IMO it's a poor choice on Doctrow's part. Not because I have any real qualms about the use of the word, but because it's guaranteed to draw focus away from the real discussion.
George Carlin talked about this quite a bit, though. People object to "bad" words but words that describe objectively worse things are fine.
We can freely discuss killing, but we can't say "fuck" without people getting upset.
Talk about companies doing objectively evil things, crickets. Use the word "shit" while doing so, and it's guaranteed to bring out the people who object to the language used rather than the things that are happening.
George Carlin talked about this quite a bit, though. People object to "bad" words but words that describe objectively worse things are fine.
We can freely discuss killing, but we can't say "fuck" without people getting upset.
Talk about companies doing objectively evil things, crickets. Use the word "shit" while doing so, and it's guaranteed to bring out the people who object to the language used rather than the things that are happening.