On the Topic of "Being a Badass"
A Meditation on Vulgarity and Revolutionary Fantasies
Saw this billboard while on the road a few days ago and can’t get it out of my head:
Featuring the dapper, grinning, and (possibly?) annoyed “Fount H.” holding a stethoscope and staring off-camera at something (?) on the studio floor, the billboard proclaims that this Army Vet, Special Agent (?), Nurse, and 2016 grad was “built to be badass.” I find this billboard simultaneously vexing, hilarious, and infuriating. Those are the first three descriptors that come to mind, although none of them are quite right. I’d dig deeper but I’m afraid whatever feeling it actually evokes puts me too close to the void for comfort.
Because I can’t fully grok the visceral experience of this billboard, it has continued to snake its way around my subconscious and haunt my nights until, at last, I had no other choice but to torture you with my thoughts on it. Part of me is sorry to visit this demonic substance onto your innocent soul, but I suspect it’s just one of many mind-melting billboards wrought from places not entirely human. Odds are, in fact, that the nursing school ad is only that which can be perceived by the naked eye, while the actual message is obscured by an alien technology. You know, I’m talking some pre-invasion subliminal programming, viewable only with specialized eyewear. This is the most likely scenario, especially because the name “Fount H” sounds like a name concocted by an undercover extraterrestrial organism who, seeking to infiltrate the human species without notice, mathematically averaged out every single human name in existence and came up with “the most normal name possible.” Fount. Short for Fountain? Foundation? Gouda Fontina? Or is it just a 17th century past tense version of the word “find?”
I’m being silly! It’s not the name that needles me, nor is it the bewildering choice to feature a man who could be dressed as a nurse, soldier, or special agent, to instead be photographed as “just a guy” in an ad for a nursing school. I’m not even bothered by the fact that they chose to write “Resource Pool Registered Nurse” - a workforce designation that means next to nothing to 97% of the population - instead of just the much more relatable and emotionally evocative word “Nurse.” I’m certainly not bothered by Fount himself who, I must admit with hat in hand, turns out is a pretty great person who has lived an amazing life. Would I have done the ad differently? Sure. But I’m “just a guy” as well. I don’t do ads. I do ideas, baby. Big ideas. So big that even aliens couldn’t fit them on a billboard. They’d need a Dyson Sphere to even approach the screen size needed to project what’s in this big ol’ brain.
I’m not bothered by anything other than the word badass. No, I’m not pearl-clutching. Well…I do think it’s a little weird put a curse word on a billboard for a university, but it’s hardly shocking compared to some ads I’ve seen on the commute:
The word badass arouses very little emotional response in me other than a little bit of brow scrunching followed by a shrug. I expect this is a pretty standard reaction by most who see this, other than those who feel drawn in by the idea of pursuing that career (and those few who are extremely uptight about swearing). Either way, it did cause me to spend an extra second or two staring up at it, so I guess that’s a “mission accomplished” as far as advertising goes. But if it were just this particular ad, the case would be open and shut, but it’s not just this one. It’s a whole slew of t-shirts, posters, tweets, purses, and anything else you can think of that carries this unique type of vulgarity.
What type of vulgarity do I speak of? Well, the proof is in the pudding, you pudding-dicked shit-fucker! That’s right, I called you a pudding-dicked shit-fucker, what are you going to do about it? Well, let me take a guess what you’re going to do about it: absolutely nothing. Do you know why you’re not going to do anything? Well two simple reasons:
You don’t know where I am right now (geographically speaking) and
There is nothing offensive about being a pudding-dicked shit-fucker, nor is it threatening, forceful, offensive, taboo, or…vulgar! It is non-vulgar vulgarity!
It’s not that I’m bothered by the vulgarity of the “badass” billboard, it’s that the billboard is not vulgar at all. And yet, somehow, this billboard still “gets away with it.” It doesn’t get away with it in the sense of evading censorship, no - it gets away with claiming to be vulgar while being about as inoffensive as a banana bread recipe. It has the appearance of vulgarity, the aesthetic of vulgarity, the scent of vulgarity, a patina of vulgarity, but it in no way is vulgarity. In this way, it could be said that this billboard gets to “claim” vulgarity (and all the benefits thereof), without actually participating in it.
Do I sound like Clint in Gran Torino yet? I promise there’s more to this than just me complaining. But first, what is vulgarity?
I’m going to violate one of my most important writing rules by referencing a dictionary definition, as I think it’s important that I do a little of my own brand of vulgarity to get down into the proverbial “shit” with y’all..
(Damn right I said shit, I’m a real badass and so I say what I want).
MERRIAM WEBSTER DEFINES VULGARITY AS…ah, just forget it - here’s the definition:
As you can see, “vulgar” is a matter of taste, context, era, etc. But the main message here is that vulgarity is something that is “bad,” something that you “might get in trouble” for using in a situation where it is deemed inappropriate. And where is it deemed inappropriate? Well, in all of those uptight spaces where people take themselves too seriously: country clubs, board rooms, mansions, castles, chambers of congress, deans’ offices, and plenty of other places that the “cool guys” in movies go to really flip the whole thing upside down.
Take a moment to think right now about the last time you were in one of those uptight places. Go ahead.
Nope, that doesn’t count - you weren’t actually there, you just saw it in a movie. You’re thinking of Old School, Happy Gilmore, Finding Forrester, Goodwill Hunting, or Get Out. Try again.
Go ahead.
Ahhhh, so wait a minute…you can’t actually think of one, can you? Why do you suppose that is? Is it because few people reading this would ever be part of such a walled-garden? Maybe. Or could it be that these places barely exist, and as far as they do exist, they’re probably nothing like they are depicted in popular media.
I would venture that these “uptight spaces” are mostly found in the liberal mind-cannon, an imaginary group of people (likely white) wearing tuxedos on a Tuesday that sit around all day, say racist stuff, sell stocks, and are just like…totally pieces of shit. Even though you and I and everyone we know has never seen an actual example of this outside of Netflix, it doesn’t really matter does it? We are just so certain they exist. Even if we have no experience of this whatsoever, we are certain of it.
No surprise here, most of the modern culture war involves making up enemies in your head and then insulting them. Both sides of the political spectrum do it (e.g. “snowflakes”), and every time it happens it is equally celebrated and reviled, the net effect of the motion being jack-shit movement in either direction. But this feigned vulgarity is especially curious to me. Why do some people take such delight in this sort of irreverence? And why is it that the people who are supposed to be insulted by it are not insulted by it, but then are insulted by the idea that something was said as a means to insult them (even though not actually insulting them)?
Why is it that this “vulgarity,” this embarrassing brand of posturing that makes its way onto billboards and tote bags and wine glasses has so much cultural capital on the left? I would venture it has little to do with “liking to say swears” and more to do with the imaginarium of the modern liberal “revolutionary.”
You see, almost all of anima of the modern liberal left is premised on the idea that they are fighting for “the good.” Not for themselves, not for their families, not for their country, but for “the good.” Whatever that means, they’re fighting for it. And they would totally win if it wasn’t for these goblins who just want to do “the bad.” People who want to do the bad like to tell you how to live your life, like what kind of books to read, and who you can kiss, and what kind of clothes to wear, and what color you can dye your hair. They are really oppressive in that way, kind of like bad guys in the books or movies. Why do they act “bad?” Oh, it’s because they’re selfish and hateful. On every corner of every street in every city in the US, these bad people are sneaking around telling people what to do and how to act and what to say. So what’s a good lib to do?
Well it’s obvious, isn’t it? They have to fight. No, they won’t be actually fighting, because violence is stupid (and scary). They will be fighting through the radical and revolutionary act of living their truth and…JOY! That’s right, being joyful is a revolutionary act. Don’t take my word for it, take it from THE Conscious Health Momma herself:
Joy is a revolutionary act.
I didn’t come up with this idea.
The idea that joy is a form of resistance against oppression is one that has been attributed to many people before me. All women, I might add.
If you’re at all paying attention, you’ve heard something like this before. That eating cake is a revolutionary act. That prioritizing your self-care is a revolutionary act. Everything is a revolutionary act because - guess what - revolutionaries are doing it. Never mind that, throughout the course of human history, revolution involved the wagering of one’s own life and liberty in pursuit of a higher ideal. Not anymore. Nowadays, being fat is revolutionary.
I’ve said things along these lines before, but re-reading the paragraph I just wrote is a reminder that the people who subscribe to beliefs like this are not misguided; these are people living in a completely separate reality than me. I can’t even begin to imagine the mental gymnastics required to think such a thing. Even if I was being polemical and cynical, I can’t imagine writing something that absurd. Yet the links above are just the tip of the iceberg.
So what does this have to do with being a “badass?” Well, nothing. Being a badass - if it means anything at all - is a term that denotes heroic masculinity: high pain tolerance, singular purpose, stoic persistence, and prevailing in the face of impossible odds. Most of all it represents someone who is willing to keep going to protect their values, even when death is possible (or likely). So what does this have to do with the modern liberal left?
Well, for one thing the fuel of the left is the unerring belief that they are under attack. It makes sense, in a way. Historically, it’s usually been the “left” that’s had to sneak around, form whisper networks, fight with unconventional means, recruit from the bottom up. But that’s not really the case anymore, is it? Because the left in the US completely owns the media, culture, most industry, medicine, academics, and just about everything other than crude oil. So with so much power, you can’t really muster the same level of urgency that Che and Fidel did when recruiting for the Cuban Revolution. So what is the answer?
Well, you can just pretend that you are this thing. You can create an illusion of being under siege, you can juice the stats to make it look like you face danger and death and hate at every turn, even if the truth is not even remotely close. You can confabulate nefarious forces all around you, even though the majority of the US population (and certainly every major city) is a place in which any disagreement with liberal ideology is met with extreme censorship and even violence. It doesn’t matter. They are still revolutionaries. And revolutionaries are fighters. And fighters? Oh yeah, you bet your asshole that they are bad ass.
I don’t know if Fount is a badass. Given his background, he may actually be a pretty bad example of what I’m going for. But right now, Fount is a nurse. Nurses are great. They take care of people, tend to wounds, patiently help people recover, withstand lots of emotional abuse, and most are committed to lives of service (when they’re not doing TikTok dances). But why does a nurse also have to be a badass? Why does a mother have to be a badass? Why does everyone have to pretend they are something that used to be equated with toxic masculinity?
Because that’s the whole strategy. It’s all just a palette swap. Nothing happening now is about right or wrong. It’s just about replacing the “bad” people with the “good” people. Some people like to think we’re inching toward utopia. But, alas, just one more iteration of history’s greatest hit: “the world would be better if my guy was in control instead of your guy.”
All the guys suck. So do the women. You don’t curb the bad behaviors of civilization through “putting the right people in the job.” You do it through creating systems that protect against the excesses wrought from over-concentration of power. Things like due process, open debate, respecting differences of opinion, and being nice. These “technologies,” formed so long ago in the enlightenment that we almost forgot they had to be invented and implemented, are on their way out as well.
For anyone like me who feels something sinister is brewing, it’s mostly related to this. It’s not so much that I’m worried about bad people, I’m worried about bad ideas. Good ideas can save a lot of people’s lives. Bad ideas are the most dangerous weapon ever invented. Humans have done a lot of work to try and make it better for people…but too bad now we’ve suddenly realized all that work was just white supremacy.
Throwing away a few thousand years of critical thought and political progress just to dunk on your competition? Pretty badass if you ask me.