foul language, and the Church quite rightly saw in swearing an appeal to Satan - almost a black “prayer”.
It is also equally important that the semantics of swear words, as they say, are “below the belt.” Such localization allows us to bring down to this level everything that is addressed with obscene language. It carries a powerful charge of cultural degradation. Today, swearing does not look like fighting against God, but its devilish nature is manifested precisely in this: it destroys culture, first of all, its top, that which sets the bar and supports spiritual heights.
— What is the reason for the taboo on swearing in public spaces and especially “in front of children” (this, in any case, was the case in my childhood, which took place in an ordinary Moscow working-class residential area)? Why, just recently, was this prohibition strictly observed even by degenerate members of society (I learned the most common swear words only in the fourth or fifth grade, although this is probably already a developmental delay - in our country, drunks did not swear in front of children, not to mention to hear it in the family)?
- The child is clean. At least this thesis is natural for traditional culture. Soviet culture was largely traditional. We brought this inheritance from the USSR, but then it was quickly lost.
The natural desire is to maintain purity. If the child is clean, then he must be protected from dirt. Even a swearing person understood this and tried to restrain his tongue as much as possible.
— Based on this, how can we explain the free use of obscene and abusive words now? They can be seen in print, heard in songs (and not only specifically subcultural ones - I remember how amazed I was when I first heard obscene musical rhymes from an ordinary shawarma stall at the Barrikadnaya metro station); finally, parents can quite calmly, as they say , in front of everyone, “swear” at a child or at each other in front of the same child and other children? The general decline in the cultural level is understandable, but the Soviet drinking proletariat did not allow themselves anything like that. Probably, we need to make allowances “for Moscow,” but, according to stories, public use of obscenities was not the norm in the provinces either. What was released in the nineties?
— The big problem is that we have lost the value of cleanliness. We have forgotten how to take care of it. The pure/impure dichotomy no longer works. Look at what films are sometimes labeled as family films: they are full of vulgarity and dirt. Okay, they don't have explicit sex scenes, but that doesn't mean they're free of raunchiness.
Visual dirt requires adequate verbal expression, which is swearing. If earlier swearing was the language of a drunken state - a person could swear while drinking, but did not allow himself to do so when sober (and did not allow it because he wanted to preserve some values for himself, some amount of purity), but now swearing has become detached from intoxication. Every now and then you can hear that all values are relative. That a person can shape himself as he wants, that he must give himself as much freedom as possible. So it turns out that there is no longer anything that should be stored.
This process did not start yesterday. And not with the collapse of the USSR. The level of vulgarity was slowly growing in Soviet cinema. But the collapse of the Soviet Union was a one-time nullification of many meanings. The Russian people seemed to have plunged into bad freedom. This also affected the language environment.
Among business people of the Soviet era (party workers, directors, etc.) it was customary to let “matters” in on occasion. In a narrow circle, many people swore. Therefore, when freedom was announced, everyone began to swear openly. The right to speak obscenities became one of its manifestations. Somehow they forgot about the children. Children generally interfere with enjoying freedom. And then it turned out that the children were no longer pure. The atmosphere previously created around childhood, representing the world of childhood as something special, has dissipated. Now the world of childhood is no more. Children are immersed in the same world as adults, privy to a common cultural dirt.
— Cursing is the new norm for modern youth. It is not surprising, since obscene demotivators make up a huge share of the content of the social network VKontakte; they are mandatory, daily and repeatedly seen by subscribers of almost any major “entertainment” public. Is this a conscious policy or, on the contrary, do the creators of such content follow youth fashion?
— I wouldn’t call swearing the “new” norm. Young people have always been at linguistic risk. Many people “tried” swearing in childhood or adolescence, although as a result they did not accept it, and do not swear in adulthood. The process of growing up is that you must move from following the commandments due to external (parental) coercion to following them due to personal internal motivation. At the same time, a teenager always tests the prohibitions “for strength”: what will happen if I do not do as the adults tell me? Will this really lead to harmful consequences? Language prohibitions are in some respects the easiest to break: the consequences are not so obvious; If you don’t swear in front of your parents, then they will remain in the dark. At the same time, you will be “cool” among teenagers. “Coolness” in general, as a rule, was measured by the ability to violate the rules of adults.
This touch of “coolness” on swearing remains today, despite the fact that the absolute ban on swearing in society has been lifted. Adults and children often find themselves in the same obscene verbal space. But swearing seems to add brutality. The child is naive and weak. A teenager wants to be tough and strong, this is how he sees adults. And he swears, feeling that this makes him tougher. Moreover, adults openly swear. Moreover, the “cooler” the adult, the more likely it is that he swears.
The most popular social media content among teenagers is created by teenagers themselves or young people who have recently been teenagers. Of course, to a certain extent, young people are easier to manipulate, so older people also try to use them; however, in order to lead teenagers where you want them to go, you need to give them what they are willing to take. It is always easier to go in the bad direction, because here a consensus of sin with sin arises: a negative goal is better assimilated, because you can follow it by indulging your own weaknesses.
— It’s amazing, but some “lovers” also “talk obscenities” to each other (that there are quite a few of them, we see almost every day on the streets and in the subway). Love - and swearing, how is this possible? What does it mean to use such words in a love context?.. Lack of respect? Lack of love?..
- Respect and love are bad in different ways. The concept of respect has simply been lost. What does it mean to respect? Whom? Your... partner? You can respect your business partner because you are building a future together. And many current couples don’t even have such a task. They are in no hurry, as they say, to “formalize their relationship.” They just got together - because (another common phrase) “they feel good with each other.” Today they got together, tomorrow they will separate. But even when the future is still discussed, and the ground for respect is discovered, this respect is not real. Its basis still remains selfishness. “I respect you” in this system means “I need you.” The center of the world for modern man is himself. Modern man values all manifestations of his personality. He is not ready to restrain himself in anything, to restrain himself. Therefore, if he swears, then he will swear even when he is “in love.”
Love today has been reduced to carnal relationships. Its center is sexual practice. Previously, it was customary to hide this side of the relationship in the shadows; in particular, it was not discussed - not only publicly, but also between spouses. Now it is considered that talking “about it” is normal. But, if you do not use scientific language, the conversation on the topic of bed life turns out to be quite rude, and the boundary separating “normal” speech here from obscenities turns out to be easily permeable.
— One of the most alarming trends is the active use of obscenities and swear words by girls. It seems that, unlike guys of the same age, who are more likely to “speak obscenities,” for girls it is often more than “just (bad) words.” It is no coincidence that the widespread use of the expression “damn it!” has become part of youth fashion (even in relatively reputable glossy publications). (etc.), often in a completely inappropriate context (“damn it, I have the right to buy this eyeshadow palette!”). Stronger words, and without any formal apologies, are easily inserted into their oral and written speech by various trainers, PR people, journalists and other public female people. It seems that they are flaunting this (what? Who can be surprised by this?..). Many girls get so used to the constant use of swear words that they cannot part with it even in groups dedicated, for example, to fashion or recipes. Swearing practically pours out of women's throats uncontrollably. What does this signal?
“We are being prepared for a transition from sex to gender.” The cultural division into male and female is written off as archaic. Different roles are assumed only in the “sexual game”, and in other spheres a person must turn into a kind of asexual, average creature. In Russia, this process has not yet gone far and we have not crossed the red line, but the cultural environment is experiencing certain pressure in this direction. Young people are especially sensitive to it. If our guys are not yet ready to imitate girls, then girls have almost given up the classic model of female behavior. Women have been called the “weaker sex”, and in the modern world no one wants to be weak. As a result, today we have more and more “tomboys” instead of girls. For those who have followed this path, swearing becomes something of an initiation or identification mark. By swearing, the girl seems to be saying: “I cannot be considered weak.” The harshness of her speech makes her equal to men. This is equality that costs nothing but is easy to achieve.
In addition, there is also a point here: they look for confidence in swearing. Modern man is under enormous pressure. He is expected to make himself happen. He has nothing to rely on. He doesn’t know God, he was deprived of tradition, society left him to his fate. Today you are successful, tomorrow something happens to you: an illness, a nervous breakdown, a domestic disaster - and all your success disappears in an instant. Deprived of a genuine foundation, man today is especially weak. This weakness unites both men and women. But you cannot admit weakness - this contradicts the ideal of a self-sufficient person who does not need anyone or anything, which has become a fashionable cultural template today. And in order to convince yourself and those around you that you are not giving up, can withstand pressure and do not give in to circumstances, a person resorts to increasingly harsh language. Mat seems to add strength. To some extent, this is true: swearing contains the energy of despair. A person reconciles himself with the world, going down: if the world is so bad, if the environment is aggressive, I will also be bad and aggressive, I will become adequate to the environment, and this will increase my chances of survival. This solution works for a while, but then the person may finally break down. After all, by accepting the situation as exclusively negative, he deprives himself of the opportunity to change it for the better.
The ending follows
Categorization of Russian swear words
V. M. Mokienko proposed his own systematization of such vocabulary. In his concept, “obscene vocabulary” and “abusive vocabulary” intersect, but are not identical.
Swearing is derogatory and offensive expressions, and obscene language is coarse obscene words. But these groups are connected by the same characteristic - an emotional response to unexpected disgusting acts.
Mokienko divides the swear lexicon according to functional and thematic properties into the following groups:
- Names of people with bad characteristics (nonentity, prostitute).
- Names of socially prohibited body parts.
- The name of the process of performing sexual intercourse.
- Naming some physical needs (departments).
- Naming the “results” of certain physical needs.
Definition of profanity
If we consider the general case, then profanity is a set of words that have not taken root in Russian speech and are outside the literary norm.
This includes barbarisms, dialectisms and incorrect or invented words (neologisms of the author's origin), and simply boorish expressions.
Some of the latter are not perceived, but some are so closely integrated into the Russian language that they become an inseparable part of speech.
For example, in the past, Velimir Khlebnikov invented the word “pilot”, and Mikhail Lomonosov invented the word “thermometer”.
Profanity is also called obscene vocabulary (from the Latin obscenus) with the meaning of obscenity, debauchery, immorality.
Russian obscenity is one of the sections of the latter. The whole variety of obscene expressions originates from three concepts that have the meaning of human genitals, as well as sexual intercourse.
History of origin
Today there is more than one option for the emergence of such a lexicon in Rus'. According to the first of them, the swear lexical set was brought by the Tatar-Mongols during the seizure of Russian lands.
This option is not very popular with a certain group of historians. According to them, the nomads did not use swear words in their language. During the excavations, they found pages that even before the arrival of the invaders contained swear words. Another option dates back to the period of paganism.
To facilitate childbirth, ancestors used conspiracies in which they used similar expressions. And the sorcerers inserted them into their curses. The adoption of Christianity entailed a change in the value system. All symbolism associated with the genitals, as well as sexual intercourse, was banned.
Researchers of Russian profanity
For the most part, Russian obscene vocabulary has been studied by foreign researchers. In the West, after the seventies, several articles were even published on this topic.
A. Plutsera-Sarno dedicated his publication “Obscene Dictionary as a Phenomenon of Russian Culture” to the study of Russian swear words. In addition, the initial works of Russian researchers V. Bykov and B. Uspensky were published abroad.
In Russia, the first research work on the topic of obscene expressions was written by Doctor of Philology, Professor V.I. Zhelvison, “Battlefield. Foul language as a social problem."
In 1998, Russian scientists Dmitry Dobrovolsky and Anatoly Baranov published the book “Russian Treasured Idiomatics”.
Over the course of 25 years, Alexey Plutser-Sarno compiled the twelve-volume “Dictionary of Russian Mat.” Only in 2001-2005 were the first two books published.
