Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?

Slavoj Zizek talks of the subject supposed to believe,

which is the constitutive figure of the symbolic order.  According to a well-known anthropological anecdote, the primitives to whom certain superstitious beliefs were attributed (that they descended from fish or from a bird, for example), when directly asked about these beliefs, answered: 'of course not - I'm not that stupid!  But I have been told that some of our ancestors did believe that...'  In short, they transferred their belief onto another.

Isn't this precisely what we are doing with the Wayne Rooney "incident?" No one is actually offended by the swearing, they are offended on behalf of another, the children.  Zizek continues:

We go through the ritual of Santa Claus, since our children (are supposed to) believe in it and we do not want to disappoint them; they pretend to believe so as not to disappoint us and our belief in their naivety (and to get presents of course).

Additionally the belief is always dispelled from outside- there's always some naughty child or older brother to ruin the Santa Claus story - the child never just thinks, "this Santa thing is a bit... far-fetched..." The point being that the world ruins the, already mythical, total innocence of children.  Returning to Rooney, this is the point, that by transfering the offence onto the children - being offended on their behalf, we can have our cake and eat it - "I personally, I'm, a man of the world, I don't mind Rooney swearing, but think of the Children!" And I capitalise the word because it is an abstract, non-existing idea of Children.  In the real world children don't need Rooney to teach them swear words - they know them , they've just already worked out the rules for their use - don't swear in front of adults.  

As Zizek points out though, it doesn't matter that no-one is offended:

for the belief to be operative, the subject who directly believes need not exist at all:  it is enough precisely to presuppose his existence, to believe in it, either in the guise of the mythological founding father figure who is not part of our reality, or in the guise of the impersonal actor, the unspecified agent- 'They say that...'/'It is said that...'

One other point: Everyone knows swearing goes on all the time in football, how many times during a game can one see the players mouthing swear words - one doesn't have to be an expert lip-reader to see it.  It goes on all the time.  So why does it become an issue when the words are actually heard.  Here we can turn to another Lacanian concept, that of the big Other, the symbolic order.  The thing is alright, as long as it stays out of the knowledge of the other.  A secret that everyone knows, but know one talks about, the elephant in the room, can be easily lived with, but as soon as someone mentions it out loud it has an effect, everything changes, even though everyone already knew about it, the act of speaking it changes the dynamic.  Zizek, again:

While talking, I am never merely a 'small other' (individual) interacting with other 'small others':  the big Other must always be there.

It must always be there with its rules, so that when the thing, the secret becomes known to the big Other, it changes everything, we have to follow the rules of the symbolic order.  So that swearing in football is there, everyone knows it's there, but it's only when it's shouted, for the big Other to hear, does it change things.