The Social Standards in Catholica (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, March 19, 2011, 22:36 (792 days ago) @ Meridian

The standard I have set for this place, Meridian — but not mentioned it for a long time — is that the style of language we encourage in this place is the sort of everyday language that modern, contemporary adults might use in a conversation when they meet in a coffee shop or a pub in the average Australian city or town. We do not have some artificial standard such as might be used in the Queen or the Archbishop's sitting room, or in the drawing room of Mrs Bucket from the famous English sit-com "Keeping Up Appearances". This is not a Church, nor a kiddies' classroom. Another way of thinking of it is of the sort of conversation average, non-intoxicated, reasonably intelligent and educated Australian adults might have around a backyard barbeque with a group of friends.

All of that said, even in the setting that "modern, contemporary adults might use in a conversation when they meet in a coffee shop or a pub in the average Australian city or town" there still is a standard. It is not a "free for all". And I'm also not talking about a situation of where a whole mob of larrikins might be carrying on a conversation in an intoxicated manner in the local pub. Most adults I know these days, and even in mixed company, use so-called "swear words". It is very much the norm in Australian society these days as much as some people might get all upset by it.

That is "the standard" in this place. If any person does not like it they are more than free to say so and argue with myself, and more so the rest of the community that makes up this place, that the standard ought to be altered. We have in the past had some altercations with a number of people who have ended up leaving this place because of differences of opinion about the use of swear words. Interestingly two of them have since returned and seem quite comfortable contributing in this place. This question of language is one of the ways we discern what kind of community we are seeking to create — one that hopefully is not too hypocritical and liable to be "sent up" as in the English sitcom mentioned above.

Further up in this string I have made a couple of posts to behaviour that I found personally objectionable and which I think does breach the standard of what might be deemed an "acceptable" way of behaving, or responding in the sort of setting I have described above. That is a good example of where there is a "standard". In that case the person had not used any swear words in an unobjectionable manner yet the standard is not acceptable and that's the point I have endeavoured to get across in my response.

In the past I have used the example also that if someone came in here behaving like some sort of navvie and having to punctuate their sentences constantly with the f word as some sort of adjective before every noun that would also be deemed unacceptable. No one can write up on a cafe wall all the rules of what is, or is not acceptable in the language that is used in a social setting like a coffee shop. It's part of our socialization in that we all "learn the rules" but we don't have to have them written out for us because the list would be too long.

Savvy?

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]