What is it about our culture lately that just loves tearing a human being to pulpy, bloody shreds?
Whatever one may think of the lurid spectacle that is The Wide World of Weiner, the glee demonstrated by the media is the truly disturbing element here.
The fact that Weiner was one of the left's most effective warrior's against the legitimately vile purveyors of rightwing horseshit is now seemingly forever lost in the bloodlust that defines our cultural landscape; the prevailing analyses have more in common with base schoolyard taunts that bred a Dylan Klebold than with straight journalism.
As the media now fully embraces the bully-tactics of the more outrageous quasi-journalistic hecklers, schadenfreude has supplanted integrity. And since so many Americans take their behavioral cues from the sensational shows they watch and the churning, angry propaganda they listen to, classic Judeo-Christian tenets such as humility, self-awareness and mercy have become quaint, corny concepts that elicit a snicker and a roll of the eyes.
How did all this happen? What brought this nation from the beginnings of true social awareness in which people were put before profit to a sneering mob at a tawdry sideshow?
The cultural baseness that we have descended to matches the attack launched by the corporate capitalist crazies who equate higher social consciousness with lower financial gain. By relentlessly flooding our awareness -- and our children's awarenesses -- with tacky techno-baubles and increasingly disturbing sexual imagery, a low-aiming, desensitized mass is created.
But the Weiner episode is only the most recent Lord of the Flies-moment in a long, line of media-led derision. From narcissists like Weiner to truly pathetic creatures like Anna Nicole Smith, there is a bizarre chasing-down of these high-profile fuck-ups to their inevitable humiliating ends. And when these people, architects of their own idiocy they may indeed be, have found themselves hanging from a ledge, why instead of helping them recover do we pry their fingers off?
We'd rather see them splat. Lower aims = higher ratings.
By consistently grinding human responses down to the cowardly and the cruel, the jeering media are digging a hole from which the nation has a decreasing chance of recovery. Americans should not take such pride in excoriating a fellow human being who has revealed himself to be a schmuck (by having revealed his schmuck). As unsavory as The Weinerscapades have been, the utter lack of compassion displayed by the multitude gathered to watch has been way more obscene.
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheStevenWeber
The thing that gets me is all the fuss about Weiner lying. First of all, I have never met a single person who hasn't lied on occasion. Secondly, ALL politicians lie and we don't care a bit when it is about policy. We have it exactly backwards, though. We SHOULD care when they lie about policy (which actually affects us) and should NOT care when it involves their private lives.
I would look at Weiner's underwear pics every day if it meant I could have universal health care--something which got sabotaged by lies about death panels.
Amen!!!
I saw Eric Cantor look straight into the camera a couple of weeks ago, and say that his friends on Wall Street want the Repubs to stand tough on raising the debt ceiling.
Yeah, Eric, we know. Wall Street is just dying for you Repubs to crash the ENTIRE WORLD ECONOMY, if you can't throw old people under the bus. It would work out so well for them and the banks. Jeesh!
If Wall Street is so fond of your threats to not raise the debt ceiling, why did you and Boehner have to call them just prior to your vote in the House on this issue, to reassure your Wall Street pals the vote wasn't serious?
A major lie, and one dealing in toying with potentially plunging the world into a catastrophic economic depression! And Cantor wasn't called by the press or Howard Stern's lacky on this major untruth in any way. Maybe if he'd said it while standing in his underwear.
Take Care,
Dayne
P.S. - Still a wise ass, but keeping up the fight.
I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
Booker T. Washington
Consequently, I was one of the few basement stock clerks, who wore a suit and carried a briefcase.
I'm joking about that, of course, but it did give me a very good early education about the temptations thrust onto men in powerful positions.
Therefore I've always felt that as long as the pol involved in a scandal isn't moralizing to others and fighting against human rights issues such as women's rights and gay rights, and providing no laws have been broken, their private issues should be their own to work through.
However, when they build their political careers by trashing Dems and liberals as being "immoral" and lacking "family values," that's a game changer.
When they fight against a woman's right to be in charge of her own body, fight against the rights of gays to be treated as equals in this nation of laws, fight against health care for all (especially health care for children), fight against the elderly and the poor and all based on their self-proclaimed "moral superiority," I have zero sympathy for them when their chickens come home to roost.
"You have to be willing to get happy about nothing." - Andy Warhol.
Yeah, didn't think so.
You make excellent points!
And, think of the effect on our kids. The examples we set my lending such emphasis to these issues will not serve them well. What has been shown to be important is bathing in the shower of ridicule on the congressman; joining the communal verbal stoning of someone who errors through intent (posting the pictures) and through association (that name); and ensuring we get as much mileage as possible for the bottom line.
But, probably worse, we are teaching our kids to make fun of someone, to bully them just because they can and because it's fun, and to deliver what has apparently become the ubiquitous "kick" when someone is down. The excuses "He made his own bed" or "He brought it upon himself," ignore the effect our actions have as examples for our children.
After poking fun or ridiculing Mr. Weiner, a parent who then attempts to discipline their child for similar behavior toward a vulnerable classmate, is standing on shaky ground and has little credibility.
As you said, "consistently grinding human responses down to the cowardly and the cruel" lowers the bar... particularly in the next generation, and that is a tough seed to "unplant"!
With appreciation,
Lawson Meadows
HOWEVER, there's another issue at stake: Which of OUR OWN actions have been blameworthy?
The whole point of this article is that guys like you and guys like me have been using the flaws of our fellows as an excuse to become belligerent and cruel towards everyone in general.
So yes, Weiner screwed up. But do two wrongs make a right, sir? Shall we lower ourselves to his level, constantly justifying our actions by the flaws of others?
I see kams is back. Sheesh. I think she's infatuated with you : ).