SNP’s word of the day: Vulgarity

Word: Vulgarity

Meaning: An act or expression that defies good taste.

Usage: “Vulgarity is the conduct of other people.” –Oscar Wilde

You should know it because: China has just, again, banned a slew of pop songs for being “in poor taste” and “vulgar.” In the fashion-y sense of the word, this is kinda redundant; vulgarity and poor taste are synonymous. But what China means is that the songs are bad not only musically but morally.

It’s easy to condemn China for its iron-fisted, finger-off-the-pulse exercise in censorship (Katy Perry is banned, but not Tyler, The Creator?), and sure, it’s all wrong and weird to us. But China’s pop-slaying future first lady Peng Liyuan—who is a folk superstar; yeah, I’m sure there’s no self-interest there—is only taking her lead from the free world’s most concerned mom, Tipper Gore (see: 1997, Ice-T, Rhyme Pays).

What interests me in these and most other cases of cultural censorship is the significant overlap in the Venn diagram of taste and morality. From ancient eons, beauty and taste have been (falsely, probs) equated; as the 18th century philosopher Hume wrote, our standards of taste form “the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue.” Think about how you feel about rape in Leda and the Swan versus, say, in rap lyrics. Intent and content might differ from one to the other, but so does the form—the first one classically beautiful, the second not so—and form is largely how we judge content.

Vulgarity is bad form, yes. But bad form with good content, like Bob Dylan’s technically “bad” singing of brilliant and subversive lyrics, or Rei Kawakubo‘s “wrong”-looking clothes made with the highest quality and craftsmanship and obsession, is more interesting than just plain good form. And because in matters of taste we should always defer to Diana Vreeland, here’s the last word from her: “I’m a great believer in vulgarity—if it’s got vitality.”

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