''Profanum'' is the Latin word for "profane". The state of being profane, or "profanity," refers to a lack of respect for things that are held to be sacred, which implies anything inspiring or deserving of reverence, as well as behaviour showing similar disrespect or causing

religious offense Religious offense is any action which offends religious sensibilities and arouses serious negative emotions in people with strong belief. Causes Different religions are sensitive to different things in different measure, particularly such to ...

. The distinction between the sacred and the profane was considered by Émile Durkheim to be central to the social reality of human religion.

Etymology

The term ''profane'' originates from classical Latin ''profanus'', literally "before (outside) the temple", "pro" being outside and "fanum" being temple or sanctuary. It carried the meaning of either "desecrating what is holy" or "with a secular purpose" as early as the 1450s. Profanity represented secular indifference to religion or religious figures, while

blasphemy Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religiou ...

was a more offensive attack on religion and religious figures, considered sinful, and a direct violation of The Ten Commandments. Moreover, many Bible verses speak against swearing. In some countries, profanity words often have

Pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...

roots that after

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

influence were turned from names of deities and spirits to profanity and used as such, like famous

Finnish profanity Profanity in Finnish is used in the form of intensifiers, adjectives, adverbs and particles. There is also an aggressive mood that involves omission of the negative verb ' while implying its meaning with a swear word.Eero Voutilainen. ''.'' Koti ...

word ''

perkele Perkele () is a Finnish word meaning "evil spirit" and a popular Finnish profanity, used similarly to English " god damn", although it is considered much more profane. It is most likely the most internationally known Finnish curse word. Origins T ...

'', which was believed to be an original name of the thunder god Ukko, the chief god of the Finnish pagan pantheon. Profanities, in the original meaning of ''blasphemous profanity'', are part of the ancient tradition of the comic cults which laughed and scoffed at the deity or deities: an example of this would be Lucian's ''

Dialogues of the Gods ''Dialogues of the Gods'' ( grc, Θεῶν Διάλογοι) are 25 miniature dialogues mocking the Homeric conception of the Greek gods written in the Attic Greek dialect by the Greek author Lucian of Samosata. There are 25 dialogues in total. T ...

'' satire.

Sacred-profane dichotomy

The sacred-profane dichotomy is a concept posited by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who considered it to be the central characteristic of religion: "religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to ''sacred things'', that is to say, things set apart and forbidden." In Durkheim's theory, the sacred represents the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, or totems. The profane, however, involves mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the sacred–profane dichotomy is not equivalent to good-evil, as the sacred could be either good or evil, and the profane could be either as well. Durkheim's claim of the universality of this dichotomy for all religions and

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

s has been criticized by scholars such as the British

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

Jack Goody Sir John Rankine Goody (1919–2015) was an English social anthropologist. He was a prominent lecturer at Cambridge University, and was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology from 1973 to 1984. Among his main publications were ''Death, ...

. Goody also noted that "many societies have no words that translate as sacred or profane and that ultimately, just like the distinction between natural and supernatural, it was very much a product of European religious thought rather than a universally applicable criterion." According to Tomoko Masuzawa any cosmology without a sacred–profane binary was rendered invisible by the field of religious studies, privileging Christianity at the expense of non-Christian systems because the binary was supposed to be "universal", The profane world consists of all that people can know through their senses; it is the natural world of everyday life that people experience as either comprehensible or at least ultimately knowable — the '' Lebenswelt'' or lifeworld. In contrast, the sacred, or ''sacrum'' in Latin, encompasses all that exists beyond the everyday, natural world that people experience with their senses. As such, the sacred or numinous can inspire feelings of awe, because it is regarded as ultimately unknowable and beyond limited human abilities to perceive and comprehend. Durkheim pointed out however that there are degrees of sacredness, so that an

amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects ...

for example may be sacred yet little respected.

Transitions

Rites of passage represent movements from one state — the profane – to the other, the sacred; or back again to the profanum. Religion is organized primarily around the sacred elements of human life and provides a collective attempt to bridge the gap between the sacred and the profane.

Profane progress

Modernization and the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

project have led to a secularisation of culture over the past few centuries – an extension of the profanum at the (often explicit) expense of the sacred. The predominant 21st-century global worldview is as a result empirical, sensate, contractual, this-worldly – in short profane. Carl Jung expressed the same thought more subjectively when he wrote that "I know – and here I am expressing what countless other people know – that the present time is the time of God's disappearance and death".

Counter reaction

The advance of the profane has led to several countermovements, attempting to limit the scope of the profanum. Modernism set out to bring

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

and a sense of the sacred back into secular reality —

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

speaking for much of the movement when he wrote that "if nothing was divine then all things were, the world itself". Fundamentalism – Christian, Muslim, or other – set its face against the profanum with a return to sacred writ. Psychology too has set out to protect the boundaries of the individual self from profane intrusion, establishing ritual places for inward work in opposition to the

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

loss of privacy.

Cultural examples

Seamus Heaney considered that "the desacralizing of space is something that my generation experienced in all kinds of ways".Denis O'Driscoll, ''Stepping Stones'' (2008) p. 309

Etymology

Sacred-profane dichotomy

Transitions

Profane progress

Counter reaction

Cultural examples

See also

References

Further reading