Swearing

I wonder if the frequency of swearing is one reason why we have so much violence in our culture. When people get angry they tend to express it by stepping outside the bounds of their usual behavior. When polite people only used certain words when they were angry, saying them helped release some of the anger.

But now many people use those words frequently in their everyday conversations, so when they need to express anger by stepping outside the bounds of what's normally acceptable, swearing doesn't provide release. Instead, they release their anger with physical violence.

Of course some people have always done that, just as some people have always used impolite language, but as swearing has become more prevalent in our society, so has physical violence.

Too bad we can't do much to change that.

But we can teach children not to swear. If parents today were to wash their children's mouths out with soap for using dirty words they'd probably be accused of child abuse, but there are certainly other ways of teaching kids to avoid using that kind of language.