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Never has our great nation been more bitterly divided. A question of desperate import hangs over us which we're barely beginning to address.

Religious, political and economic differences are all just shades of gray, mere matters of emphasis, small print on society's contract, compared to this. There can be no compromise, no consensus. The battle lines are drawn and the final conflict will only end in the utter defiance and refutation of the values of one side or the other.

Is saying "fuck" offensive?

That's not the same as asking: "Is 'fuck' a rude word?" Everyone accepts it's a rude word -- it would hardly be used if it weren't. The disagreement is about whether using it (and other swearing, but "fuck" is the Gaza Strip here) is an offensive act.

I don't think it is. I don't think it matters a shit, damn or piss if someone says "fuck" or how many times they say it. My friends and colleagues unthinkingly use it all the time and, as far as I can tell, it hasn't resulted in the poisoning of their souls or their becoming unable to express themselves because of the effect of linguistic inflation.

That's the argument often deployed against swearwords: "If you overuse them, they'll lose their effect." Well, so what, if you hate them so much? Or is the prospect of a rude word losing its offensive power too unsettling for the offendees, as it would reveal that it was only ever a word and the power was an illusion of their own making? It would emasculate their attempts to censor with their censure.

They needn't worry. People will always find new words to offend with or be offended by -- it's a limitless resource, so why don't we enjoy it? Let's say "fuck" as often and conversationally as we can and we'll be on to "cunt" before you know it.

Bookmakers could take bets on what the word after that will be. As surely as we move on from MySpace to Facebook to Twitter, so shall we pass seamlessly from the f-word to the c-word to, let's say, the d-word. "Drung" -- meaning a combination of Jesus' snot and a pedophile's desire.

Obviously its sense would soon be lost, but it would be a satisfying thing to yell if you'd just hit your thumb with a hammer.

The noises people choose to take offense from become arbitrary. "Fuck" is beyond the pale but "frick", "frak" or "feck", used in Scrubs, Battlestar Galactica and Father Ted respectively to mean exactly the same thing, invoke no complaints. When, in Scrubs, Elliot screams: "Just put the motherfricking ring on the motherfricking finger! Frick, frick, frick!", the program is satirizing the fact that one sound can randomly be deemed disgusting and another harmless, regardless of the sense in which they are meant.

Now that none of them will still be reading, it may be time for me to acknowledge the point of view of people who find swearing unacceptable. I concede that they are numerous and sincere; that what to me is a conversational grace note to many is disrespectful or even aggressive; that it seems perverse to them that anyone would choose to use a word that may upset people.

Many of the 2700 viewers and listeners who were interviewed for a BBC report published last week hold opinions like that and feel that their side of the great national fuck-divide has been under-represented. Meanwhile, the British Board of Film Classification noted in its annual report that few things are more guaranteed to elicit complaints than Judi Dench cursing. People don't like that at all. They treat it like vandalism to a heritage building, apparently forgetting that, unlike a cathedral graffitied with "Millwall are crap", Dench has chosen to say "bastard".

I'm not saying it's irrational to mind any swearing at all. I wouldn't bring up a child of mine to swear, but I wouldn't really mind when they inevitably did. But it's daft to say a particular sound, regardless of context, must never be uttered, and ironically only guarantees it will be, by giving it rebellious cachet.

Trying to suppress it puts "fuck" on a pedestal. Before television turned prudish, presenters were sometimes encouraged to swear to make shows more outrageous or youthy. The millions who hate swearing handed lazy broadcasters a short cut to giving programs an edgy feel. And even if it could be suppressed, that would never stop people being disrespectful or trading insults. Swearing may be a lazy way of doing it, but we live in the era of the labor-saving device.

Surely the only way out of this conflict is for everyone to accept that all swearing is fine -- that no word is offensive, only sentiments are. With "fuck you" reduced to the level of "whoopsy-daisy", people who want to hurt each others feelings will have to say what they mean: "You're old and I feel you're judging me!" or: "I have banged my head and feel that it's a poor reward from fate for all my under-the-stairs-cupboard cleaning efforts!" or: "I have made an enormous emotional investment in football matches that I cannot control. Consequently your team's victory has laid me bare and I well up with hate for all that you stand for!"

Any new TV rules against swearing will only make life easier for people who want to cause offense on a tight effort budget. At the same time, they'll make it harder for comedy and drama writers to script television dialogue which is remotely similar to how a lot of us actually talk.

In my imagined Utopian future where foul language has lost its sting, people will have to be more creative if they wish to offend.