Sunday, June 04, 2006

'Fuck'


That's the title of this academic paper exploring "the legal implications of the word fuck". Here is the abstract:

This Article is as simple and provocative as its title suggests: it explores the legal implications of the word fuck. The intersection of the word fuck and the law is examined in four major areas: First Amendment, broadcast regulation, sexual harassment, and education. The legal implications from the use of fuck vary greatly with the context. To fully understand the legal power of fuck, the nonlegal sources of its power are tapped. Drawing upon the research of etymologists, linguists, lexicographers, psychoanalysts, and other social scientists, the visceral reaction to fuck can be explained by cultural taboo. Fuck is a taboo word. The taboo is so strong that it compels many to engage in self-censorship. This process of silence then enables small segments of the population to manipulate our rights under the guise of reflecting a greater community. Taboo is then institutionalized through law, yet at the same time is in tension with other identifiable legal rights. Understanding this relationship between law and taboo ultimately yields fuck jurisprudence.

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Thanks to Selva for the pointer.

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While we are on this topic, I just want to point to a couple of other interesting academic papers. The first one, in linguistics, is titled Dude. The second one, by a philosopher, is titled On Bullshit.

3 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...
    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
  2. Anonymous said...

    I really appreciate remarks from Barbarindian.
    It is well known that one way of making a
    point is parody, satire, irony, farce.
    Clearly Barbarindian's views are so absurd
    that they cannot be real. Besides, the
    misogynism of her posts also indicate that
    they cannot be real either. Keep it up
    gal!

  3. Anonymous said...

    Gal?? Well, whatever floats your boat dude!