The
Age of Foolishness
Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 10/21/18
There
are some things we can dismiss as trivial and fleeting, such as Sen. Elizabeth
Warren’s questionable genealogy, but there are other things like pronouns and
peanuts to which we best pay attention.
Who
would have thought that pronouns and peanuts would ever reach political
discourse or that self-respect and charm would go out of style and have to be
re-taught?
Why
pay attention to pronouns and peanuts?
Because they provide examples of outlandishness and tyranny that are
making inroads, especially in California.
Also because our children will fall victims if they are not taught how
to resist outlandishness and tyranny.
Now
that the all-gender bathroom issue has waned, the pronoun issue has begun
sweeping the country. From where? You guessed it. Academia.
Oh, the foolish, wasteful things birthed, nourished, and indoctrinated
in settings where people should be learning math, science, history, and
p.h.y.s.i.o.l.o.g.y.
Many
of academia’s well nourished children move on to government and education where
they set or enforce policy and thereby spread the foolishness. Take New York City, for example. The New York Times reported recently that beginning
in 2019, New York City will allow citizens to be identified on their birth
certificates as “male,” “female,” or “X.”
No more limiting people to those old-fashioned, sexist, “binary”
identifications like “male” and “female” or “he” and “she.”
Today’s
word, children, is “non-binary.” Hello,
increased diversity. Goodbye, physiological facts. Hello, California. New York City is catching up with you.
Regardless
of how NYC’s decision affects grammar books and teachers, it will certainly
cause confusion for state and federal agencies that deal with official
documents requiring correct identification.
Has anyone seen an “X”-box on their income tax return? Don’t rule it out. Our Age of Foolishness is well afoot.
Let Topeka or Peoria snicker, but parents in
New York and California are organizing, according to The Weekly Standard
magazine, and are raising their babies as “theybies.” Their kids “will choose their own gender and
appropriate pronouns when they’re ready.”
I
won’t be snickering. If you think the
activist parents will get nowhere, pause and count on your fingers the Congressional
members who already subscribe to such thinking.
I just did and ran out of fingers and toes both. Columnist Heather Mac Donald’s expression,
“the diversity delusion,” is absolutely in play here. Watch as the list of reality-denying
“snowflakes” grows.
As
for peanuts, journalist Michael Warren recently recounted a phone call received
from his son’s school nurse: “It appears your son Henry had a sandwich in his
lunch box that looked suspiciously like peanut butter. Please be reminded of our school’s total nut
ban.” One must ask if there is any
corner of our existence into which government and schools will not venture.
Another
facet of the Age of Foolishness is the loss of personal pride and even
charm. The government can’t be blamed
for this. As recently as the late
nineties, I stood at my classroom door (a requirement) to, among other things,
send to the restroom those young men whose shirts were not tucked in. Tucked or untucked wasn’t actually the
issue. Trying to instill at least a
measure of self-pride was.
Since
then, of course, looking nice has been abandoned and Georgia’s commissioner of
labor, Mark Butler, views it as a problem.
In the October 7th edition of the MDJ, Butler reported that
Georgia job-seekers are showing up for interviews dressed inappropriately. Business owners have informed Butler of the
“soft skills” lacking in far too many applicants.
Charm
is typically defined as “a quality that attracts, pleases, delights, and
arouses admiration.” For my generation
Carey Grant, Aubrey Hepburn, Ronald Reagan, and Olivia de Havilland filled the
bill, but what 25 year old today knows of these self-respecting icons? They do know of the ill-clad rock stars (and
the preachers who dress like them), the foul-mouthed comedians, and celebrities
who provide no example of class.
“Charm,”
writes Joseph Epstein, “is the song we don’t want to end, the painting that
won’t leave our minds, the man or woman we wish never to leave the room.” It is “our relief from the doldrums and
drabness of everyday life.”
In
the Age of Foolishness, charm or looking nice is scoffed at. Though charm elevates the spirit and
brightens our day, comfort is much more highly prized. But charm is more than dress. It’s personality, civility, and manners.
Charm
isn’t in the eye of the beholder.
Everybody understands it except perhaps the purveyors of foolish
pronouns, the enemies of peanuts, and all the others who are undermining respect,
caring nothing about norms.
Charm
isn’t just traditional. It is profoundly
human.
Roger Hines
10/17/18
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