From Culture to Self-Culture and Narcissism

                        From Culture to Self-Culture and Narcissism

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 4/28/19

            When the Greek mythological figure Narcissus, thirsty after hunting, comes upon a pool of water and leans down to drink, he falls in love with his own image.  Seeing himself in the bloom of youth, Narcissus assumes that no one could ever love him as they ought or as his image deserves.  Writhing in passion for himself, Narcissus melts away and becomes a beautiful flower.

            Art, they tell us, is the imitation of life.  More and more there are examples of life imitating art: youths committing crimes they saw in movies, or even acts of real life heroism inspired by fictional heroes.

            No doubt imitation still works both ways.  There are at least two areas in contemporary society in which imitation is taking place, dress and music.

              Americans are a nation of copycats.  There was a day when I was required to stand at my classroom door and, among other responsibilities, stop the boys whose shirts were not tucked in and point them to the boys’ restroom for a slight wardrobe do-over.  Today men of all ages are wearing un-tucked shirts.  Why? I suspect because “everybody else is doing it.”

 Don’t be surprised if within five years a sizable number of men are wearing dresses.  If a presidential candidate publicly and passionately hugs and kisses his husband on the occasion of his candidacy announcement, men in dresses shouldn’t be a shock.  Once a month, tucked into the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal is a glossy, thick magazine of style that is already showing males modeling dresses.

            Oh, the lonely life of a toxic male like myself who still believes males are males and females are females, who considers the expression “self-identifies” as hoo-ey, and who has to explain why the Philadelphia 76’ers Coach Brett Brown wasn’t out of line when he told his players, “You’re playing in a man’s gym and you need to act like it.”

            Coach Brown and most other coaches, I suspect, regret that public ritual behavior has succumbed to personal freedom.  Individualism now runs amuck, resulting in a diminished appreciation of the team, the family, the civic club, and indeed the larger culture. We now have an increased elevation of oneself and one’s own ‘druthers.

            In his book titled “Bowling Alone, America’s Declining Social Capital,” Harvard professor Robert Putnam argues that individuals are increasingly disconnecting themselves from other individuals and from society as a whole. Putnam is right.  In regard to dress, Americans have lost all sense of “occasion.”  Ragged is OK, no matter where you’re headed.  Having reached the soul’s basement, more and more people care less and less about dressing up for anything.  What I want to wear is what matters, not the occasion.  That’s narcissism, self-absorption at its worst.

            Today college students rail against conformity, all the while wearing their conforming, copycat uniform, namely, tattered jeans.  Their self-absorption exceeds their sense of community.

            Where I grew up, the poorest of the poor knew what “Sunday best” was and honored it as a social norm.  But today stultifying casualness is our ethic.  “Toxic masculinity” has its good side, and I admire the coaches I’ve worked with who still teach boys to be men, even in dress.

            Music, too, is a compelling art form, and it too provides confirmation of Professor Putnam’s argument.  Nothing is more obvious than the present generation’s addiction to music.  How did Scottish patriot Andrew Fletcher put it?  “Let me write the nation’s songs, and I care not who writes its laws.”  No wonder.  Music is the most primitive expression of man’s rawest passions.  The purpose of civilization (education?) is to tame, inform, and direct our raw passions.  If our passions are barbarous, warlike, or sensual, hard rock can certainly feed them.  Plato wrote that in order to take the spiritual temperature of a society, we must “mark the music.”

            Guess what kinds of music most high schools feed to students during lunch, at pep rallies, or during halftime at basketball games.  Let’s just say it’s music that feeds the passions instead of civilizing or educating them.  But, “we’re here for the kids,” so we give them what they desire (and already have).

            Civic club membership, PTA involvement, and family dinners have waned significantly since 1995.  “Social capital” is losing to disconnectedness.  Solutions do exist: refuse the isolation of the cell phone, eat family meals together, join something, and don’t be a copycat.

            And remember.  The Narcissus tale is a myth.  In real life we don’t become beautiful by withdrawing and admiring ourselves, but by giving thought to those around us.  To our culture, that is.

Roger Hines

4/24/19