Let's talk about fagotts

... while we still can

If you are easily offended, do not read this post

I like fagotts, I really do. I like the timbre of the sound, the rich and soothing resonance of it. The only woodwind instrument I like even more is the bansuri, the Indian bamboo flute; which is blown in a different way, without a reed, like a flute. Women can blow fagotts too, there are some real virtuoso female fagott players. I find nothing objectionable in any of this.
It would be nice if I could dedicate a post to my musical preferences, but alas, there are more important things we need to consider. Like language, and how our relentless assault on it makes even honest, civilized and respectful discussions practically impossible. How we are blowing our chances to save our civilization one censorship sentence at a time.

What prompted this post was this short video:

I will not address the insanity of the British courts, what picked my interest is the cowardly submission of the people talking about it. Pierse Morgan and Paul Joseph Watson didn’t dare to say the word ‘fagott’, fearing repercussions for doing so. Only Tucker Carlson did, but even he was bleeped out by the producers. As I am writing this, the spellchecker in my word processor gives a red underline to it, without offering a suggested correction, so I had to ask:

Q: what’s wrong with the word ‘fagott’?

“The word “fagott” is the German term for the musical instrument known as the bassoon in English. However, in English, the word “fagott” can be easily misunderstood or misinterpreted due to its similarity to a derogatory term. It’s important to be mindful of context and audience when using words that might have different connotations in different languages. If you’re referring to the musical instrument, it’s best to use “bassoon” in English to avoid any confusion or offense.” (MS word copilot)

The spell checker in MS Word is censoring me. It did not offer the bassoon as an alternative, indicating “awareness” the fact that it would make the censorship obvious. The ‘mistake’ was not a typo.

The above search was the top of the rabbit hole. As if the quoted paragraph was not bad enough, every step and tumble into the hole made it even worse. Self-referencing cognitive dissonance in a muddle of sappy, pretentious sensitivity twisting itself into a pretzel trying to keep me from pronouncing the verboten. But there are some points I learned when I focused on the evolution of the instrument itself; you can read those details here.
As for the instrument, we ended up with two different versions of it, with slight differences in the timbre and fingering. (I can only hope that I am not offending the dykes with the fingering reference…..)

I also learned that the homosexual double meaning with the word ‘fagott’, the metaphoric slang meaning, does not exist in any of the other languages (French, German and Italian), it is exclusive to English.
The politically correct English-speaking world is supposed to embrace the French name of the instrument, which is a similar, but actually, a different instrument. Different timbre, fingering and such. We are supposed to use the French name, just so that we can burry the undesirable association with fagottry. The French version of the instrument is called bassoon, (meaning ‘base sound’). The words fagott and bassoon are NOT synonyms. The Germans and the Italians have no problems with the words fagott/fagotto, as I am also certain that they have their own assortments of ‘homophobic’ slurs when they need them.
The only thing all AI models seem to agree on, is that the word fagott has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the musical instrument can be easily seen as a phallic symbol. No other wind instrument can compete with its vertical staying power.
It is a metaphor we are not supposed to visualize.

Quite a bit of trouble on the quest of whitewashing buggery….

In some ways it does not really matter. Professional musicians will know the difference between the fagott and the bassoon, while the ill-mannered uncouth masses will find some other ways to insult the pederasts.

And insults we should NOT tolerate! The only problem with that imperative is that insult is in the mind of the offended. Homosexuals should be celebrating the expressions! If sucking another man’s dick should be a source of pride, then blowing the fagott should be akin to waving the rainbow flag. Maybe we should ban straight man from blowing the fagott, as it could be seen as identity appropriation.

I wrote a post a while back in which I made the following point:

I always had an issue with gay ‘pride’. Not with gays, but this contrarian, spiteful turning of shame around to stick it into our face. Just because something should not be shameful, does not mean that we can or should be proud of it. (from Pride is nothing to be proud of)

The most fascinating aspect of the phenomenon is the cognitive dissonance it is presented with. Not only are we defending the rights of perverts to swing their dicks in open parades in front of children, but we do it with an outright Victorian prudishness.
We all know that it is all wrong, but we are compelled to support the rainbow causes with a quasi-religious fervor.

Shouldn’t we ask why do we find some expressions more offensive than others?
What does ‘fagott’ has over ‘sodomite’, ‘fruit-cake’, ‘molly’ or ‘bent’ - each of which were considered highly offensive at some point?
It is entirely possible, that in the future some will find ‘rainbow’, or ‘alphabet people’ offensive. What shall we do then? Shall we just choose yet another word to dress-up reality into a nice fantasy? …and when reality catches up with the nice fantasy, shall we just find yet another one? The word ‘gay’ used to have a meaning that was highjacked for the cause. It is not used in its original meaning any more because it is terminally tainted by the homosexual association.

What makes an expression, like fagott, offensive is the judgment it implies. The ugly reality is that most man find some same-sex practices distasteful. Telling them that they shouldn’t, will not make the aversion disappear. It is not an accident that it is mostly used by teenage boys trying to figure out masculinity. The word fagott started out as a euphemistic metaphor, but as its use became widespread, it came to reflect the overall judgement of the behaviour, and yes, of course, an instrument of verbal insult.
Most of us would never use it under normal circumstances, but the case of Elizabeth Kinney is anything but normal. …. But let’s get back to this a little later.

For now, we should talk piss and shit to drive the point home.

I have to break it to you: shit stinks. Calling it poop does not make it stink any less.
Calling a fagott gay does not make him any less of a sodomite. Words are just words.
I have no reason to talk shit about shit apart from making this point. Besides, I couldn’t possibly compete with Ismo:

Let me shock you with another verboten word: ‘nigger’. With one ‘g’ Niger, it is the name of an African country, a long-time colony of France. Any time it is in the news, I am mightily amused seeing how desperately everybody tries to pronounce it with a French accent “Nee-zhair”. Yes, I am talking about the Americans who notoriously don’t give a shit about proper place-name pronunciation.

In the original edition of “The adventures of Huckleberry Finn” the word ‘Nigger’ appears 219 times. Since the 1980s, several editions have been printed with the word purged from it. Castrating the fundamentally anti-slavery message of the book.
(The rewriting of history is a totalitarian project, but I should address this point in a post of its own.)
For black kids in the American inner cities, ‘nigger’ is a word of endearment. A sort-of tribal identity. A tribal identity that is also going global:

…and since we are already on the subject, what makes the performance so amusing is how hopelessly gay it is…

I have a young friend (white) whose best friend is Ethiopian. Sometimes they address each other as ‘nigger’.
There are no gay-rap videos to prove it, but it is quite possible, that the word fagott is used the same way within the community.

EVERYTHING is in context.

Everything has its place and time and we have rules about using any word. It all depends on the circumstances and the overall context.

What is normal and acceptable behaviour or language is mediated by society. As it should be. We learn what is ‘proper’ from our parents when our mother shouts “language!” or when our grandmother threatens us with washing our mouths with soap. From our fathers we learn what are the rare occasions when the us of certain words might be justified.

I used to have a buddy who had no reservation letting a loud, stinky fart lose at a dinner table. When confronted about it, he called the rest of us hypocrites for not doing the same. Unlike us, he is honest, he said. He is out of my life for decades, but I doubt that he has many dinner invitations. Civil society has a way of dealing with problems like this.

It is civil society that creates the political-cultural divide. I suspect most of us have lost some friends and parted with others for ideological differences. Losing and dropping friends is a societal function.

Not too long ago we still had books of etiquette for both boys and girls.
Lord Chesterfield filled 400 pages of behavioral advice to his son on how to be a gentlemen. The concept used to have criteria.
Even as late as the early twentieth century we had such books. As I child I read a few times Edmondo de Amicis’ “Cuore”, but the idea of morality tales for kids has largely disappeared from the public space.

As an interesting side-note, I must mention that the copy of Couore I read was printed before WWII. The communist never printed it. As the communists today, they wanted to create a new man, not someone with an individualist moral core.

The notable exceptions today are the books of Jordan Peterson: “12 rules for life” and “Beyond Order”. His popularity is a clear sign of the hunger for such works.

For the past few decades, the functions of civil society are getting replaced by the mob rules of social media. To make matters even worse, the state is also entering the civility mediation business with the full force of the law behind it.

AND THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

Allowing the state to take over the most fundamental function of civil society, the mediation of civility. That is what the Elizabeth Kinney case is about.

The problem is the fuzzification of criminal law. Coming up with terminology that is designed to obfuscate the crime instead of describing it. The less specific a crime is, the easier to prosecute. Letting us guess what they mean gives more power into the hands of those interpreting them.

Just look at these three:

Child human trafficking
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw_f9f76f7f-06d4-4179-b62d-cd495303e563

Sexual assault and Sexual harassment
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw_486ae468-366a-4cfe-a3f5-48bac3ecc259

Hate crimes and hate speech
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw_b0598d4c-a7e4-4ded-8eb3-049efb792b64

The definitions are as loose as that the threats are stifling. It would also be hard not to notice how serious the political bias is in all of them. The scope of the powers and the vagueness of the definitions are beyond totalitarian.

Civil society is the free-market of behaviour. A self-correcting system of distributed decision making. The true enemy of the state is not the individual, but civil society.
It is the self regulating aspect that the state cannot tolerate, but it can only attack individuals. The free exchange of ideas can only be controlled by one exchange at a time. Hate speech is not about the rainbow people, the blacks or women; it’s about control.

Let me offer you another personal aside:

My brother-in-law lives in the outskirts of Vienna, walking distance of the Marchfeldkanal that was built as a flood-protection/overflow canal. I asked him whether it is possible to put a canoe on it and paddle around the city. “I didn’t see any sign forbidding it” I said. “That is not how it works” he replied. “If it is not explicitly allowed, you must assume that it is not.”

This is where we are. We must submit and comply. The Big Brother of Orwell’s time could not have even dreamed of the power the state has today.

As I was finishing the post, the news broke that Elon Musk was fined by the EU for not complying with the EUs demands for full censorial access to the platform.
The fines for non-compliance are based on X’s global revenue.
For details, see:
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw_6cfa57b2-e31a-4922-8e4e-7ad3fcf75409

A non-disclaimer

I do not care about homosexuality, and I do not care about race. I definitely not hate or have ill wishes for either group.
What I care about are language, the flourishing of civil society and the dangers of the ever-expanding power of the state.
What I care about are censorship, bad laws and my own integrity.

I have absolutely no intention to insult or hurt anybody’s feelings, but I understand and so should you, that I have no control over the feelings of others and therefore I do not give a shit, a fuck or a goddamn about them. I do not recognize any jurisdiction over my thoughts and their expressions. My aim is to ponder the world, not to pander to expectations

As for the case of Elizabeth Kinney, I consider it a travesty of justice on many levels.
The real criminals were the scumbags of the system who charged, prosecuted and sentenced her. But the worst of the worst was the sleazy fucking snitch-bitch who renounced her. The snitches are the most dangerous part of totalitarian systems. They are the destroyers of social trust, the true murderers of civil society.

I could have said all of the above in a much nicer way. I chose not to, to make a point. I stand behind every word, and my right to say them. It is all in context. The only thing that can save our civilization is resolute honesty.
If you get it, share this post, if you disagree, make your point. If you did not heed the advice on the top and your feelings are hurt, then “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

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More from this stack

Pride is nothing to be proud of

References

Letters to his Son, by The Earl of Chesterfield

Child human trafficking (Grok)

Sexual assault and harassment (Grok)

Elon Musk unleashes fury after X hit with $140million fine by the EU, says it ‘should be abolished’
I disagree here….. The EU should not be abolished, it should be just allowed to die peacefully.