The Video Game Critic

I think it is a good idea not to have swearing on this board but I am very intelligent (touch wood) and swear on a regular basis too.  As do my friends.

I don't think the idea is that if you swear you aren't intelligent, it's just that swearing all the time instead of expressing exactly how you feel numbs the effect of the swear words when you really mean them, and appears more shallow than if someone were to be more intricate and descriptive.

Intelligent people swearing is not a sign of, or a byproduct of, their intelligence.

Read great works of literature. You will be hard pressed to find cursing, excepting some contempary works where it is used as a cheap and easy form of credibility, and now it has become a kind of pass code. Now watch the cynical and crude programming of our corporate television networks. Soft core porn, sadistic violence, and rude language, the new tools of today's moral relativist. They refuse to judge or hold people accountable for their actions, so therefore they conveniently have no standards with which to hold themselves. Anything goes as long as the product finds its market.

True art is created to pull people up, to educate, enlighten and inspire them, while the purpose of false art is to drag them down and encourage them to wallow in their basest desires. Obviously, it is easy to see which category most videogames fall in to.

There are plenty of intelligent tv shows, movies and books that have swearing. Using curse words does not make someone unintelligent. I do, however, like having them banned on this site. During regular arguments it is normal to swear a lot in the heat of the moment, but there is no reason for foul language in the arguments in these pages.

The profanity filter keeps things civil, and forces people to think about what they post. If there was no profanity filter I could say (using an example from a recent argument) "Twilight Princess is way *&#*% better than Okami, Okami @%#%* sucks." Without strong language I have to say why Okami is worse than Zelda, rather than just spewing out curse words. Besides, if we're thinking about posts and using profanity then it really is immature.

I've known dozens and dozens of smart people, folks I have a great deal of respect for who swear on a regular basis.  That in no way makes them less smart or less articulate.  

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Certainly not, but it also makes the person speaking come across as having poor manners. Sort of like a brilliant master's student I once knew who literally ate his steak by picking up the whole thing with his fork and taking big bites out of it. It made him look like an idiot to the Dean of the college, sitting right there at the table. Not really an impression I would want to make.

If you know the person you are talking to well, you probably know if the vulgarity is going to hurt your impression that you want to project. Choose accordingly. As long as you can switch freely between civilized and crass language, you're fine.

Using lots of profanity (and, to be sure, only a couple of words really qualify for that in my opinion) in a message board is somewhat like using it in a crowded restaurant, versus the private trash talking that might go on in somebody's game room.

-Rob

Well we all liked our university lecturers who sweared far more than the others.  They had charisma.

[QUOTE]Intelligent people swearing is not a sign of, or a byproduct of, their intelligence.[/QUOTE]

I never said it was, just that smart people still do it.

[QUOTE]Read great works of literature[/QUOTE]

Already have thanks.

 [QUOTE]You will be hard pressed to find cursing, excepting some contempary works where it is used as a cheap and easy form of credibility, and now it has become a kind of pass code[/QUOTE]

This is just wrong, swearing is used in many books I've read.  And not as cheap credibility, it's used to portray the time and mind set of the people or the person the books is about.  This statement is just silly to say the least. 

[QUOTE]Now watch the cynical and crude programming of our corporate television networks. Soft core porn, sadistic violence, and rude language, the new tools of today's moral relativist. They refuse to judge or hold people accountable for their actions, so therefore they conveniently have no standards with which to hold themselves. Anything goes as long as the product finds its market.[/QUOTE]

This is something totally unrelated.  But hey, ever hear of free speech?  Run with that idea.  What's more if it finds it's market the people watching/reading clearly don't care, and you clearly aren't going to be watching/reading it.  So no need to get your nickers in a twist. 

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True art is created to pull people up, to educate, enlighten and inspire them, while the purpose of false art is to drag them down and encourage them to wallow in their basest desires. Obviously, it is easy to see which category most videogames fall in to.

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No that top part is idealy what religion does, not art.  Art can do that and it is often meant to do the ladder.  Art is about messages and ideas, not all of them have to be positive, nor should they be.

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic]I probably have the worst mouth of all. But I never swear in public, and I especially never swear in front of children.  I think this site qualifies as "public" since you never know who's going to be looking at the site.

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I can understand that, it just gets to me when people try and define what is moral or what is really art.  As if anyone person has the right to do that.