Inspired by a True Story

Updated Discussion Question

Thinking about the discussion thread on yesterday's post, I refined the question.

What I'd prefer to know is whether the normal American young woman would be more offended by a strange man who touched her in a non-threatening, though obviously sexual, way, like say a pat on the backside or by a strange man who told her the way she was dressed was immodest, immoral or inappropriate.

I really am going somewhere with this. I think the answer says something about our culture and I'll make my point after I hear from a few more of you.

Discussion Question

Do you think your average young woman in America would be more offended by a strange man telling her, even in polite terms, that he wants to have sex with her or by his telling her the way she is dressed is immodest or immoral?

What do you think and why?

I'll save my answer for later.

What Britney Owes

  I have long maintained that Britney Spears and her long, slow descent into what appears to be madness and dissolution are simply a mirror of our larger culture. 

This girl was trained from the beginning to amuse us. Now that she is no longer sexy, no longer a convenient screen onto which we may conveniently project our frustrated desires, she amuses us by falling apart in public.

What a hoot.

The Mighty Favog today has a great post detailing another, final act of service Britney owes us.

He writes:

BRIT MUST DIE. Because we demand it.

We won't admit that, any of us, but it doesn't make it any less so. If the bitch lives, the narrative is dramatically compromised. And even reality TV needs a compelling dramatic narrative . . . and redemption is so f-ing Bing Crosby playing yet another Catholic priest in an old black-and-white movie, you know?

Nope. The ho gotta go.

It is better for us that one Britney should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish. See, if this Greek tragedy in a modern Rome doesn't conclude with a media riot in a cemetery in Kentwood, La., we shall not be spared.

There will be a defective morality play to deal with. Then there will be ourselves to deal with.

If Brit doesn't die, then we're not any better than her, ultimately. Losers die while people laugh. We're not dead, and we're unaware of the laughter, so we're not losers. Or at least not as bad a loser as Britney Spears, who could not overcome being hillbilly trailer trash, alas.

Which is why she couldn't deal with all the drink, drugs, divorce, promiscuity, selfishness and extreme materialism. Or with the mental illness.

Read the whole great post here.

Bobby Knight and American Manhood

What makes a man?

The retirement of Bobby Knight this week occasioned some thoughts on this question from S.T. Karnick at his blog. I generally agree with S.T.’s opinions, but on this topic he leaves unspoken some important points that must be made explicit when we talk about the shape of masculinity in a feminized, therapeutic culture.

S.T. thinks much of the hostility directed toward Knight by sportswriters and others comes from the impulse to deride masculine character traits that permeates American culture.

He writes:

Coach Knight's imposing physical presence (6'5" and very burly, with strong brow and piercing eyes), directness, impatience, refusal to compromise or apologize if he thinks he's right, self-assurance, intolerance of sloth and excuse-making, and the like are all strongly masculine qualities, and just happen to be prominent among the types of characteristics most consistently derided in our society today.

Of course I don't excuse chair-throwing, physical violence toward innocents, public vulgarity, and other actions that could seriously harm other people. But let's be realistic for at least a moment: slapping a player on the back of the head during practice—or even grabbing him by the neck, the act that got him fired from Indiana University—isn't going to hurt the young man, and might just help knock some sense into him.

If that sounds archaic and even a bit mad, that just shows how far our culture and society have gone in denying reality in the attempt to rid our society of independence, courage, frankness, leadership, firmness, and other personal characteristics that threaten the power of the state.

The reality is that young men tend to be stubborn and stupid and respond most readily to the prospect of physical force and promises of instant rewards. A coach who can't cuff his players around is severely handicapped in motivating his players.

Well, maybe.

What S.T. doesn’t mention is that as much as Knight’s style has been a throwback to a less feminized age, his behavior is equally a product of our time.

To be sure, Knight’s behavior on the court has not been feminized, but neither has Knight been a model of manhood. Knight has certainly displayed “directness, impatience, refusal to compromise or apologize if he thinks he's right, self-assurance, intolerance of sloth and excuse-making” over the years. But, while these qualities may be masculine, they are not indicative of mature manhood. His behavior has more often been that of a powerful man confused by a culture that has denied him the moral guidance necessary for growing up, and thus his on- and off-court displays connote boyishness, more than full-blown manhood.

Mature manhood requires the presence of the masculine qualities Knight possesses, and that those qualities be refined and disciplined by the demands of moral and religious traditions. It’s hard to make the case, for example, that a biblical understanding of virtuous manhood involves the cultivation of “impatience”.

Knight’s behavior, including the repeated low level of violence that S.T. seems to find acceptable, indicate a lack of self-control on Knight’s part that radiates immaturity. It is self-control, especially in tense and demanding situations, that seems to model the biblical understanding of manhood as much as anything other quality. To overlook this lack in Knight is to fail to be as clear as necessary about his faults.

Knight’s behavior has cut against the grain of the feminizing forces of our culture, but is right in line with its increasingly secular tone. In a culture that has lost its moral center, all we have to judge our behavior by is whether it brings success. Knight’s boorish behavior was tolerated because he won. Any coach with a less successful record who employed these antics would be ousted immediately. Using success as a defense for weak character is not the mark of a man.

More than he represents a lingering model of old-fashioned manhood, Bobby Knight represents the perversion masculine qualities undergo when the culture where they emerge has been emptied of its moral guts. These qualities do not disappear, but fail to bloom into the form of disciplined manhood as we see in Knight’s case. Men are permitted to remain boys, especially if their behavior “works” in some pragmatic sense. And this is the tragedy we see everywhere there are young males today: we have modeled for them only how to “win” in their worldly pursuits and not what it takes to be a champion.

Barbara Ehrenreich and Corporate Culture

Barbara Ehrenreich is a communist and a pothead and, quite possibly, an atheist.

And I love reading her books. (If you doubt my claims about her, check this Wikipedia article. She spends quite a bit of space in Nickel and Dimed fretting about failing her Wal-Mart required drug test because of her pot use.)

Ehrenreich has a keen eye for the economic realities of life in a hyper-capitalist world. In Nickel and Dimed, she examines life on the bottom of the ladder. She works for Wal-Mart, as a server in a chain restaurant, and as a maid. Her reporting in that book is vivid and her analysis sharp.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading her follow-up to that book, Bait and Switch. Here, Ehrenreich sets out to explore the world of contemporary white-collar work.

She begins the arduous task of looking for work. She keeps at it for 170 pages. Bait and Switch suffers from a lack of drama when compared to the adventures Ehrenreich recounts in Nickel and Dimed.

It’s a lot less action-packed. Only near the end does much happen. Ehrenreich is finally offered a job selling insurance from her home, a job that promises no office, no benefits, and no salary.

That not much happens is, I think, the point. Ehrenreich’s search for an opening in the wall of the corporate keep is an empty pursuit ending in nothing but a few pep-talks from career coaches and an exploitative job offer.

What she does get is a look at how seeking the graces of corporations changes us. She describes with dead-on accuracy the shape of the “corporate personality”, a persona marked by two distinct traits.

First, the corporate personality hides a merciless coldness, a commitment to profit over every human interest behind a veneer of aggressive niceness. I recognized the type as soon as I read about it. I have known these people. Any behavior, from pressuring employees to neglect their families to firing them outright, is acceptable so long as it’s carried out with the best possible “people skills”. Moral principles don’t apply to any action. What matters is how nice the corporation’s representative was during the interchange.

Second, the corporate personality effuses non-stop enthusiasm for company related trivia. I happened to be working part-time at a national video rental chain a few years ago on the night this company announced it would no longer have late fees.

We were ushered into the back room for a video simulcast of the announcement directly from the CEO.

Before the show went live, our manager said, “I can’t tell you guys what is about to happen, but it’s going to change your lives!”

After the revelation, we lowly clerks failed to show much excitement and were upbraided by our manager for failing to have our lives sufficiently changed. Even at this lowest level, a willingness to fake caring goes a long way.

I realized what the corporation was asking me to do was to play along in its overpowering delusion that getting rid of late fees was the equivalent of getting rid of cancer. It was a tough assignment.

What Ehrenreich sees is that in the hyper-capitalist West, corporations don’t just control our work lives. They set the expectations about how our very personality ought to be shaped. They define the contours of the “good person”. They determine who has a “good attitude” and what kind of person is acceptable. They tell us not just what to buy anymore. They tell us who to be.

The War

A couple of nights ago, The Mrs. and I finished watching the last episode of Ken Burns' most recent documentary, "The War".

I've seen many of Burns' films. "The War" is his masterpiece. It will be hard to top.

One thing that struck me was the stories of how people on the home front got through the war: their sacrifice, their cooperation, their willingness to lay aside personal ambitions.  It was like listening to stories about life on another planet.

I am too young ever to have known an America steeped in anything but consumerism and radical individualism.  I'm glad I had Mr. Burns to give me a glimpse of what it might have been like.

Tough Season

I've been sick now for two solid months. The congestion won't budge. I have come to believe these aches are going to be perpetual. I've been through two rounds of antibiotics.  Both seemed to knock out my symptoms for a while, but they keep coming back.

Anyone know what's going on or what I can do to snap out of this?

Being under the weather is one reason blogging has been light lately.  I'll probably continue blogging sparsely for a few more weeks, then I hope to be back at it big time.