Attention-Getters

People can get attention either from their accomplishments or from their deliberate attempts to get attention. Today, almost everywhere you look, people seem to be putting their efforts into getting attention. Wild hairdos, huge tattoos, pierced body parts, outlandish clothing, weird statements -- all these have become substitutes for achievements. Some parents give their children off-the-wall names, as if that is the way to give them some kind of individuality. On the contrary, it means joining a stampede toward showiness. You don't need a crazy name to become famous. It would be hard to think of plainer names than Jim Brown, Ted Williams, Walter Johnson or Michael Jordan.

It was what they did that made their names famous. In business, some of the biggest changes in the economy were produced by people with plain names like Henry Ford and Bill Gates. In retailing, some of the biggest names were Richard Sears and Sam Walton.

When you achieve something, you don't need gimmicks. This has been especially apparent in sports. Joe Louis wore the same standard boxing trunks as everybody else, not the wildly varying and garish trunks that so many boxers wear today. He did not find it necessary to taunt or denigrate his opponents or behave like a lout inside or outside the ring. But he scored more first-round knockouts in championship fights than any other heavyweight, and will be remembered as long as boxing is remembered. If Jim Brown had carried on in the end zone after every touchdown he scored, the way so many football players do today, it is hard to see how he could have had the energy left to average more than five yards a carry for his career.

The problem is not just with people who want to get attention by the way they dress, act, talk, or show off in innumerable other ways. The more fundamental problem is that the society around them pays its attention to such superficial and often childish stuff. The media attention lavished on Anna Nicole Smith and Paris 24/7, while paying little attention to Iran's movement toward nuclear weapons that can change the course of history irrevocably, is one of the most painful signs of our times.

A lifetime of making major contributions to the health, prosperity, or education of a whole society will not get as much media attention as organizing some loud and strident demonstration, spiced with runaway rhetoric. In a "non-judgmental" world, what is there to determine who deserves notice, except who can make a big splash?

We not only live longer today, we are more vigorous in our sixties than earlier generations were in their forties. But can you name even one person or one enterprise that conferred this enormous benefit on millions of people? The average American today has a standard of living that includes things that only the upper crust could have afforded in times past -- and some things that even the rich didn't have in past generations, like personal computers. But are the people who made that possible even mentioned, much less publicized and praised? There is not an inventor, scientist, medical researcher, or industrialist who is as well known as loudmouths like Rosie O'Donnell or Jesse Jackson. Any bimbo who exposes her body can get more attention than someone who finds ways to reduce the cost of housing for millions of people. In California, the bimbo can get favorable attention while the developer is condemned.

In short, the problem is not that particular people do particular things to get attention. The problem is that the society at large no longer has standards by which to deny or rebuke attention-seekers who have nothing to contribute to society. Do not expect sound judgments in a society where being "non-judgmental" is an exalted value. As someone has said, if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

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Good People Can Disagree (As Long as They Have Permission)

In the 2000 presidential campaign, then-Governor George W. Bush was visiting a charter school in Newark with New Jersey Governor Whitman. When he was asked about Whitman's pro-abortion rights position, Bush stated, "Good people can disagree on the issue, and I understand that I'm standing up here with a friend of mine...I respect Gov. Whitman's views and I respect her as a person."

This in essence is the "new tone" which the optimistic, and seemingly naive Governor Bush took to Washington. To this day he has not abandoned this acceptance of basic human goodness and sincerity, in spite of his Christian faith which would clearly argue against it. It is one thing to love your enemy; but it is also important to recognize that you have an enemy.

It may all be for public consumption, but you cannot be an effective leader of the free world while compromising and chumming with the enemies of freedom, both foreign and especially domestic. Peering into Vladimir Putin's soul might have been an interesting experience, but the darkness which lurks there should not have left President Bush all warm and fuzzy. Watching Bush side with Senators Kennedy and McCain on giving up our national sovereignty through the amnesty of illegal immigrants makes my head spin and my stomach churn. If good people can disagree, then it is also true that bad people can lie and seem to agree. And therein lies the heart of the matter.

Much of the muted conservative debate left in Washington loses its power because of the castration induced by the new tone. Rather than being a noble position of peace and understanding, the new tone is a mask which not only fools the public, but emasculates the Conservative defense against the Left. The Left has no illusions about its agenda, nor does it need to be nice or civil. If a Leftist politician argues for civility, he is only attempting to convince his Conservative opponent to lay down his sword, so that he can stab him in the heart, or in the back. This is the nature of Leftist argument: it is fundamentally insincere, daring not reveal its real agenda.

The most recent example of this, and truly an artful expression of Leftist propaganda, is a tome crafted by the Center for American Progress titled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio". Although it falls short of becoming the Communist Manifesto for the 21st century, it does accomplish a primary goal of the Left: framing the political debate and redefining the language used. Even if one could not smell the Clintonesque odor (John Podesta is CEO of the Center), one knows that this document comes from the headquarters of the Ministry of Truth.

The Left has substituted the word "Progressive" in place of "Leftist" or "Socialist" or "Liberal" because these words have fallen out of favor with the American public. This immediately creates a value judgment in the mind of the reader. After all, who could be against progress, except of course the evil Conservatives? Progressive is a word that has been successfully market tested.

The title of the study betrays the way in which the debate is framed. Rather than accept the obvious fact that people who listen to talk radio like Conservative talk rather than Leftist talk, the writers blame this market response on a structural imbalance; i.e., insufficient federal regulation of ownership. This is the Leftist answer to all problems. The market cannot be trusted because it will inevitably be dominated by a few powerful individuals, so bust up the monopolies and force the market to move in the direction desired by the Left.

Now, I could pretend that these Progressive writers mean well, that in their warm and loving hearts they are genuinely concerned about the need for balance in the marketplace of ideas. This would be the same as adopting the new tone, that good people can disagree on an issue and still have a beer together.

But what if they don't mean well? Quoting from the paper:

Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.

Ownership diversity is perhaps the single most important variable contributing to the structural imbalance based on the data. Quantitative analysis conducted by Free Press of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations reveals that stations owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.

To support their sweeping conclusions, the authors of the paper assume the following axioms:

There needs to be a public trustee concept of broadcast in a commercial broadcasting enterprise.

There is a clear public interest requirement, and that someone in the federal government determines what this clear requirement should be.

There is a need for local control of the content of political discourse.

The solution (according to the Clintonistas) to this structural imbalance is to:

Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.

Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.

Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

All of these conclusions, assumptions and recommendations are founded on a single, unquestioned principle, that the Federal government must regulate the political content of the electromagnetic spectrum because the electromagnetic spectrum is a finite resource. I could say the same for the easements which carry cable or phone lines, the trees frok national forests that go into making newsprint, or the spaces available for billboards along the streets and highways. Where does this argument end, or why does it stop with radio? Why not television? Why not the internet? What about the political or even religious balance in our public schools and academia?

Senator Inhofe has been the only politician to take some risk and expose the Leftist agenda for what it really is, nothing more than an attempt by the Leftists (including Clinton, Feinstein, McCain, and Lott) to stifle free speech. Good people may disagree, but these people aren't good people. They do not stand for freedom. They do not mean well. They do not misunderstand the issue, nor is their collectivist heart in the right place.

This proposal to regulate political speech carries the stench of totalitarianism, and whether it comes from the Democrats or the Republicans, it is still a greater threat to our national security than the suicidal Islamic zealots who at least have the consideration to kill themselves in the process of killing others.

The new tone has now reached its inevitable climax. By showing weakness, the Republicans (starting with the budget battle in 1995) have appeased and played nice, and allowed their base to carry their water. The rise of alternative media, both internet and talk radio, has been a grass roots response to the spinelessness of the elected leadership. The Democrats have succeeded in emasculating and demonizing the Republicans, culminating in the absurd elevation of Pelosi and Reid as King and Queen of Washington DC. Is it any wonder that a hapless George Bush decides that if you can't beat 'em, then join 'em?

The Amnesty Bill has now become the battleground to determine whether or not our nation deserves to be the leader of the free world. The Fairness Doctrine (another label brought to you by the Ministry of Truth) is the weapon by which to slay the grass roots opposition. Just as the United States cannot be defeated from without, but must be eroded from within, so too the Conservative movement must be betrayed by those who have been elected to defend the gates. President Bush, do you understand?

They have failed and have joined the enemy. Good people don't disagree because there are no good people. There are only sinners and timeless truths, one of which is that freedom is good and worth defending. Our founding fathers understood this. The First Amendment could not be any clearer:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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A new hatred: Hatred of affluent parents

Parents in Park Slope, the Brooklyn neighbourhood where I live, are reeling from the latest in a series of articles vilifying them and their children. They have been described as a ‘tribe’ and ‘The Stroller Mafia’; their children as ‘narcissistic, whiny’ kids who ‘infest’ the streets of the neighbourhood, ‘overrun’ the coffee houses and ride around in their thousand-dollar chariots like ‘little Cleopatras’

Bashing Brooklyn’s ‘breeders’, as they are sometimes referred to, is nothing new. There is a small but vocal subculture of blogs that regularly indulge in rants about Park Slope parents and their progeny. Gawker.com, a local media and gossip blog, actually markets a t-shirt sporting the slogan: ‘I Hate Your Kids’. Last year, New York Magazine ran an article sending up a spat about the language used to describe a lost child’s hat on the local list serv and this month’s Time Out New York Kids has a piece entitled ‘Why Does Everyone Hate Park Slope?’. Now, with the publication of Tom Leonard’s column ‘Day of the Dad’ in the UK’s Telegraph, it seems bashing ‘The Slope’ has gone global

It’s not the snide tone of the reporting that confounds local parents so much as the notion that anyone outside the neighbourhood would take an interest at all. And that’s what makes it feel like there is something more subtle at work than lazy journalism or a crass critique of local parenting culture. It feels angry. It feels personal, and in much the same way that neighbours fight and family members drive each other crazy, it is.

Park Slope, for those who don’t know it, is a leafy, almost suburban enclave in New York City’s second-most famous borough. Over the years it has been home to working-class Italians, Irish, Latin Americans and Arabs among other groups. It began to gentrify in the 1980s and today it is positively trendy with a cohort of celebrity residents, from famous authors to film stars, and real estate values that make London house prices look cheap.

It has also become ground zero for any discussion of the evils of parenting in the United States. Children who run wild, parents who obsess about food or sleep; parents who are cliquish, insecure and judgmental. It’s not that people here are more extreme than anywhere else in the country, but they do tend to be middle-class, highly educated, articulate users of the internet who talk, blog and write books about parenting. This means that all the fears and insecurities of modern parenthood and the excesses that flow from them are played out publicly for all to see. Not surprisingly, the neighbourhood has become a reference point.

One way this often happens is through the Park Slope Parents’ Yahoo group. Over 6,000 parents are registered to participate in discussions with other local mums and dads. These can be simple queries about things like finding plumbers or tips for getting your child to start actually brushing his teeth (as opposed to simply eating the toothpaste) to more involved discussions about helping your six-year-old deal with her grandfather’s death. The list provides a sort of ‘reality check’ for parents who often feel they can’t reveal their concerns except through the semi-anonymity of their computers. An awkward moment at the playground; discussions of the pros and cons of particular vaccinations; miscellaneous concerns about the neighbourhood; all appear on the list, and are usually resolved through common sense.

Unfortunately, many of these exchanges also find their way into the press. The Telegraph piece, for instance, ridicules a woman for having the temerity to complain about a ‘delivery man she suspected had defecated or been sick - she wasn’t quite sure which - in her building’s hallway’. Several well-known blogs picked up on one father’s ill-conceived plan to charge his son’s nanny for the cost of two lost toy strollers. It’s hardly the stuff of scandal but good for a laugh at parents’ expense.

And yet, it must seem strange to anyone beyond a hundred-mile radius of New York City because the most striking thing about Park Slope Parents and their critics is that they have so much in common. They walk the same streets and share the same apartment houses, have the same tastes in clothing and music. They share the same liberal political outlook. In fact, many of the very same journalists who ridiculed parents in the neighbourhood before they had children can be found celebrating what they used to criticise.

And that’s what is so incongruous about these anti-parent polemics. They are filled with righteous ire, usually reserved for ‘red state’ voters, the religious right or Fox News. In fact, apart from slight variations in lifestyles, there are no significant differences between local parents and non-parents. Perhaps this is why it has been necessary to invent them.

There are many points of contention: parents who employ nannies are at once callous and self-centred because they ‘pay strangers to raise their children’, and recalcitrant exploiters because they don’t pay enough, do not pay on the books and do not usually offer benefits like healthcare. Newcomers to the area are portrayed as venal, entitled ‘yuppies’ more interested in increasing their property values than preserving the ‘character’ (read ethnic, cultural and racial mix) of the neighbourhood. This despite the fact that Park Slope has been gentrifying for over two decades.

But surely the most ridiculous example of the imaginary sins-of-the-parents is the obsession with the bugaboo stroller. Bugaboos, for the uninitiated, are ergonomically wonderful, extremely versatile strollers from the Netherlands. They are not overly expensive there but a fully loaded ‘bug’ goes for about $900 in the US, where they are considered status symbols.

For critics, pushing a Bugaboo is the moral equivalent of owning a Hummer. The phrase ‘with their Bugaboo strollers’ is tacked on to descriptions of local parents as an epitaph. Sometimes it’s ‘with their obscenely expensive bugaboo strollers’ just for good measure. It is eerily reminiscent of discussions of SUVs and their owners. SUV owners have been described as ‘insecure, vain, self-centred, and self-absorbed’, ‘…frequently nervous about their marriages’, and lacking ‘confidence in their driving skills’

Substitute the word ‘Bugaboo’ for ‘SUV’ and ‘parenting’ for ‘driving’ and you’ve neatly captured every prejudice about Parents With Bugaboos as well. You might think it’s just a stroller but for some people there is a greater principle at stake.

Clearly, some elements of the ‘Slope Wars’ are petty and trivial but they are interesting because of what they reveal about the nature of American life today. Lifestyle has become so central to the way Americans see themselves and relate to the rest of the world that every outward expression of a different lifestyle is seen as an affront to their own. There’s a constant tension between people with children and those without them, between parents who adopt a lifestyle based on a particular philosophy of parenting and those who don’t, between people who live in cities and those who live in the suburbs, between the religious and the non-religious.

Parents in Park Slope get it coming and going. Some critics slam them for being too much like their suburban counterparts, ‘adults walking around with tense, frozen smiles while their eyes plead for reassurance that they have succeeded in capturing the American Dream’ (5). For others, like David Brooks writing in the New York Times, it’s the very opposite: ‘Don’t they observe that… with their unearned sense of superiority and their abusively pretentious children’s names like Anouschka and Elijah, they are displaying a degree of conformity that makes your average suburban cul-de-sac look like Renaissance Florence?’ (6) In fact, the real problem for parents in Park Slope is that they are at the sharp end of several lifestyle clashes while simultaneously caught up in a destructive culture of parenting.

Sure, there are things about parents today that bear criticising: they are prone to panic about everything from school enrollments to plastic cups, liable to interpret mundane encounters or even gestures of sympathy from other adults as slights or disapproval. Most of all, the pressure to be closely involved in children’s lives risks robbing them of the opportunity to learn how to make their own way. All these are real concerns that deserve a hearing from parents and in society more broadly, but critiques that essentially criticise parents for being parents are worse than useless. They identify the wrong problems and contribute to creating the climate of paranoia that has led us to where we are in the first place.

As for attacks on Park Slope: perhaps the question is not what’s wrong with parents there but how have we got to the point where the minutiae of their personal lives can be elevated to the level of a moral crusade?

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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