Thank you, Lorraine. Just…thank you.
Short, concise, to the point and irrefutable, the Comment of the Day by new commenter Lorraine M. (a lawyer, and a good one–she’s an old friend) settles the looming mystery in the “heck-hell” controversy over an Oklahoma student’s Valedictorian address at graduation, by going to the source: a passage in one of the “Twilight” films that Kaitlin quoted. A battle has been raging in the thread on the original post over whether I was right to hold that she owed the school an apology for using mild profanity in front of the assembled parents at the Prague High graduation ceremony, and it was beginning to look like I was going to have to watch “Twilight” to settle the matter. Saving me from that horrible fate alone warrants this being the Comment of the Day, on the post The Case of the Mildly Profane Valedictorian.
“In the Twilight movie, the graduate making the speech uses the word “hell.” Kaitlin Nootbaar’s written version of her speech substituted “heck.” Her conscious decision in this regard strongly suggests that Kaitlin knew that “hell” was inappropriate in the context of her graduation speech or, at the very least, likely would be considered inappropriate by school authorities. Any claim otherwise at this point is highly suspect. An apology is warranted.”
Yes, it is.
Ethics Alarms 
1) There is no evidence that hell was planned to be used all along.
2) Your arguments in the post are still bad. That a fact turned out to be in your favor does not change that you assumed it without evidence. If you say a die roll you didn’t see was 6, and it just so happened to be 6, that doesn’t mean it was correct for you guess 6.
There’s no evidence? So what? There is clear evidence that she knew “hell” was inappropriate, and since she used a word she knew was inappropriate, intentionally or not, she owes the school and audience an apology.
Sour grapes, tgt. I laid out what was likely, why it was unethical, and I was right.
Hmmm… it seems that all I do is come up with hypotheticals these days, but…
What if she said, “I have a feeling that hearts and minds are going to be on my side, so even though I AM sorry about this, I have a feeling you’re going to be handing me that diploma without me having to say a word once the shit-storm hits. So… yeah, have fun with all that. You know where to find me.”
That IS what she is saying, because foolish America, public and media, will always gravitate to a shrug and a “it’s no big deal” when standards are at stake. So now people fly in airplanes in flip-flops, tanktops and without deodorant. Gee, thanks, Jerk-Enablers, for making life a little shittier every day.
Are you suggesting that people wearing flip-flops and no deodorant should be banned from flying, or that the airline should compel them to formally apologize before they’re allowed to leave the flight?
My contrary position would be that society can encourage better behavior in ways that don’t criminalize or otherwise limit individuals’ rights to bad but trivial behavior. I frequently get worked up over people making seemingly small missteps that I think indicate major flaws in ethical character, but at the same time I’m all for the public and media gravitating towards the “it’s no big deal” response when someone tries to artificially enlarge the significance of those small missteps. Basically, I want people to actually be better, not just to appear better because their natural instincts for selfish, inconsiderate conduct have been suppressed by overzealous authority. So I try to focus on setting a good example in order to discourage jerky behavior without disabling it.
Conflicts over standards go both ways. It’s selfish of the person with the looser standards to not respect nearby people’s sensibilities, but it’s also selfish of the person with stricter standards to expect everyone to share them. It is admittedly naive of me, but I hope for a society that is socially self-regulating in the same impossible way that conservatives expect it to be economically self-regulating. Maybe everyone’s expectations of social comfort can find their middle ground if, say, the other airline passenger keeps the flip flops but also adds a SpeedStick.
Who suggested that they be banned from flying? My point was that people would keep themselves from flying as smelly slobs if we didn’t encourage norm-breaking and bad manners at every turn, by allowing little wise-asses to intentionally defy a school’s standards of decorum and respond by saying, “What’s the big deal?”. This is an ethics blog. Laws and formal rules signify a failure of ethics.
This is why we can’t have nice things. Using the word “hell” in a graduation speech in Prague, Oklahoma is definitely going to upset people. She is from the town, she is well aware of it. That is exactly why she substituted ‘heck’ in the form she gave the principal. The use of the word “hell” instead does not change the meaning, it just makes you ‘edgy’ because you did something that upset people.
The idea that it is noble to upset people at graduations by swearing, and espousing controversial ideas is a common one currently. It has made it difficult for my college to get commencement speakers. You never know when a speaker is going to ambush you and say something to upset the grandmothers so they can get some points for their ‘courage’ and ‘heroism’. They know that (so far) the organizers of graduations won’t let them do it, so they must lie to get their chance.
For the supporters of Miss. Nootbaar who think she was right to challenge societal norms, or shake things up in this way, think about the implications. This is a captive audience, required in some instances to be here. They are here to celebrate the graduation of themselves or their loved ones. Then someone decides that they will use this event for their little soapbox. What about the guy who espoused the idea that women who are raped were ‘asking for it’? What about the person that accuses Republicans of being murderers, Democrats of being traitors, Christians of being bigots, atheists of … You get the idea. In this atmosphere, who can you trust anymore? If this is how everyone is going to act, maybe we should just get rid of these gatherings altogether. This is why we can’t have nice things.
I think she should apologize just for quoting anything to do with the “Twilight” films.
That too. What is it about that quote that makes it worthy of repeating? You hear more profound statements in line at the Safeway. Once Valedictorians quoted Lincoln, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut and Oscar Wilde, now they quote…..Kristen Stewart and Harry Potter. As Jim Morrison said, “This is the end…”
Thanks Bill, I think this introduces to the conversation a point on which we can all agree.
Surprisingly, I am with you on this one, Jack. I wouldn’t say we have the kind of proof that would convict her of murder but submitting the changed text of ‘heck’ and then speaking the original text of ‘hell’ seems pretty intentional to me. Especially since she is apparently an honours student who would thereby understand the concept of pre-approved commentary. Despite the fact they did not specifically tell her that hell was not an appropriate choice before the event, they did tell her before the event that her commentary had to be pre-approved which implies they fully expected her to stick to the approved text. It is the kind of mistake you don’t make unless you want to in my mind and whether heck and hell have any different meaning, context or holds different offense to audience members is completely irrelevant. I think she should apologize… and sincerely.
But, what the hell is wrong with flip-flops and Harry Potter? lol.
What constitutes “profanity” varies from place to place and time to time. This was Oklahoma, which is my definition of Hell. I doubt that “hell” would be profane in NYC or LA. In any case, I think what it’s become is not a clash of community standards, but a clash of egoes.
It’s funny that the school’s mascot is the Red Devils. Where do they reside, in Heck?
Yes, that is an apparent contradiction.