Battling Vulgar People

So the other day I was surprised, stunned actually, by a response I got to one of the columns I write for a boxing publication. A man fairly well known and liked in the boxing world sent me a tweet regarding the piece I had written. I can't repeat what he wrote here, suffice to say it contained only two words, one of which was an F-Bomb. To say he publicly disapproved of my column would be an understatement.

Going to his Twitter home page, I found the gentleman had written something else about my piece. Not surprisingly, this second tweet was about as positive as the tweet he had sent my way. I was floored. Here was a figure who, though not a boxer himself, was well liked and followed by the best in the business, a man who one top sports writer had actually told others to keep an eye on. And he was pretty much slapping me in the face – in public no less.

Checking out his track record, I learned that my antagonist was popular for his “brutal honesty.” Heavy hitters in the business may have appreciated his barroom bluster, but I found it consisted of nothing more than vulgar, brutal pot shots - with no real thoughts to back them up. Needless to say, I was tempted, really tempted, to go to war.

This guy had showed his hand, after all. He had instigated a Twitter feud with nothing in his arsenal but brashness and vulgarities. To paraphrase Sean Connery in The Untouchables, he had come with a knife to a gun fight. I wanted to to decimate this F-Bomb king in public, via Twitter, without so much as breaking a sweat.

Fortunately common sense carried the day. What good would getting in a battle of words with this guy do me? I was a boxing writer, after all, not a boxer. Anyone can be brutal at a keyboard. I wanted to rise above that sort of thing. My goal wasn't to humor top sports writers. My goal was to be among their number.

More importantly, however, it felt good not getting into the trenches with this guy. It's a lesson I hope to take with me elsewhere. Let's face it, we're living in a crass age. It seems that vulgarity and obnoxiousness trumps reason on a regular basis.

But that's just how it seems. The truth is that, nine times out of ten, vulgar people will be known for being just that. Whatever positive things they bring to the table get drowned out by the noise of their own crassness. Howard Stern, for instance, is actually a bright, insightful guy. Unfortunately, that's not what he's most known for. And that's too bad.

This isn't to say being vulgar instantly makes one a leper. Legend has it that Patton used vulgarities to power his tanks. Patton was literally helping save the world, though. Fortunately, most of us won't ever find ourselves in such a position.

Sometimes we just have to remember that the high road often leads to high places. The low road, on the other hand...