Observing this all from another country maybe it starts with tea parties with no tea and no pinkies up, and town meetings where you can bring guns without consequences and yell over the elected official and say "I want my country back", and the ugliness is not only all over the airwaves but promoted by
some broadcasters. There are politicians who fan this ugliness on without ever saying it has gone to far and enough is enough. Looking from the outside in one can come to believe that all Americans think this way and that is why it is good to come to sites like this to hear voices of reason. The 70% of Americans who back Obama need to speak up louder than the other 30%.
Oh, and David Brooks today in the NYTimes. Lamenting some lost mythic civility with maximum white male rich Beltway-insider privilege. Apparently he saw whites stuffing their faces on barbecue from an adjacent African-American gathering. Hence, racism does not exist. As people paraded signs positing Obama as Hitler nearby that he didn't notice.
Horrible milquetoast asshole, that David Brooks. Just a real dreadful apologist for the DC crowds last weekend. The froth of the hatred escaped him. Yet he writes about how rude Kanye was. Nice.
i know this must be true, but i don't know whether to blame madonna, the beatles, elvis, the end of undershirts for men, or the drift away from full slips for women, but i'm sure it has something to do with pop culture, women's suffrage, and integration, especially miscegenation. i'm just a little fuzzy on the details.
The same argument about American rudeness was preached 25 years ago during an age of slasher flicks, Rambo, scary-looking punk rock kids,and Reagan's "Get Tough" policy with the Soviets. The argument then returned in the early 90's when Beavis and Butthead, gangsta rap and ratty "grunge" clothes were supposedly dumbing down America.
We've been out of control for a while and I don't believe bad parenting is the root of the entire problem. It is an epidemic of self-centeredness with several causes.
I've been teaching for 15 years. During this time the number of students I see who consistently refuse to take responsibility for any of their actions or ownership in any failing they may have experienced is increasing dramatically. They are almost impossible to deal with - no course of action will work for about half. The parents of these children split equally between backing the school and defending their child even when he/she is clearly wrong, so you can't blame parenting entirely.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I think it is more a cultural thing. When I was growing up in the dark ages, we were taught the USofA was bigger, better and ALWAYS right over any other country. Now my generation was on the very back-edge of the baby boomer/hippie era and we didn't really buy into the crap. The next ones, however, were part of what I call the Reagan era "Me" generation and this propaganda fit their needs perfectly. And when they had children.... Voila. It just snowballed from there.
Whatever the cause, we have some humbling to do here in the States.
@Gretchen is a new kitten mom!: I think it is a serious reach to blame it on politics. From my own experience and from the experience of my mother and her teacher friends I think that there has been a roll back what is expected of the children. I could have been one of the kids you taught 15 years ago and I notice a huge change between when I nannied circa 1999 and the kids people my age are now producing.
But I think the reason has a lot more to do with the increased blame placed on parents for who their children turn out to be. Child abuse only became a recognized problem in the 70s and 80s and parents have a lot more fear of disciplining children in the 00s than they did in the 60s. Another example of this is toilet training. As a teenager I helped out in a few summer preschool programs and if you weren't toliet trained, we kicked you out. I know now 4 different nursery schoolers in different states (children of friends) who go to school in diapers because their parents don't believe in forcing 3 year olds to use a toilet. And the schools let them.
I don't think this is Kayne, Joe or Serens's issue but I don't think the problem is excessive patriotism either.
@Gretchen is a new kitten mom!: The thing is, I distinctly remember my teachers complaining to my mom (who was also a teacher) about roughly the same things in 1992. I suspect it may be the result of simply spending a lot of time around kids and seeing new flavors of obnoxiousness.
Back then, we were all irresponsible rude heathens who got pregnant out of wedlock, drove like maniacs, and watched horribly violent movies like Braveheart. This was proof that we had no self-restraint and youth culture was going straight to hell. There was usually something about rap mentioned in there too. Ah, how times change.
@clevernamehere: I also don't think it is a fear of discipline. My mother slapped me once and immediately started to cry. But I was always worried that I would get in trouble if I didn't behave. Even if that was just a good talking to, or being sent to my room.
I know some parents who are amazed that all the other parents they hear are always telling their kids they are good at everything. I think there was a movement towards never telling kids anything negative. They strike out every time they are up for bat, and you still tell them how great they are at softball. I think that can result in kids thinking they can do no wrong. I sucked at sports. I knew it. I also know I was good in the arts and math.
Yet another example of a national media commentator speculating about The Deeper Meaning of otherwise disconnected events in order to hook readers (or because he had nothing else interesting enough to write about this week and he had a deadline breathing down his neck).
@la.donna.pietra: Indeed, the Walkman was supposed to alienate us from all social interactions on the street, therefore rendering us incapable of personal communication, or at least making it easier for us to get hit by taxis.
@la.donna.pietra: I'm old enough to remember that "crisis" too. The funny thing is that the Walkman was replacing the, at the time, ubiquitous boom box which was 10,000 times as antisocial.
@token_illiterate_commenter: At the airport the other day, a teenager was using the speaker on her cell phone to blast a really obnoxious song to a 20-30-foot radius of disgruntled adults, and I had the strange sense of coming full circle in annoying musical devices.
@Cam/ron: Funny how that trope gets recycled for each new wildly popular gadget. The iPod makes us walk out into traffic. The cell phone makes us unable to have a complete conversation with someone face to face. Texting makes us crash our cars AND unable to spell correctly. FB, Twitter and Myspace render us incapable of keeping information on our every move to ourselves.
@WagaMama: Mine ate SO MANY BATTERIES if I fast-forwarded anything, so I carefully made mix tapes in exactly the right order so that I could listen to cool songs at various points on both sides of the tape.
I think this is a really good article Anna, as always. But I do have a question.
Why are we acting like Kayne beat someone or even slandered the prez? Why is his backlash seemingly worse the when Chris Brown beat Rihanna? Wasn't it all "Let them work it out alone" when she was beaten? But Taylor gets rudely interrupted and a case of the hurt feelings and we're ready to run over Kayne with a truck?(He's an asshole for sure but he doesn't beat on anyone)
@Vanilla_Ninja: I think the world is just telling us that it's okay to beat up a Caribbean woman, but you sure as hell better not interrupt a white lady.
Okay Pop Culture and Media, prove me wrong. I'd really like to see you do it.
@Vanilla_Ninja: I've thought about that too and my theory is this: It was easier for people to get onto Kanye because they saw what happend. When the Chris Brown thing happend everyone said "Well we don't know what really happened, we weren't there, no one saw it but them blah blah" In no way does this mean I think Chris Brown had any reason to hit Rihanna, in fact I don't need to see anyone hit anyone to verify they were in the wrong. Plus Kanye has a reputation of this dick behavior and I think people finally had it. While Chris Brown had this squeaky clean image and people didn't want to believe he could've been such a monster.
I love how the media's saying "society is going downhill!" People have been publicly making disruptive/abusive/narcissistic displays of behavior since the beginning of time. Ah, the Church of What's Happening Now.
This cultural meme comes up every decade and a half or so. The last time I heard it, the L.A. riots were cited as proof that people had lost all civility and respect for one another. Sorry, but that tops Kanye any day.
@la.donna.pietra: My grandmother spouts off, "People have lost all sense of social decency" every five minutes. So clearly if we did lose it, we lost it a long time ago.
@CurtCole: The first time I heard myself say that I was only 40. I shut up and began drinking immediately. Since then I've come to terms with myself and say it at least once a week.
The most teeth-grinding part of this is that there is NOTHING that can be done to *actually* punish him. It's Obi-Wan's Paradox: "Strike me down and I shall become more powerful than you can imagine."
Of course he never meant his apology. This was the best thing he's ever done! He's gone from being a nameless, pointless schmo in the House. NOW he's a Fox News Superstar with people calling him a hero in every red state in the country. And if the congress does censure him it'll only make his star burn brighter. He'll go from a "truth speaking Amur'can hero" to "Free Speech Martyr unjustly silenced by those Evil Libs"
I can't see any way to make this a bad thing for him. So much for Jefferson's theories on appropriate discourse...
09/19/09
some broadcasters. There are politicians who fan this ugliness on without ever saying it has gone to far and enough is enough. Looking from the outside in one can come to believe that all Americans think this way and that is why it is good to come to sites like this to hear voices of reason. The 70% of Americans who back Obama need to speak up louder than the other 30%.
09/18/09
Horrible milquetoast asshole, that David Brooks. Just a real dreadful apologist for the DC crowds last weekend. The froth of the hatred escaped him. Yet he writes about how rude Kanye was. Nice.
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/22/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
[sports.yahoo.com]
Mercury's in retrograde. Let's blame that.
09/18/09
I've been teaching for 15 years. During this time the number of students I see who consistently refuse to take responsibility for any of their actions or ownership in any failing they may have experienced is increasing dramatically. They are almost impossible to deal with - no course of action will work for about half. The parents of these children split equally between backing the school and defending their child even when he/she is clearly wrong, so you can't blame parenting entirely.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I think it is more a cultural thing. When I was growing up in the dark ages, we were taught the USofA was bigger, better and ALWAYS right over any other country. Now my generation was on the very back-edge of the baby boomer/hippie era and we didn't really buy into the crap. The next ones, however, were part of what I call the Reagan era "Me" generation and this propaganda fit their needs perfectly. And when they had children.... Voila. It just snowballed from there.
Whatever the cause, we have some humbling to do here in the States.
09/18/09
But I think the reason has a lot more to do with the increased blame placed on parents for who their children turn out to be. Child abuse only became a recognized problem in the 70s and 80s and parents have a lot more fear of disciplining children in the 00s than they did in the 60s. Another example of this is toilet training. As a teenager I helped out in a few summer preschool programs and if you weren't toliet trained, we kicked you out. I know now 4 different nursery schoolers in different states (children of friends) who go to school in diapers because their parents don't believe in forcing 3 year olds to use a toilet. And the schools let them.
I don't think this is Kayne, Joe or Serens's issue but I don't think the problem is excessive patriotism either.
09/18/09
Back then, we were all irresponsible rude heathens who got pregnant out of wedlock, drove like maniacs, and watched horribly violent movies like Braveheart. This was proof that we had no self-restraint and youth culture was going straight to hell. There was usually something about rap mentioned in there too. Ah, how times change.
09/18/09
I know some parents who are amazed that all the other parents they hear are always telling their kids they are good at everything. I think there was a movement towards never telling kids anything negative. They strike out every time they are up for bat, and you still tell them how great they are at softball. I think that can result in kids thinking they can do no wrong. I sucked at sports. I knew it. I also know I was good in the arts and math.
09/18/09
09/18/09
Wait, did I just date myself?
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
Actually, that last one may be true...
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
Give it a week, yo.
09/18/09
09/18/09
Why are we acting like Kayne beat someone or even slandered the prez? Why is his backlash seemingly worse the when Chris Brown beat Rihanna? Wasn't it all "Let them work it out alone" when she was beaten? But Taylor gets rudely interrupted and a case of the hurt feelings and we're ready to run over Kayne with a truck?(He's an asshole for sure but he doesn't beat on anyone)
09/18/09
Okay Pop Culture and Media, prove me wrong. I'd really like to see you do it.
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/18/09
09/13/09
Of course he never meant his apology. This was the best thing he's ever done! He's gone from being a nameless, pointless schmo in the House. NOW he's a Fox News Superstar with people calling him a hero in every red state in the country. And if the congress does censure him it'll only make his star burn brighter. He'll go from a "truth speaking Amur'can hero" to "Free Speech Martyr unjustly silenced by those Evil Libs"
I can't see any way to make this a bad thing for him. So much for Jefferson's theories on appropriate discourse...
09/13/09
09/13/09
[www.robmiller2010.com]