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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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Explainer
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Economics
6 min read

Paying for dignity lets life flourish

The Real Living Wage is the pragmatic way to safeguard the dignity of workers. Campaigner Ryan Gilfeather explains how it takes away the barriers to flourishing lives.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

At twlight, the lit office windows of two tower blocks contrast with a darkening sky
Night in London's financial district. when many cleaners work.
CGPGrey, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Christians have been at the heart of the campaign for the Real Living Wage since the movement began in 2001.  Alongside other faith and community groups, Christian leaders in East London noticed that so many people in their communities were paid so little that they had to work two jobs just to get by. These workers had to choose between feeding their children and seeing them. They did not even have time to go to church or pray. Christians have objected to poverty wages ever since because these wages deny the inextinguishable dignity of each person; their faith drives them to campaign for wages sufficient for the means of life 

The Real Living Wage is the minimum hourly pay rate someone needs to earn to be able to afford the means of life if they work full time. That’s £11.95 in London; £10.90 everywhere else. It’s calculated by the Resolution Foundation; a policy think tank that focuses on improving outcomes for people on low and modest incomes.  

A campaign run by The Living Wage Foundation encourages employers to agree to pay all their workers this amount.  

It is not to be confused with the so-called National Living Wage, which mandates by law that all workers 23 and older be paid £10.42 an hour.

Since we are all fundamentally equal, we all deserve the same dignity. This dignity involves allowing all to flourish in the ways a human being should. 

Many Christians support the Real Living Wage because the Bible leads them to believe that every single human being shares the same fundamental dignity and value. As the story of creation says, everyone is made in ‘the image of God.’ Nothing is of greater value than God, so no thing in this world is more valuable than the image of God. Since we are all fundamentally equal, we all deserve the same dignity. This dignity involves allowing all to flourish in the ways a human being should, for example health, faith, family relationships and opportunities for children.  

As each year passes, the way to safeguard the dignity of all in relation to work changes. Wages and working conditions change over time. When positive patterns emerge Christians praise and support them, but when insidious structures emerge, they challenge them. Safeguarding the inherent dignity of all human beings requires moral pragmatism. It demands that Christians always consider which changeable means can help attain the unchanging goal of human dignity.  They see the Real Living Wage as a pragmatic way of safeguarding what the Bible teaches about human dignity, because poverty wages compromise it.  

Poverty wages undermine workers’ ability to flouring in faith, health, family relationships, and opportunity for their children. 

Voices of those on poverty wages reveal its damaging effects. In December 2022, a church in the heart of London’s financial district,, St Katherine Cree, hosted a carol service in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The intended congregation were not financiers but cleaners. Alongside singing carols and listening to bible readings, the service included testimonies from cleaners and their families, expressing their sense of life and faith. These testimonies exposed how poverty wages undermine workers’ ability to flouring in faith, health, family relationships, and opportunity for their children. 

The root of the problem is that poverty wages cause severe overwork. Maritza, a one-time cleaner earning poverty wages and now a manager at Clean for Good, a cleaning company which pays the Real Living Wage, recalls:  

"I went through a very difficult time in my life – having to bring up my children on my own, and earning so little money. I had to work such long hours."  

Whilst Toyin, a community organiser and child of a cleaner earning below the living wage, speaks of how their mother ‘worked two jobs, seven days a week’ simply because her ‘job does not pay enough.’ Low paid workers often work incredibly long hours to earn enough to feed their children. These long hours and overwork then get in the way of these workers flourishing in other aspects of their life. 

Such overwork compromises faith. Maritza explains that: “In this time of hardship, I lost my faith.” Toyin’s account expands on why Maritza and others have this experience.  

“The people that I work with are affected because having more than one job does not allow them to find the time to go to church or even pray.”  

For Christians, going to Church and praying underpin an individual’s faith. When poverty wages necessitate long and often unpredictable hours, they prevent people from exercising their religious belief and identity in these ways. Hence, one of the experiences of workers which led to the real living wage campaign was that overwork and Sunday working meant there was little time left for churchgoing or the other practices of faith. Aspects of life that having discretionary free times allows us to do. 

Severe overwork damages the mental health of cleaners. Toyin suggests that an inability to spend time with family and practice their religious beliefs “has affected their mental health and well-being.” Research shows how widespread this phenomenon is. 69 per cent of below living wage workers report that their pay negatively affects their anxiety. Thus, poverty wages force conditions which damage workers’ health. 

Under these conditions, workers find it difficult to make advance plans, even for events as important as their children’s birthday parties.

Conditions of poverty and overwork undermine family relationships. Maritza explains that,  

‘‘I had to work such long hours that my children saw very little of me."

Toyin fleshes this point out.  

"My mother was not paid a real living wage which meant I missed out on time with my mother which I resented as I didn’t understand her sacrifice at the time… The people that I work with are affected because having more than one job does not allow them to find the time to… provide the time, love and support to their families."  

Cleaners often work such long hours at inconvenient times of the day that they are simply unable to see their children enough to nurture that relationship. To make matters worse, these hours are often highly unpredictable. 50 per cent  of workers earning less than the real living wage receive less than a week’s notice for shifts, and 33 per cent have experienced unexpected cancellations. Under these conditions, workers find it difficult to make advance plans, even for events as important as their children’s birthday parties. It is no surprise, therefore, that 48 percent of workers earning less than the real living wage say that their wage has negatively affected their relationship with their children. Poverty wages force workers to choose between spending enough time with their children and having enough money to provide for them. 

Poverty wages erode educational outcomes for children. Toyin explains that some parents find it harder to support children in their education.  

"When I was younger, my mother worked two jobs, seven days a week which meant she was not able to help me with my schoolwork, come to school assemblies and other family needs."  

Since parental support increases the child’s educational attainment, these children are left vulnerable to worse educational outcomes. Furthermore, it forces children into unofficial caring roles. 

"There are also families where children have to care for their younger siblings, cook, clean and play the role of the parent due to their parent not being paid a living wage." 

The pressures of this role distract from a child’s education and compromises their ability to reach their full potential. Poorer educational outcomes for children living in poverty is well documented. According to the National Education Union, ‘Children accessing Free School Meals are 8% less likely to leave school with 5 A*-C GCSE grades than their wealthier peers.’ A lack of parental support and the burden of caring responsibilities are likely a contributing factor. 

Christians see how poverty wages compromise the inherent dignity of these workers by restricting their ability to flourish in faith, health, family relationships and opportunities for children. They also notice that these problems are widespread: the Resolution Foundation found in 2021 that about one in five jobs in the UK pay below the Real Living Wage. They believe that the Real Living Wage is the pragmatic way to safeguard the dignity of these workers, because it will take away the barriers to their flourishing. That is why Christians continue to campaign for the Real Living Wage, and why increasing numbers of Christian employers insist on paying fair wages. In this way, the belief that all are made in the image of God leads Christians pursue a world in which safeguards every person’s dignity and worth.  

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