Is Putin 'crude' because he's Russian? Are we in the West then 'proper'?

Here is a significant and much forgotten point that was raised by one commenter in response to a blogpost in the Economist snickering at the 'gutter language' Vladimir Putin uses. It insinuated that Putin's use of 'crude language', akin to Bushisms and Palinisms, reflects on Russia as a whole. Just like the stereotype of Americans being dumb and uncultured, so too must be Russians then, unlike western Europeans. However this is more the truth:

Many comments here erroneously assume that "western" cultural mores in general dictate that one must speak in a prim fashion suitable for a kindergarten at all times. This is hardly the case. Western Europe and America have a long tradition of "earthy" language that would be characterised as "crude" by these individuals.

In fact, this priggish attitude is a purely middle-class concoction - call it bourgeois, if you like. The upper and lower classes had no problem with "coarse" language, though since the 19th century the upper classes have been infected by bourgeois moralising to an extent. This bawlderising of speech became popular in English-speaking countries only in the 19th century as the middle class enlarged and sought to differentiate itself from the working class (whence most of them came) by implementing an exaggeratedly "good" standard of conduct that they thought made them seem more refined and pious and upper-class.

The upper classes were every bit as bawdy as the lower. Read Christopher Marlowe, for example, or Shakespeare. It was only the bourgeois middle classes who ostentatiously sought to parade their morality by proscribing "vulgar" language. It is hardly a "western" more.

With this in mind, this is why old money like George W. Bush seems like a 'common person' in his speech.