More on Kultursmog

Franklin -- So as far as you're concerned, people who want a little peace and quiet are, until they prove otherwise, racists? Really?

Rod -- What do you make of another approach to the question? It's that people growing up today are going to be waist-deep in electronic popular culture no matter what. Given that, perhaps it might work out well if they learn how to manage it. After all, mightn't the abstinence approach backfire? An analogy is booze. Americans tend to swing back and forth between total denial and binge-drinking. Meanwhile, Euros get their kids used to wine-drinking (a teaspoon in a glass of water, that kind of thing) from a very early age. And binge drinking isn't much of a problem in France, Spain, and Italy. But I don't know. Attaining any kind of balance can be tough in America, no?>

I've never tried to call into any of the conservative talk radio shows, but my understanding is that they screen the callers and don't permit the rational liberal viewpoint to be expressed. And they will cut you off quickly if you get by the screeners and present too many facts or offer the opposing viewpoint in a reasonable sort of way.

As for limiting conversation farther, what do you call telling kids what they can and can't discuss in school? We aren't talking about hate stuff(like forbidding Christian kids to harrass gays), but just normal stuff like......Harry Potter?

I saw nothing that Franklin wrote that's racist.>

Heavens, I'm not accusing Franklin of being racist. I'm wondering why (and/or if) he seems to be assuming that certain other people are racist.>

Franklin -- I'm 52, and I grew up in the Bad Old Days among smalltown Republicans. Many of them, if you pushed them, probably had some buried problems with race and homosexuality. But they were also, on a personal level, much kinder and more generous -- more humane -- than the big-city lefties I live among today, most of whom fall into the trap of wishing humanity well in the abstract.

I seldom heard much in the way of contempt and hostility towards anyone back in smalltownville. (They weren't crazy about school busing, but why should they have been?) Among my bigcity leftie friends and acquaintances, on the other hand, really aggressive nastiness towards (you name it) Catholics, religious people, smalltowners, Republicans is commonplace ... They often in fact pride themselves on how much they hate and look down on these people. They get this beady eyed look of self-pleasure, and you know an anti-rightie/religion/whatever vent is on its way.

I'm not being sentimental, btw. I get back to my old stomping grounds fairly regularly. They're really sweet people, even if horizons are a bit narrow. And they have no idea how much big city lefties despise and hate them.>

Michael,

So, I think I see our disconnect. I grew up smack dab between the two extremes: childhood thru high school in a Republican machine suburb right outside Philadelphia (again, those of you following in your atlases at home: Delaware County, the township of Upper Darby); then, for all but just under four years from then to now, living, working and raising children in the Democrat machine city of Philly. You could say, with some accuracy, that I've had a belly full of the extremes, and a thin icing of the middle ground.

I have met some of your sweet denizens of smalltownville, and I truly share your appreciation of them. I'd say to them what I'd say to anyone who is unfairly the target of prejudice or bigotry: ignore the lies, and live your lives with the integrity you've always lived them.

And I will have to concede one big point to you: I've found, in my personal travels, rather alot more and more easily expressed tolerance and acceptance amongst your smalltowners than I have in the big cities I've been to. I will also submit that Philly is not quite so bad, being more a hodge-podge of neighborhoods than your typical urban center. And I definitely don't see the contempt for your list of liberal targets. Maybe Philly is just a rare exception.

Anyone care to take a stab at my question? I'll reiterate it here:

The thing that gets me the maddest is every time I read of some person or group who tries to carve out a little island of moral normalcy for themselves.

I'd like to see this defined, please. Either give me the general case of what a "little island of moral normalcy" is supposed to be, or cite actual reports of actual cases where actual communities made an attempt to do something that came under fire, even if only in published form, from the ACLU or any similar organization.>

watsy:

You're right...I should have used Occam's Razor and realized that the simplest solution is almost always the correct one. What was I thinking? I finally bend to reality: a rational liberal position must not exist.

But I'll keep listening for sightings of it on Art Bell's program. ;-)>

They can't talk about Harry Potter? Good lord - if anything, that sounds to me like a road to making the kids more vulnerable in the future, not less. Whatever the policy might say, if kids are forbidden to talk about something, they're probably going to assume that there's something bad about it. When they get a bit older and discover that Harry Potter is not in fact a bad thing, they might jump to the conclusion that the other stuff wasn't so bad either, and decide that the school was lying to them about that. How is keeping children in ignorance (as opposed to innocence) supposed to strengthen their defenses? If anything it makes them weaker.

Sorry about the tangent. But the school's policy sounds really overly stringent. Also, I've seen a couple of kids who went off to college after having been raised in super-home-schooled, "protected" environments. Their defenses weren't stronger, as a rule. Generally, they had none at all when confronted with people who weren't coming from the same place as they - they had never been taught even to contemplate what these people were talking about, let alone really argue with them about it.>

Franklin,
Thanks for pointing out that you are 50. That explains a lot to me. Almost every time I have ever seen someone inject race into a conversation where it isn't mentioned or quickly imply the 'racist' smear where it isn't warranted, they are baby boomers. There is apparently something about growing up in the 60's that set peoples moral compass to look at race as the end-all be-all of human existence. It's a cheap way to prove moral superiority. There's was nothing about race in Rod's post, but you sure didn't waste any time making it about race.

Several years ago my wife and I lived in an apartment complex that was bad news. The cops were in there EVERY night. We didn't step outside after sunset. I mentioned to some co-workers that we were going to move to a better neighborhood. One of my 50-something collegues subtly implied that we were racist and were moving away from "those sorts" who we didn't like. I not so subtly gave him a earful. Our complex was over half white. He didn't know that, and didn't care. We didn't want to get shot or robbed, but as far as he was concerned "better neighborhood" was just a racist code phrase. He was trying to prove his moral superiority to me.

You want some examples of people who "carve out a little island of moral normalcy"? Here's one. Back in the mid-90's my sisters rural west Texas town had a horrible drug problem. (Crystal meth especially). The town decided to institute drug testing in the schools. I'm sure to cosmopolitan coastal types that this sounds like the most oppressive thing since the gulag, but the people of the town thought it was a fantastic idea. Except one guy who joined with the ACLU and sued. The NY Times sent reporters who portrayed him as the lone voice of reason in a town full of ignorant rednecks. A PBS Frontline documentary (Larry vs. Lockney) did the same. A Federal Court overturned the drug testing policy. When they tried to go to a less restrictive policy, they had to get court permission and supervision. But those schools are used to dealing with Federal courts. They are always in there because some student wants to say a prayer before a football game or at graduation. And the towns are always in there over Christmas decorations, etc. etc.

But hey, I'm sure there's a reason that drug testing is racist.....>

I like Anne-Marie's idea of a two-pronged approach to raising kids in this culture: not only protecting them from the bad, but exposing them to the good. That's what we're trying to do in our house. If you just say "thou shalt not" without helping them to experience the good, the true and the beautiful, well, it's like taking half a course of antibiotics. You set your kid up for a much stronger sickness in the future.>

Franklin, I guess the reason people are having trouble answering your question is because 1) it is a moving target, and 2) you bring it back to racism and bigotry.

The larger issue for many of us is how to live in the world without being "of" the world, and how to pass that on to our children. That is the tough part.

I'll use an example kind of like Rod's (without the Harry Potter ban). Our kids went to a small Catholic school through 8th grade -- where the kids tended to "grow up" slower than their counterparts. The parents and kids at the school were pretty much like-minded, which was the reason they chose the school to begin with, so in that way it was a bit of an enclave. (And, no, it was not a racist/bigoted fortress -- all races and economic levels were well represented, and got along just fine, thank you). So that is a bit of "moral normalcy" that we sought, and thankfully obtained.

The more insidious problem that I see is how the culture not only creeps in (can't help that, really) but on how the culture demands that it invade such enclaves. We see litigation on how a teacher at a Catholic school wants to be entitled to express opinions contrary to teachings of the Church. We see (successful) litigation on how libraries cannot install porn filters -- as though
the 1st amendment requires creeps to be able to access the same, turning public libraries into unsafe zones. We see whining by Howard Sterns of the world on how they can't say the seven dirty words on broadcasts -- as tho the 1st amendment permits that. And the entire political correctness wave prevents us from recognizing (and celebrating) differences among us, and especially prevents any moral judgment where it may be appropriate.

So, yeah, a little "moral normalcy" is what many of us look for. But no, as soon as we raise the issue, it gets turned into accusations that we who do so are bigoted and just don't want to associate with "others".

So spare me. You need to get out into the real (faith-based) world a little more, and see how we live, and how we are trying to live. At least before assuming that we are bigots and closed-minded.>

John Eliot Gardiner and Samuel Palmer rock!

All due respect to all of you for trying to find and promote quieter, calmer, more enriching lives, of course. I'm a little surprised, though, that the pop culture is seen in such blanket terms. I have my reservations about much of it myself. But some of it is glorious, no?

I suppose the question depends to some extent on how you define its boundaries. If pop culture is defined as mind-polluting junk, then automatically that's all it is. But if it's seen as a subdivision of popular culture more generally ... I mean, is Elvis bad? Aretha? The Beatles? Do all kids need protecting from them? To take it a step further: is sexual provocation always and everywhere a bad thing? Some of us might think of eroticism and sexual allure (and beauty, etc) as close to poetry and something to be very grateful for. They might well be experienced as something related to religion.

Which is why I think the analogy to wine does work (though I agree with Anne-Marie on many other points). Youth, beauty, sex, art, giggles, pleasure ... These can be great things, and where and how they shade into popular and pop culture ... Well, the boundaries can be pretty vague.

One handy example: me. I'm a big reader and a semiprofessional writer. But I didn't get into reading and writing entirely through dusty old classics. Comic books and magazines played big roles. I'm a huge arts buff -- but I didn't turn into someone who attends the opera and loves art museums by being born to them. I became an arts buff by starting out as a movie buff.

So popular culture can be (and judging from friends often is) a doorway into culture in a much larger sense. And that's a good thing, no?

What *has* changed, it seems to me, is that pop culture has become far more of an all-engulfing end in itself for many kids. And that's a big challenge ...>

You (general) have a choice: you can assume that the dialogue is stuck, or you can unstick it and say explicitly what you want to say.

I have not played any card, racist or other. I have, in fact, made honest disclosure after asking a question that begs the answerer to say: yes, there is a difference here, and this is how we define it.

Pikkumatti failed to get unstuck in the first point, but came through (as I hoped he would) with a very explicit (and eloquent) answer.

Allow me to draw a personal parallel here. I am engaged, much like my LGBT friends before me, in "reclaiming" labels and redefining the dialogue; my "area" is paganism, a rather less urgent one than sexual identity to be sure, but one we (pagans) have a very large stake in. So I jump to speak up whenever an opportunity arises to "work the room", to engage those who have (in our minds, of course) an incorrect or inaccurate view of what it means to be pagan. I do, occasionally, whine a bit about the unfairness of it all; my task is monumental, it being opposed by centuries of Christian indoctrination and (my label) propaganda.

Now, the reader is faced with a second choice. You can see me as whining yet more, but only now about paganism. Or, you can see it as an attempt to be honest about my perspective, and to invite you to focus on those aspects of my perspective that either you wish to correct, or which I ask you to help me correct.

Pikkumatti, allow me to gently remind you: I have been immersed in the real (faith-based) world all my life. I am as much a member of the Catholic sub-culture as I am a citizen of the US, that being the vastly greater portion of my immersion. If you catch me making a direct statement about the general case, painting all or most of them racist or bigoted, then do please call me out on it... but I have not even come close to doing so, and the sensitivity you assume I have is possibly one you might look at for yourself.

Sigh. If I didn't know better, I be thinking that some here think of me as a troll. Instead, I'm offering a stronger level of honesty, because I feel I'm being challenged to do that by the rest of you.>

Yeah, I was using "hedonism" loosely. Take that usage as sort of in reaction to the oft-perceived, and sometimes real, Christian proclivity for anhedonia (more often, just a dullness to the beautiful and delightful).

I like the way Orthodox have a "BEAUTIFUL CORNER" set aside in their homes for icons.>

From a senses-and-beauty point of view, Orthodoxy is very appealing, isn't it? Dizzying, intoxicating stuff. There's an Orthodox church on Manhattan's upper east side I keep reminding myself to attend, it's well-known especially for the beauty of its Easter services. But, y'know, Easter almost always slips by without me noticing ...

My own main prob with Extreme Crunchiness is related to all this: it just doesn't strike me as very attractive. My shallowness, I suppose ... But are beauty, eroticism, and sensory appeal really trivial? I don't really think so. I think the hum that they radiate (and make us vibrate to) is parallel to the ground bass of existence itself, and may even be the ground bass. Do we tune into that better and vibrate to it the more by living like Amish people? (Bless 'em, of course.)>

Michael B.,

You are right; as I was going to sleep last night, I was thinking that I had painted pop culture with too wide a brush.

At the same time, although you went from movies to opera, you might just as easily have gone from movies to music videos, no? If parents can start their kids off liking Bach, isn't that better than starting them on the Beatles and hoping it leads to Bach?

Also, I was thinking primarily of currently-produced pop culture. I can take or leave most Elvis and Beatles, but they're certainly better than the violent misogyny that passes for music nowadays.>

Anne-Marie -- You're definitely right about that. My own theory is that pop culture was once a kind of fun alternative to adult culture. Now it has become a whole universe. Also, pop culture is now made by people who grew up on ppp culture -- they're real experts at exploiting and addicting teens in ways they didn't used to be. And with electronics everywhere, there seems to be no holding it back. I'm struck, when I'm around young adults, by this all the time. They tend to find any interest in anything beyond pop culture as weird, grey, boring. Pop culture is everything to them, and they're fine with this. Weird.

I'm all for raising kids wtih Bach, Samuel Palmer, etc, that's for sure.>

Pop culture is everything to them, and they're fine with this.

I work in a tutoring center, and I see this all the time in my students. Most of them seem never to have visited, let alone inhabited, any other imaginative world. It's one of the main reasons they can't understand anything they read.>

Whoops, that Anonymous tutor at 12:34 was me.>

I don't know if there is a "Therefore," connected with this.... but in connection with this popular culture-traditional high culture thread, I've often thought about my own youthful experience, in which, when I actually got to hear some classical music, I liked it, even without knowing what it was.

Here's a funny example. I saw the cartoon movie "Yellow Submarine" on TV many years ago. In one episode, the soundtrack music starts by quoting a few notes of Bach's Air for the G String. I thought that was _beautiful_. I loved it. But as far as I knew it was just soundtrack music. The point is that I could have just about been ravished if someone in my circle had laid on me a good recording of the Bach.

Again, Public TV had a series of classic old movies, and they used some music from "Pictures at an Exhibition" - - I knew I liked that.

Or one time I was in a class in which we were reading science fiction and someone brought in an LP and played Mars and Venus from Holst's "The Planets." Right blew me away.

I think I even liked the whiff of classical music that one used to get in those classic Bugs Bunny cartoons.

I think sometimes kids will really respond to this music if they Just Get The Chance. Of course, don't approach them with that "You've got to listen reverently" stance.

In closing: I recommend, for folks who want to give their kids an intro to classical music, Alan Hovhaness's Mysterious Mountain, and maybe even more (though I like MM more), the Mt. St. Helens music... see if the "Eruption" doesn't grab 'em.>

Perhaps I can mention one more of those stories about being a kid and getting just a whiff of classical music and being pulled to it.

I never saw Disney's Fantasia till years later, but one Sunday evening "The Wonderful World of Color" had a special on Disney's animated cartoons & they showed a clip from that movie that used music from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker." I didn't know what it was, but I was fascinated by it (for all the lo-fi sound off our black and white TV!).

I'm not a musical person, in the sense that I can barely sing, can't play any instrument, can't read music, etc., which I think just enhances the value of my "testimony" about how classical music _can_ spontaneously appeal to kids. But we need to get it into their ears early before they absorb the kultursmog notion that says that that music is "for somebody else." And I do think it makes sense to try to minimize their exposure to the high-octane world of pop entertainment until they have had some pleasurable experiences of classic books, music, etc.>

Franklin, you are (by your own words) a secular humanist pagan.

Pikkumatti is clearly a person of God.

There is nothing of "important principles" that you agree on.>

Franklin, do you recognize the Natural Law? Because if you recognize that certain moral principles are Permanent Things, as I assume Pikkumatti does, then JB is wrong. The short form of the question is: if you have read C. S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, do you agree with it? If you missed that lucent little book, getting at the answer might take a little more time.

But my guess is that you do hold, e.g., that murder, theft, defaming people, using people for one's own selfish ends, etc. are not just socially deleterious; they are offenses against a moral Law that human beings did not invent, and the recognition of which as Law is a human distinctive.

On the other hand, if you're an "Enlightened" modern/postmodern chap, who believes that there's no morality save what's developed by some people to keep others under control and so on, then JB's probably right, and there's no appreciable common ground between you and pikkumatti. But I hope he is not right in saying that.

My understanding is that when the first Christians went into the world and preached Christ to pagans, the pagans could at least recognize that we do evil; that we stand before some divine order - - gods, Logos, Tao - - guilty of sin; and that the consequences of sin are suffering and punishment; whether the punishing agency was conceived as the Erinyes or reincarnation or something else. There was some common ground.

Comments?>

Wow. I just stopped by to see if anything happened, and now this.

Here's my take. I in fact recognize that "certain moral principles are Permanent Things". Now on to whether the Natural Law or moral principles are a "moral Law that human beings did not invent".

What seems universal to me is that all humans (i.e., let's say reasonable or reasoned humans) strive to reach some ideal. That's why we all seem to enjoy hero stories, and all recognize some things as good and some as evil. So far, so good.

But, to coin a phrase, there are two kinds of people. Some find that ideal outside of themselves (or outside of humanity, for example according to a Law That Humans Did Not Invent), and convert themselves and their behavior to try to conform to that Law and that Ideal. These people recognize objective good and evil. And they will reach Happiness when their will conforms with that Ideal (e.g., God's will).

Other people seek an "ideal" or "faith", and modify (deform) their conscience, to match what they want to do anyway. Obviously this approach does not lend itself to recognizing objective good and evil, but devolves to moral relativism. For these people, the ideal is conformed to each person's will. These people will not conform their will to an Ideal, but vice versa.

IMHO, this is the story of the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve eat from the Tree because they think (or are convinced) that they know better and can decide what is good and what is evil. The stain of original sin, if you will.

To the extent that Franklin and I have common ground, and I believe from his writing that we do, it comes from our common recognition that there is something outside of ourselves that is the Ideal, and that we humans ought to, through reason and faith, convert and conform ourselves to that Ideal. We will then be truly Happy.

Franklin and I obviously disagree on the source of that Ideal, and to some extent about what the Ideal is. But truth does not contradict Truth, and therefore as long as both of us keep searching, with open minds, to what Truth is and hoping (or praying) for the courage to conform ourselves to that Truth, then we should end up in the same place, given enough time (which, of course, we are not guaranteed to have).

Franklin, whaddaya think about THAT?>

I'll quibble with your "third" category a bit, because it is vulnerable to self-validation. Or maybe I'm just not strong enough to do things that way -- I truly need to be shaken up from the Outside, and be reminded that I don't know everything and that what I thought previously was wrong.

And, I'll submit that my faith ain't just symbols. The data over the last 2k years bears that out.

Other than that, I think we understand each other and are facing in the same direction. Thanks for this great exercise; it is good to have to think things through. And thanks, as always, for your courtesy.>

Good discussion, Franklin and Pikkumatti.>