Thursday, October 11, 2007
Professor Bambauer
I congratulate Professor Derek Bambauer on his victory in the annual Ambulance Chase. An expert on intellectual property whom we were fortunate to have been able to hire from a fellowship at Harvard, Professor Bambauer proves his athletic prowess once again. At the “Whack Wu” fencing competition last year, he was a formidable foe on the piste after a single lesson.
I also commend everyone who organized and participated in this wonderful event.
Obscenity
I just realized how effective obscenity and foul language in general can be, if it is used rarely.
I recently saw the movie “Idiocracy.” Directed by Mike Judge, the creator of the MTV Beavis and Butthead characters, this satire, starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph, depicts a dystopia that of course is meant to be didactic. In the future, the entire population of the United States has been reduced to idiocy. Wilson and Rudolph’s characters, selected for an Army experiment in hibernation because they are as average as possible, are reawakened and find themselves the smartest people alive. Among the many examples of the degradation of society is the constant use of the extended middle finger as essentially a means of emphasis. It has lost all meaning.
I also just attended an important meeting. In a board room setting, with a formal agenda of discussion topics, and virtually all attendees in business attire, one of my colleagues wanted to make a point especially emphatically. In the course of his remarks, he said that the contrary argument was “bullshit.” Although it was an unusually strong comment, it was effective exactly because any term such as that likely had not been uttered in that context within the memory of anyone present. If this individual, or any of us, regularly swore, we would cease to be impressed by it.
As we train people in advocacy and leadership, I am reminded constantly of how important words are and how much others, too, are aware of our language choices. Attorneys are successful because they are able to use language better than most others; the best among us invariably become public figures in some sense. We have a responsibility in our communications, to respect ourselves and our audiences – our effectiveness depends on it.
