Barely a day goes by without someone crossing the line of basic decency, an unnecessary expletive or a moment of jarring selfishness that simply didn't need to happen. What was once considered unacceptable has quietly become commonplace and somewhat acceptable.

I swear occasionally, but crude language has no place in my everyday speech. The reason is simple: when vulgarity becomes routine, it loses its power. Like crying wolf too often, it dulls the impact of genuine emotion and renders the words themselves hollow. There is also something quietly tragic about vulgarity crowding out the richness of the English language, a language uniquely gifted with the range to meet almost any situation with wit, precision, or even humor. Whatever happened to making light of life's minor irritations instead of always complaining? People seem far quicker to complain these days and far less inclined to laugh. That lack of levity is a loss.

This creeping coarseness tracks closely with the rise of social media.  Swearing once served as a signal of extreme tension, a personal pressure valve used sparingly, and therefore meaningfully. As vulgarity has become normalized, that restraint has weakened, and with it, a subtle but important check on volatile social interaction.  What was once reserved for moments of extreme upset is now background noise.

The coarseness doesn't travel alone. It brings with it a broader slovenliness, a general lowering of standards that shows up not just in language but in appearance and conduct.  The debate over how people dress on airplanes may seem trivial, but it points to something real. For example, there was a time when flying carried a certain formality, not because rules demanded it, but because people held themselves to an unspoken standard in public. That standard has eroded. Bare feet, rumpled gym clothes, and a general air of indifference to fellow passengers has become commonplace in spaces that were once treated with a degree of care. It's a reflection of respect for oneself, as well as for our fellow person.

A scene from Seinfeld (now over two decades old), captured this creeping lack of personal respect perfectly. George arrives at Jerry's apartment wearing old sweatpants. Jerry stares and asks, more or less, What are you wearing? George defends himself: They're comfortable. Jerry's reply is the point: You've given up. George had let his standards slip so gradually he no longer noticed. That quiet surrender, of effort, of presentation, of regard for how one appears to others, is precisely what seems to be spreading.

What's striking is that this is a bottom-up phenomenon. No government or cultural institution mandated it. It bubbles up from frustration, from people under real financial strain, struggling to find meaningful work, unable to see a clear path forward. Vulgarity, in this light, becomes a release valve for pressures that have nowhere else to go. And yet the behavior has also migrated upward. It's not uncommon to hear elected officials or media personalities using coarse language on television, something that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. When those in positions of authority abandon the standard, it signals to everyone else that the standard no longer exists.

The wealth divide between Wall Street and Main Street may be one of the deeper currents running beneath this. When markets perform profitably for the wealthy but ordinary people who can't participate, don't feel that prosperity in their daily lives, the disconnect breeds resentment, a rejection of authority, of social norms, of "the rules or the man" in general. Social media amplifies this resentment efficiently, giving anonymous voices a megaphone and rewarding outrage over civility. The comment sections of the internet are a case study in how much damage can be done by people hiding behind aliases with nothing to lose and face no accountability. Nastiness and even cruelty, it turns out, flourish in the absence of consequences.

The old saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, has never been less true. Words do hurt. And when they are written down, carry a permanence and a weight that a spoken insult, at least, eventually fades from. A careless remark dissolves into the air. A typed one can be screenshot, shared, and preserved indefinitely. Also, seeing something in print has more of a sting than when spoken. We have built a culture that is simultaneously more connected and more callous and we have not yet reckoned seriously with the cost of that combination.