Peggy Noonan stands head and shoulders above the rest. In what is rumored to be her last OpEd for WSJ, that bastion of fairness and equality, Noonan proves once again that she just doesn't get it.
But we are concerned about other things, too, and there are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns. Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.
It is one thing to grouse that dreadful people who don't care about us control our economy, but another, and in a way more personal, thing to say that people who don't care about us control our culture.
She offers no support for this -- is this a majority who are concerned about "people who don't care about us" controlling our culture? Or is this an extension of polls reflecting concern about torture, unaccountability, greed in high places, a Congress that seems to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of (insert favorite corporate complex here), and a president who doesn't seem to believe in anything that actually requires action.
No, actually, it's all about Adam Lambert.
For years now, without anyone declaring it or even noticing it, we've had a compromise on television. Do you want, or will you allow into your home, dramas and comedies that, however good or bad, are graphically violent, highly sexualized, or reflective of cultural messages that you believe may be destructive? Fine, get cable. Pay for it. Buy your premium package, it's your money, spend it as you like.
But the big broadcast networks are for everyone. They are free, they are available on every television set in the nation, and we watch them with our children. The whole family's watching. Higher, stricter standards must maintain.
This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on and—again, in front of your children, in the living room, in the middle of your peaceful evening—uncorked an act in which he, in the words of various news reports the next day, performed "faux oral sex" featuring "S&M play," "bondage gear," "same-sex makeouts" and "walking a man and woman around the stage on a leash."
People were offended, and they complained.
I think what upset people was not that such actions occurred, but that they occurred publicly and without shame. It's one thing to participate in these sorts of things in private (even as a voyeur), is the thinking, but to be open and honest about it is unforgivable. And to be quite honest, most people could care less. She cites 1500 calls to ABC about the show. My first question is, out of how many viewers? Answer that, and if the percentage is significant, I might listen to you.
And then the Great Conflation:
All these things—plus Wall Street and Washington and the general sense that most of our great institutions have forgotten their essential mission—add up and produce a fear that the biggest deterioration in America isn't economic but something else, something more characterological.All these things—plus Wall Street and Washington and the general sense that most of our great institutions have forgotten their essential mission—add up and produce a fear that the biggest deterioration in America isn't economic but something else, something more characterological.
A few things apparently haven't occurred to Noonan. These people are participants in this culture. They watch these programs, they buy the newspapers and magazines that trumpet the latest indiscretions of celebrities -- indiscretions that are only indiscreet because "journalists" are busily digging up dirt to publish for the voracious appetites of the moralists in Middle America. Nothing is being forced on anyone, but it's a good excuse to avoid taking responsibility for watching what you watch and reading what you read. This stuff is happening, being broadcast, being written up in newspapers and magazines, because there's a market for it.
The purpose served by the bread and circuses is simply to draw attention away from Wall Street, away from Washington, away from the bullshit that is passing for governance in this country these days. And it's because of these distractions that the bullshit has become so firmly entrenched. (And let me point out that Peggy Noonan is part and parcel of this endeavor, making her as big a hypocrite as anyone else in the media. The alternative explanation, of course, is that she really is an idiot.)
Let's give Ms. Noonan some other numbers to work with: the parts of the county with the highest divorce rates, the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, the highest consumption of pornography, are the areas that are most "offended" by Adam Lambert.
Maybe Peggy Noonan should open her eyes, find the last shreds of her integriy, and write a piece about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment