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Virtues
5 min read

The corrosive effect of profuse profanity

The coarsening of speech prompts Yaroslav Walker to remember that what you say influences who you are.
An irate man holds a mobile phone to his ear while gesticulating with his other hand.
Malcolm Tucker makes his point.

“You breathe a word of this to anyone, you mincing f*****g C**T, and I will tear your f*****g skin off, I will wear it to your mother’s birthday party and I will rub your nuts up and down her leg whilst whistling ‘Bohemian-f*****g-Rhapsody’…right!?” 

This is my favourite Malcom Tucker line of all time. This is what Malcom might call, ‘top swearing’. The Thick of It exploded onto our screens in 2005, supposedly lifting the lid on the workings (or absolute lack of) of the twenty-first century British government. The show immortalised the sweary Scot Malcolm Tucker – supposedly partly based on real-life New Labour spin-doctor Alastair Campbell, and played to perfection by Peter Capaldi. The nation watched with a mix of horror and delight, enraptured by the best political comedy since Yes, Minister. However, unlike Yes, Minister, power in The Thick of It is not wielded through the obscurantist language of the elite Oxbridge-educated civil service, but through the terrifyingly unhinged and violent rantings of Tucker’s Svengali spin-doctor.  I can only assume that most people on the outside of government took it all with a pinch of salt – I certainly did. Surely, SURELY, it couldn’t be as bad as ‘that’!? 

Dipping in and out of the coverage of the UK’s COVID public inquiry showed me just how wrong I was. Civil servants and political appointees writing on WhatsApp were indistinguishable from eighteenth century press-ganged sailors in a tavern. The highlight was the testimony of Dominic Cummings, who was confronted with his use of the saltier elements of the English language: “Due in large part to your own WhatsApps, Mr Cummings, we’re going to have to coarsen our language somewhat…” the investigating KC chided. “I apologise”, was the rather phlegmatic response.  

We were then given a tour-de-force of aggressive sweariness – ministers were called ‘useless f**kpigs’, ‘morons’, ‘c**ts’, and it was suggested that in the case of civil servant Helen MacNamara he would ‘handcuff her and escort her’ from Downing Street. Upon being asked whether this language might have contributed to a lack of effectiveness in the Downing Street COVID response, Mr Cummings denied the charge – he was just reflecting the prevailing mood…but of course such language did. 

He is very clear in teaching people that the words that leave their mouths have the power to bless them or damn them. 

We live in a culture where speech, especially public speech, has progressively been coarsened. The television ‘watershed’ excludes less and less offensive speech, performative profanity is now de rigueur for many celebrities and even some politicians, and there has emerged a real generational divide between those of my generation and the baby-boomers. We appear to have forgotten a basic rule that the ancients knew all too well: affect has effect. What you say influences who you are.  

What we say, just as what we do, impacts the sort of person we become and the virtues (or lack of them) that we build up and possess. If we look to Aristotle, we are introduced the concept of habitus. It isn’t just a habit – not just an activity that we engage in on a regular basis – but is a repeated behaviour that builds up our character, for good or for ill. This idea was taken up in some form by Augustine, Averroes, Aquinas, and even people whose name doesn’t begin with the letter A. Our speech, if repeated over and over again, moulds our character. Kind speech, lovely speech, righteous speech – repeated ad nauseum – will have as their end product a kind, a lovely, a righteous person. Violent speech, aggressive speech, coarse speech, will have as their end product a violent, aggressive, and a coarse version of the same. 

Going beyond Aristotelian categories to biblical ones, the use of language is often a favourite theme. The most famous Hebrew example is perhaps the commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain…” Our speech is important to God, because it is a basic indicator of how we conduct ourselves – and so an indicator of who we are – and we ought to be conducting ourselves in the light of God’s will and God’s law: “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”  

As we move from the Old Covenant to the New, we find St Paul continuing this idea and extending the principle – our words reflect our relationship with God, and so will impact our relationship with other people (who are made in His image). He asks the Colossians that they speak ‘always with grace’, tells the Ephesians to avoid ‘filthiness…foolish talking…jesting’, and commands the Romans to always have a word of blessing ready rather than a curse. The community of holy people, living a life for God and for each other, can easily be destroyed by a cruel slip of the tongue – a fight can break out over even a mild insult. Perhaps this is why Jesus is quite so strict about speech – “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” He is very clear in teaching people that the words that leave their mouths have the power to bless them or damn them.  

Perhaps one of its recommendations could be that at the highest levels of national decision making, our leaders and officials always strive to behave with calm and considerate courtesy. 

“Do you think your description of your colleagues, the way in which you described them, their functions, their abilities, their talents, added to that dysfunctionality?” the KC asked Cummings. “No, I think the opposite…” came the slightly bewildered reply. But how could it not? How could speech that has been revealed to be so chaotic, so hostile, so unpleasant, and so callous contribute anything positive to the working environment? More importantly, and I don’t know Mr Cummings and am not making a statement on what his inner character and virtue actually is - how can it contribute anything positive to the person who utters it?  

The COVID inquiry has been set-up to teach us lessons on how to be better prepared to tackle the next pandemic. I pray that it succeeds in this aim. Perhaps one of its recommendations could be that at the highest levels of national decision making, our leaders and officials always strive to behave with calm and considerate courtesy, where speech is used to edify, support, and commend. I believe, and Scripture teaches, that if this is taken on as a vital lesson we will, not only be better prepared to steer the country through the crises of the future, but the entire tenor of our political and public life will be better – holier even. The good news is that it costs nothing to put this recommendation into practice...all it takes to get started is a kind word. 

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6 min read

Why bother with podcasts if nobody is listening?

As critics snipe at the popularity of podcasting, podcaster James Cary explores the medium and how we should listen to them.

James Cary

James is a writer of sit coms for TV and radio.

Two people sit cross-legged at a low table on which two microphones stand. One press a key on a laptop on the floor.
Photo by Kate Oseen on Unsplash.

During the pandemic, an Australian comedy show, At Home Alone Together on ABC, made a sketch that was widely shared on the internet, especially among podcasters. For those wondering what to do with their time, they had one clear, simple message given with typical Australian honesty: Do not start a f***ing podcast. 

I’ve encountered hostility to the idea of podcasts since I started listening to them fifteen years ago, when the main options were This American Life and Kermode and Mayo talking about movies. Both were podcast versions of existing excellent radio programmes. 

With every passing year, podcasts have become more popular, a huge boost coming in 2014 with the Serial podcast, which was a spin-off This American Life. People with iPhones were realising what the purple icon was, and they weren’t afraid to use it. 

 

Attention a zero-sum game. If you’re listening to something, you’re not listening to something else. Nobody wants their time wasted.

Many resisted. They didn’t really understand what podcasts were, where they came from, how to find them and what made them different from radio programmes. Merely mentioning podcasts would make people either roll their eyes, or far worse, causing what I would call “Podcast Derangement Syndrome”. We see that, albeit humorously, in the ABC sketch, urging people not to start a podcast. 

It’s a fair point. Don’t start a podcast out of boredom. It won’t last more than a few episodes (that’s called ‘podfading’), it won’t be any good and no one will listen as it’s not offering anything substantial or insightful.  

We live in an attention economy. Attention a zero-sum game. If you’re listening to something, you’re not listening to something else. Nobody wants their time wasted. Like a book proposal or an article, you need a clear offer to your listener or reader. 

For example, my own Sitcom Geeks podcast - which ended this month after 222 episodes over eight years – was all about helping people write better sitcom scripts. Yes, that’s a niche interest, but tens of thousands of people want to write sitcoms. 

Many podcasters never identify what they’re offering. They make the mistake of the first crop of bloggers twenty years ago, who started hammering out their error-strewn opinions on everything from politics to dieting. Most of these blogs were read by almost no one, and even the more popular ones didn’t have large numbers. Every medium is the same. Most books don’t sell more than a few dozen copies, particularly self-published ones. Most shows at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe will have an audience in the single digits. 

Podcasting is the same. My other podcast, Cooper and Cary Have Words, deals in lightly comic, theological conversation. Now on Episode 157, we have a fairly devoted listenership, but it’s small. I mention it not because I’m a tiresome podcaster who is forever promoting their podcast. Okay, it’s partly that. But I’m going to do the one thing podcasters never do, which is talk about how many people actually listen. And the numbers here might surprise you. 

Each episode of Cooper and Cary Have Words is usually downloaded by about 1,100 people within a week of dropping, and then another 1,100 within 90 days. So that 2,200 listeners, creeping up another few hundred over the following month. That’s not many, is it? Even late-night shows on BBC local radio playing outré jazz get more listeners by a factor of ten. 

Here’s the next surprise: these figures put Cooper and Cary Have Words into the top 5% of all podcasts in terms of listeners. The 4,500 downloads in the first seven days would put us in the top 1% which again, seems low. The two Seen & Unseen podcasts, Re-enchanting and Seen & Unseen Aloud, are doing well but everyone is dwarfed by the Joe Rogan Experience, which, according to Time Magazine, is experienced by 11 million people. 

But here’s the big statistic to keep in mind: 50% of podcast episodes get fewer than 30 downloads in the first week. 

This would give some justification, then, for a recent article in The Spectator by Sam Kriss who has the most chronic case of Podcast Derangement Syndrome I’ve encountered for a while. He begins by making curious comments about how podcasts are fake, including real ones, but his point is this: “nobody actually listens to any of them.” 

I understand the rage against a phenomenon. The media often confects a craze. When everyone was talking about Game of Thrones, it was fair to point out that this premium show on pay-TV was being watched by a truly tiny number of people. It’s just some of those people were people like TV critics for The Spectator or the BBC. 

Kriss then rather undermines his claim that no-one listens by saying “Sometimes people ask me which podcasts I listen to, and when I reply that these days I don’t really listen to any they react as if I’d said I don’t eat food or breathe air.” So, are those people lying about listening to podcasts? The Spectator has several podcasts. Are they a waste of time and money? 

“Podcasts are also, objectively, crap. I don’t say this lightly.” I think you do, Sam, but let’s take it at face value. The charge that many podcasts are acts of inane vanity is undoubtedly fair. Many others are well-meaning, but poorly recorded and unfocussed. 

This isn’t the 1930s when families might huddle around the wireless and give the BBC their undivided attention. 

But let us also remember that an awful lot of broadcast radio is highly disposable, being either inane links between songs on commercial radio, or punditry for the sake of it on talk radio, whether it’s BBC Radio 4 or TalkSport.  

There are some good podcasts, thought. What about them, Kriss? He says they’re not worth listening to unless you give them your undivided attention, explaining that if you’re listening to a podcast while doing something else, you’re not really taking in the content. This is not educating yourself, but merely acquiring an illusion of knowledge. 

But surely all audio works the same way? We’re listening to the radio or podcasts while we’re cooking, washing up or driving. This isn’t the 1930s when families might huddle around the wireless and give the BBC their undivided attention. 

Then comes a sentence which is revealing. Kriss has just told us that podcasts aren’t real, we don’t listen to podcasts anyway, and that we’re lying about it and when we do listen, we’re not learning anything when we do. We’re all idiots. He then writes,

“The people who make podcasts usually have a very dim view of their public.”

Oh, Sam. Thou dost project too much, methinks. 

We all like a rant. And we often like reading polemical pieces. We love a Clarkson, a Cowell and a Boycott sounding off. But I wonder if Sam Kriss, an established writer for a well-regarded publication has succumbed to the elitist mindset. It is tempting to disparage the voices of those from the outside who wish to speak, whether or not anyone wishes to listen. Thanks to smartphones and RSS feeds, they can, just as the blogs did two decades ago. 

The medium is new but the lesson is old. To whom do we listen? If you look at the life of Jesus it is striking how often he listened to the voices of the excluded, even when his own disciples and henchmen tried to bundle the blind and the embarrassing out of the way. Moreover, those that sought to control the flow of information were, to use theological jargon, ‘the baddies’. We live in age where all kinds of voices can be heard. The question is whether we wish to listen. 

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