HOW GEORGE CARLIN MADE LEGAL HISTORY
from Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson

Everybody understands that you cannot drink the word "water",
and yet virtually nobody seems entirely free of semantic
delusions entirely comparable to trying to drink the
ink-stains that form the word "water" on this page or
the sound waves produced when I say "water" aloud.
If you say, "The word is not the thing," everybody agrees
placidly; if you watch people, you see that they continue
to behave as if something called Sacred "really is"
Sacred and something called Junk "really is" Junk.

This type of neurolinguistic "hallucination" appears so
common among humans that it usually remains
invisible to us, as some claim water appears invisible
to fish, and we will continue to illustrate it copiously
as we proceed. On analysis, this "word hypnosis" seems
the most peculiar fact about the human race. Count
Alfred Korzybski said we "confuse the map with the
territory." Alan Watts said we can't tell the menu from the
meal. However one phrases it, humans seem strangely
prone to confusing their mental file cabinets---neurolinguistic
grids---with the non-verbal world of sensory-sensual space-time.

As Lao-Tse said in the Tao Te Ching, 2500 years ago,

The road you can talk about is not the road you can walk on.
(Or: The way that can be spoken is not the way that can be trodden.)

We all "know" this (or think that we do) and yet we all perpetually
forget it.

For instance, here in the United States---an allegedly
secular Democracy with an "iron wall" of separation
between Church and State written into its Constitution---
the Federal Communications Commission has a list
of Seven Forbidden Words which nobody may speak
on the radio or television. Any attempt to find out why
these words remain Tabu leads into an epistemological
fog, a morass of medieval metaphysics, in which concepts
melt like Salvador Dali's clocks and ideas become as
slippery as a boat deck in bad weather.

One cannot dismiss this mystery as trivial. When comedian
George Carlin made a record ("Occupation: Foole") discussing,
among other things, "The seven words you
can never say on television," WBAI radio (New York)
played the record, and received a fine so heavy that,
although the incident occurred in 1973, WBAI, a small
listener-sponsored station, recently announced (1990)
that they have not yet paid all their legal costs in
fighting the case, which went all the way to the Supreme
Court. The Eight Wise Men (and One Wise Woman)
thereon upheld the Federal Communications Commission.

The highest court in the land has actually ruled on what
comedians may and may not joke about. George Carlin
has become something more than a comedian. He now
has the status of a Legal Precedent. You will pay a
heavy fine, in the U.S. today, if you speak any of the
Seven Forbidden Words on radio or
television---shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker,
mother fucker and tits.

The words have been forbidden, "our" Government says,
because they "are" "indecent". Why "are" they "indecent"?
Because a certain percentage of people who might
turn on the radio or TV experience them as "indecent".

Why do sombunall people experience these words
as "indecent"? Because the words "are" "dirty" or "vulgar".

Why "are" these words "dirty" and "vulgar" when other
words, denoting the same objects or events, "are" not
"dirty" or "vulgar"? Why, specifically, can a radio station
be fined if a psychologist on a talk show says "He was so
angry he wouldn't fuck her anymore" but not fined at all
if the psychologist says "He was so angry he stopped
having sexual intercourse with her"?

As Mr. Carlin pointed out in the comedy routine which
led the Supreme Court to perform their even more
remarkable comedy routine, fucking seems one of the
most common topics on television, even though nobody
uses the word. To paraphrase Mr. Carlin, many guests
on the Merv Griffin and Donahue shows have written
books on how to fuck or who to fuck or how to fuck better,
and nobody objects as long as they say "sexual intercourse"
instead of "fucking." And, of course, as Carlin goes on,
the main topics on soap operas, day after day, consist of
who has fucked whom, will she fuck him, will he fuck
somebody else, have they fucked yet, who's getting
fucked now, etc.

Some say "fuck" "is" "dirty" and "sexual intercourse" isn't
because "fuck" comes from the Anglo-Saxon and
"sexual inter course" comes from the Latin. But then
we must ask: how did Anglo-Saxon get to be "dirty" and
why does Latin remain "clean"?

Well, others tell us, "fuck" represents lower-class speech
and "sexual intercourse" represents middle-and-upper class
speech. This does not happen to accord with brute fact,
statistically: I have heard the word "fuck" in the daily (non-radio)
conversation of professors, politicians, business persons,
poets, movie stars, doctors, lawyers, police persons and
most of the population of sombunall classes and castes,
except a few religious conservatives.

And, even if "fuck" did occur exclusively in lower-class speech,
we do not know, and can hardly explain, why it has been
subject to a huge and bodacious fine when such other
lower-class locutions as "ain't", "fridge" (for refrigerator),
"gonna" and "whyncha" (why don't you) have not fallen
under similar sanction. Nor have we yet seen a ban on
the distinctly lower class "Jeet?" "Naw---Jew?" (Did you eat?
No, did you?)

The fact that some enclaves of religious conservatives
do not use the word "fuck" (or are embarrassed if
they get caught using it) seems to provide the only
clue to this mystery. The Federal Communications
Commission, it seems, bases its policy upon persons
who believe, or for political reasons wish to seem to
believe, that the rather paranoid "God" of the conservative
religions has His own list of Seven Forbidden Words and
will become quite irate if the official Tabu list of our
government does not match His list. Since that
particular Deity has a reputation for blowing a few cities
to hell whenever he feels annoyed, the F.C.C. may, in
the back of their heads, think they will prevent further
earthquakes by maintaining the Tabu on the Seven
Unspeakable Words.

The Wall of Separation between Church and State, like
many other pious pronouncements in our Constitution,
does not correspond with the way our government
actually functions. In short, the Seven Forbidden Words
remain forbidden because pronouncing them aloud might
agitate some Stone Age deity or other, and we still live
in the same web of Tabu that controls other primitive
peoples on this boondocks planet.

Some light seems about to dawn in the semantic murk..
but let us press further and ask why the conservative's
Stone Age "God" objects to "fuck" and not to "sexual
intercourse" or such synonyms as "coitus", "copulation",
"sexual congress", "sexual union", "love-making", etc.?
Should we believe this "God" has a violent prejudice
against words which, in reputation if not in reality, seem
to reflect lower-class culture? Does this "God" dislike
poor people as much as Ronald Reagan did?

Perhaps the reader will appreciate the immensity of this
mystery more fully if I ask a related question:

If the word "fuck" "is" obscene or "dirty", why isn't the word
"duck" 75% "dirty"?

Or, similarly:

If the word "cunt" "is" unacceptable to the conservative's
"God", why does the word "punt" not receive a 75%
unacceptability rating? Why do we not see it spelled "p "
in the daily press?

To quote the admirable George Carlin one more time,
"Such logic! Such law!"

 

EXERCISES

1. Try to explain the difference between a Playboy
centerfold and a nude by Renoir. Discuss
among the whole group and see if you
can arrive at a conclusion that makes
sense when stated in operational-
existential language.

2. Perform the same delicate semantic analysis
upon a soft-core porn movie and a
hard-core porn movie. Remember:
try to keep your sentences operational,
and avoid Aristotelian essences or spooks.

3. When U.S. troops entered Cambodia, the Nixon
administration claimed this "was not" an
invasion, because it "was only" an
incursion. See if anybody can restate
this difference in operational language.

4. The C.I.A. refers to certain acts as "termination
with maximum prejudice." The press describes
these acts as "assassinations." Try to explain
to each other the difference. Also, imagine
yourselves as the victims. Do you care
deeply whether your death gets called
"termination with maximum prejudice" or
"assassination"?

5. In the 1950s, the film "The Moon Is Blue," became
a center of controversy and actually got
banned in some cities because it
contained the word "virgin." How does
this seem in retrospect? Discuss.
(If anybody finds Mr. Carlin's paraphrased
jokes offensive let them explain why
the above film no longer seems offensive.)

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