THE ASEPSIS OF NICE-NESS -- INSULT BY STEALTH

I have an aggressive weakness for saying what I mean and meaning what I say. In tandem with that, I have this unrealistic expectation that others who want to play with me should do the same.

I seem to have developed an allergy to political correctness and insidious niceness. My heroes include doyens of outrageous indecency and purgers of pomposity like Lenny Bruce, Barry Humphries, the Young Ones, Hunter S. Thompson, Spike Milligan, the Monty Python Crew, the writers of “The Thick of It” and Pete 'n' Dud, especially in their later years. Over here in my space, aseptic euphemisms trigger an itch to scratch and swat, and weasel worlds induce in me a compulsion to take a hot, soapy bath.

I abhor the kind of pretence that stops short of a truth by suggesting to a brazen liar that he's merely “misspeaking”. Any dynamic or environment in which people feel compelled to use words and phrases that dodge calling a toilet what it is; that correct an interviewer who asks a question about an abattoir by saying "Please, we don't call it that any more -- it's a food processing facility"; that allow an act of charity to cover for a penance of guilt; that use a display of pardon to cloak an act of manipulation, and label our bombing and gun-running in someone else's country, not as war but as a "humanitarian activity", are all obscenities that pale the “c” word into insignificance. And if we're not openly doing these things ourself, we are allowing them to be done in our space. I thought this kind of nonsense went out with knickerbockers and Queen Victoria. Obviously I'm wrong.

To me, a euphemism is an insult by stealth. The person who utters euphemism to me is, in my book, saying to me “I think you're such a fuckwit that you can't handle the truth.” Whether that's intended or not, I'm insulted by it. And whether you realise it or not, so are you. And the insult is intentional. A PR executive of an airline who recently described the reason for one of his planes crashing as "a sudden and surprising reduction in separation" was criminally fudging the truth. Here in South Australia motorists are favoured by the fuel industry with a weekly one-day "discount cycle"? That's bullshit; we're saddled with a 5-day surcharge/super-profits cycle. Finally, the SA premier, Jay Weatherall's characterisation today of a huge hike in a government tax as "a reduction in government discounts" wins my Weasel of the Week Award for wily wilderment.

What is it with me? Am I just more sensitive to slurs on my intelligence? Yes, it's possible. Am I panicking because what's now accepted, normal and perhaps even preferred is moving away from me and my comfortable Trust Zone? Perhaps so. But I've seen too much unnecessary trouble arise from miscommunication that occurs when people, deliberately or innocently avoid saying what they mean and shirk responsibility for meaning what they say.

I am sensitive to it because, in my less-aware past, I have participated in and been paid for euphemism. In the '90s I was even engaged to teach politicians how to do it. Beware hotbeds of euphemism like public relations offices, political press offices, doctors' surgeries and hospitals, childcare centres, bureaucracies and banking chambers. Yes, I am a reformed pretender, and my reactive zeal should therefore be treated with the utmost suspicion. 

And when I'm joking, please realise I am at my most serious. So, too, are you. Satire, like sarcasm, is wittiness steeped in disgust, fear and frustration.

Consider for yourself this possibility – euphemisms are potentially and infinitely more obscene and dangerous than the slurs and taunts of direct insults. Lofty ellipses nicely and neatly incise, exacerbate and erode honesty, trust and integrity in a subtle, insidious way that the sledgehammer blows of direct insults can never accomplish.

Feel free to let me know what comes up for you in your explorations.