Friends, it's a first for the WaddyIsRight commentating empire: a guest essay! I for one am very pleased to be providing a forum for one of our most faithful participants to share his thoughts about pressing issues of the day. As you know, cultural matters interest me greatly, and yet I didn't get around to writing on this topic -- partly because I paid little or no attention to the freak show that marked the halftime of this year's otherwise very entertaining Superbowl -- so I am extra-grateful to Jack for filling the void. Enjoy, connoisseurs of conservatism!
The Super Bowl Halftime Show: A National Disgrace
By The One and the Only..."Jack"
Often, in response to an offensive comment, people will say "can you actually hear yourself speaking?" Similarly, I bid us all consider : do we actually think about the presentation of such a tawdry spectacle as part of what is surely an event of interest to our children? Do we? Do we think about what we are seeing (and next it will be hearing, as soon as those who produce and promote such dreck think it possible to try the American public's tolerance once more). Do we think about what kind of people hold us in such contempt as to assume that though myriad Americans despise such trash, enough Americans have succumbed to it to make it profitable for them to pollute our general airwaves? What kind of people are they? Are we really as lazy and uncaring for our national culture as to abide their sneering, leering disdain for us? Their product is the conception and broadcast of the outlook of debased, often drug addled libertines who sneer at us as "suckers" and "meatballs" . Their own lives are very often records of unrepentant public degradation and dysfunction. As the hellish Demon Mephistopheles said to Marlowe's Dr. Faustus as Faustus blithely set to condemn himself in exchange for 24 years of utter lack of restraint : "In company the damned find comfort". And so do these show business sybaritic degenerates.
Consider how much of the rest of the world looks on
us for our celebration of such garbage. Many countries rightfully fear
the corrosive effect of our popular culture on their moral foundations,
especially among their young. Some of them have taken decisive and
forceful action to counter it and I do not blame them, no not one bit.
Yes, many of them have cultures which do not embrace that of the liberty
loving West which I rejoice to live in but their cultures usually have
very positive standards which they are understandably loathe to see
compromised. I saw this first hand in Singapore, a country largely free
of predatory crime and resultant drug use.
So what does this say about us? I would not
sacrifice the freedom of expression our Western tradition has painfully
afforded us but at the same time I would note, it gives us full license
to reject that which we find unendurable, through the popular, non
governmental tactics of boycott, material rejection and expressed
protest! The first to feel this outrage should be the corporate and
even political sponsors of this putrescence. Also to be considered
is the virtually complete devotion these lost people enjoy from the
American left. Reject them and you disempower those who would smear us
with their mainstream media empowered negativism.
Please America: take heed of this assault on all you
value and its direct relationship to all who seek the Dem nod for
leadership of our beloved country!
Jack
One of the saddest aspects of this "national disgrace" is that it unfolded on Fox. If we can't rely on our most "conservative" of networks to observe basic decency, what chance do we have with the rest of them? But, much as I hate to disagree with you, Jack, the fact is that the networks and performers debase their viewers PRECISELY because they know the reaction will be mostly enthusiastic and only a few cranks, from their perspective, will be offended. Probably millions ARE offended, but they're so used to the drivel pouring out of Hollywood that they fail to react. In short, broadcasting standards have declined massively, but as always the Left has gradually worn down our capacity for outrage and resistance. They've accustomed us to losing these daily battles for America's soul. Unless conservatives wake up, they'll find pole dancing and transvestites in their Saturday morning cartoons -- and it won't be long either!
ReplyDeleteAlthough, I did make a post on FB about this and Shakira, I actually did find it a disgrace. Besides a 50 year old woman dancing on a pole, the whole halftime time show was not family orientated and thank goodness, I do not have young children and I did not have to explain anything in concerns about shaking ones booty on a pole. Even my 22 year old was like, "Ick" (although, he did find Shakira 'hot'--after all my son did remark, "Mom, she is hot for being 30 something. I am a red blooded American guy, you know, right?" (I admonished his thought-grin)).
DeleteIn all seriousness, Dr. Waddy, I was not very happy with the halftime time show. There was just something fundamentally wrong with seeing a woman my age gyrating on a pole. I probably should just leave it at that.
Dr. Waddy: You are making very much sense.
ReplyDeleteI see an analogy to the attitude taken by places like Singapore toward degeneracy in general ( those things all societies detest eg. open public explicit sexual behavior, exposure of children to adult matters - "country matters" - with no derogation meant to rural people, to lewd language in sacred places, to drunkenness outside of those settings where it is expected etc) in the" Broken Windows" crime control concept so positively applied by Mayor Guiliani.Tolerate the little no nos and you encourage the commission of bigger no-nos and a generalized contempt for societal standards, generating inevitably, rampant crime. And in places like Singapore they see in America today ample reason for their fears in just what you have described above.
But we cannot enact the restrictions on free expression they can because of our Constitution and thank God for that. What do we do then?. Use that freedom of expression to get up on our hind legs and howl! A theretofore unheralded mother in Detroit did it a few years ago with some success. Bob Dole said he wouldn't try to make abortion on demand illegal, he would just talk about it every day.
The nickle and diming you so have so rightfully described is of a piece with the American left's urelenting war of attrition on all we value in the real America.Wars of attrition often reach a point where the "attritors" (so to speak) think the time ripe to strike a decisive blow. The left saw 2016 in that light and their hyperbolic response to their failure at the hands of a man who sees right through them fairly predicts what we will endure should they ever triumph. Ironically, since the Constitution would be moot under a leftist dictatorship (as it is now, incipiently, in NY State)the debauchery we lament here would probably be squashed; the Soviets and Hitler too, were notorious prudes.
Jack, I totally agree with the idea that giving way in "small" matters can lead inexorably to defeat on a much larger scale. Civilization is and always has been about standards. When those standards slip, all bets are off, and every value we cherish is in jeopardy.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, though, that maintenance of civilized standards is incompatible with free speech. We had free speech in this country before the cultural decline of the 60s and 70s, after all. You couldn't show a naked lady in CBS's primetime lineup, true, but you could debate whether or not naked ladies were a suitable subject for television broadcasts until the cows came home. Freedom doesn't mean that we all get to do whatever we want, in any context. It means that no ideas and values are quashed or inadmissible for consideration and deliberation. It means that political and intellectual speech is unregulated. It doesn't mean that obscenity becomes the norm. I just wish the "standards and practices" boys at the networks would start doing their jobs again. A little self-censorship goes a long way...
You're probably right, though, that cultural decadence might be alleviated somewhat in a socialist dictatorship. Always a silver lining, right?
Proof that you're not alone in this world, Jack:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oleantimesherald.com/olean/super-thoughts-on-wasted-drive-halftime-show/article_ae6d3d2d-0951-54ef-83f5-eceedc8c4e74.html
Dr. Waddy: I think the Olean Times Herald has a very fair and balanced editorial policy. It doesn't try to dictate to its readers as does the leftist Buffalo News.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was working in state prisons I often encountered a particularly unctuous type of inmate I called "probers".They would try this and try that game ("now I'm not trying to get over Mr.------"). When they encountered resistance they backed off, protesting their good intent vehemently. I think alot of these entertainment industry people are just like that; they will keep probing to see what they can get away with. And their industry is not without its criminal element, with typical criminal contempt for those it manipulates. And these low lifes are the good buddies of the American left.
True, Jack. Do you have leftist sympathies and yet utter contempt for women, their bodies, and their dignity? Then Hollywood could be the place for you! They take hypocrisy to a whole new level. And you're right that they keep moving the bar in terms of decency lower and lower. But really, what are the consequences? Their pals applaud them, and if once in a while they overstep, well, there's always another gig waiting for an innovator and a true artiste, right?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: You may well be right. I remember the Palace Burlesque in '50's and early '60's Buffalo.It was tucked away way downtown; a high school friend of mine who looked older than his years got in there once and he confirmed the impression most people had of it. It had the musty redolence of cigars and stew bums and offered 4th rate quasi Vaudeville shows featuring lame jokes and flatulent sound effects. Then: "Virginia Ding Dong Bell vs. the Lustful Turk" in some laughably low life spectacle. The point is: it was in its place and it was kept there! It was relatively harmless frivolity.
ReplyDeleteYears later I noticed an "Adult" store right on Main Street in a small town south of Buffalo. Well that didn't last long and I wondered at the recklessness of its proprietor in hazarding such a real America setting. I would guess that most societies with positive foundations have accepted the inevitability of such degradation but have made sure to CONTAIN it and to savage those who have exposed or involved the young in it.
But then came the reflexively iconoclastic '60's. This was not evolution; it was revolution in a very short time, enabled by the precipitate rise of the incredibly naive Boomers. And the slime, the ever present underlife of our cities, caught on to this with dispatch. Witness the swift degradation of the '67 Summer of Love to Altamont (enabled partly by the still celebrated geezer "Sir" Mick Jagger and his dessicated mate Keith Richard, who looks like they gave him leave from his grave to perform.).
Dr. Waddy: In the Western world this has advanced apace. And the 2020 Super Bowl half time show is its latest outrage. I do not doubt that it had leftist political support, manifested in the American left's propinquity for anything which erodes Western civilization, encourages cynicism about it and resignation to its ultimate destruction.
ReplyDeleteExcellent analysis couched in elegant prose, Jack, my man. You are so right that degeneracy thrives in all cultures, but some have the good taste and refinement to confine it (as you put it) to the margins. Cultures that revel in degradation, on the other hand, are fit for the dustbin of history. I agree with you that the Left wishes to hasten the collapse of Western Civilization, believing implicitly that what follows it MUST be better. Good luck with that!
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I was talking to a liberal yesterday who was half-hoping for a Trump win in 2020 -- both to spite a Democratic Party that she regards as insufficiently pure in its Bolshevism AND to hasten the societal collapse that will bring about more radical change. Of course, her analysis is full of holes, but her interim solution, to give up on the Dems, filled me with hope!
Linda -- I agree with you that the halftime show was abysmal, but I also agree with your son that Shakira looks pretty darn good for her age!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Oh,let the left celebrate the maelstrom its campaign promises. All that matters now is post Nov. '20 and we are looking good now, especially due to leftist adventurism in the lala direction. A year from now they will licking their wounds.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy and Linda: One further thought: Having lived in a country which has no tolerance for disdainful and aggressive sybarites ( Singapore), I observed this: First, I , an obvious foreigner and not a physically imposing individual,was completely safe wherever I went in the that land. But INFINITELY more important; children and senior citizens were very much protected and revered. To all of the societies (Chinese, Malay, South Asian)which made up the Singaporean citizenry, victimization of those groups was beyond ANY measure of toleration. And that was directly attributable to the conviction, deriving from their cultural traditions, that to allow low lifes ANY freedom of expansion or expression was to open the door to drugs and crime. Oh there were "red light" areas of Singapore but they were limited by draconian sanctions.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the very worst strike on American society is that children and senior citizens are NOT safe and we stand disgraced before the world for that infamous reality. We tolerate and sometimes even celebrate low lifes and their malicious, pervasive among our young and malignant attacks on our unresisting majority. When will the real America awaken to this consummate threat, lately manifested in the "Half Time Show" to all we value? Do not doubt for a moment that the presumptuousness of their progenitors penetrates to the very heart of the "Dem" party. Look who supports them!
Jack, you remind me of the old adage that a society ought to be judged on its treatment of its most vulnerable members. Children and the elderly certainly fall in this category. So do the unborn, as you've pointed out many times. Traditionally, women, as the "weaker sex", were also thought to merit protection, or at least respect. They get very little of either from the Left and from Hollywood, as we all know. Let's be clear: the Democrats will honor and respect NO ONE unless they subscribe to their agenda and their ideology. Anyone who gets in the way will be bulldozed or wiped out.
ReplyDelete