I've made the unsubstantiated observation that as a general rule, Americans dislike having uncomfortable discussions and therefore usually converse about neutral things, such as celebrities, products and pets. To illustrate, I was recently silenced at a party for daring to engage in conversation that was "too controversial" and not "inclusive" enough, even though I was talking about the presidential election. Swallowing my anger along with my next shot of whiskey, and mentally reviewing the long list of things that kill real democracy including complacency, I politely nodded my head to the litany of silly cat stories that followed. Just for the record, I experience joy in the presence of silly cats as much as the next person, but I take this as a given and do not feel the need to waste my precious social time reviewing the time-honored crazy antics of Felis catus. Yes, my cat runs around the house for no reason, too. Yes, it's funny. Now can we talk about politics and religion?
So, it was in this context that I was genuinely surprised whilst in the gym the other day shamelessly eavesdropping on a conversation that actually weighed a few pounds. I mean, maybe not enough to build rippling brain mass, but enough to tone up the ganglia a little. While most of the time I instinctively scramble the unbearable clatter that characterizes the average American conversation, in this particular exchange I began to hear words and phrases that wrestled my slumbering outer liberal into attention; words and phrases so provocative that I even made a special trip to the locker room so I could scribble them down on a paper towel since I can never rely on my disheveled memory. Later, I promptly lost the paper towel since I cannot rely on my disheveled memory. For this reason, I am unable to repeat these words and phrases exactly for you here, but I do remember the most sinister and provocative phrase of them all: "What's wrong with Ward Cleaver?"
Though I'd love to attempt to answer that question, I am trying to converge on a point for which such musings would prove superfluous. Therefore, I will resist the temptation to do so here and instead present to you a general description of this conversation that took place between two gentlemen on stair-steppers. During the conversation, each described himself in one way or another as "conservative". Beginning with the Ward Cleaver comment, the theme of this discussion was the destruction of the american family by the liberal/politically correct lurking among us, a theme that eventually evolved into reflections upon the growing epidemic of wussiness that these gentlemen believed is presently being vectored by overprotective parents to their all too sensitive, spoiled, allergy laden children. Again, in the interest of point convergence, I would like to put aside some of the tasty contradictions inherent in the simultaneous advocacy of these two ideas, and exclusively focus on the second one.
"I grew up in the Vietnam era," the older man said, "kids died. That's just the way it was. You got over it. Kids got beat up in the school yard. That's just the way it was. You got over it. If you didn't like the food you were given, tough, you ate it or you starved. You got over it. That's what made you a man. You didn't talk about it. You just got over it. I heard about this kid who got a pass on reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" because he was 'too sensitive'. I had to read that book when I was in school. I didn't like it, but I got over it!"
So, yeah, I thought, I agree with this guy, to a point. I think reading uncomfortable books improves your mind and playing in the dirt improves your immune system and I, too, have been frustrated by the spoiled nature of some American children when I have sweat dribbling down my face and thirty impatient people to wait on and mom is gently prodding little Samantha to choose between severally equally nutritionless items on the kids menu. This is me thinking: "Samantha, they will all make you hopelessly addicted to fat and sugar for the rest of your life, and Bessie the cow was inhumanely slaughtered just like Wilbur, so really, does it make that much of a difference? And, mom, give her ten seconds and if she can't decide, order her a bowl of broccoli and that'll teach her!"
However, most of the time, when I'm not in basic primitive survival mode like I am at work, I do prefer choice, democracy, kindness, peace, individuality and life to commandments, totalitarianism, cruelty, war, conformity and death. So, in that regard the wussy movement gives me hope that there may be a trend inching forward in that direction in the small cultural subset of white middle-class suburban America, even if the bond of white bread dough that holds families together is being permanently disrupted by too much communication.
As I was just about to make this very eloquent statement exactly how you see it here, however, the two men departed with their unchallenged opinions totally INTACT and I was left alone with sixty more minutes on the stair-stepper and an idiot box full of hundreds of nutrtionless yet tempting television choices. Unable to help myself, I turned it on and flicked through the channels in order to do a rough survey on the number of guns I saw. I was now entertaining chicken versus egg, life versus art, man versus woman, and other delightful dichotomies that typically charge through my mind in response to violence on television when suddenly and unexpectedly, a beautiful thought came blasting through, courtesy of the wussiness conversation.
And the Grinch thought of something she hadn't before. Violence, she thought, doesn't come in a store. Violence, she thought, is a little bit more!
Maybe, I thought as a choir of Whos joined in, the wussiness movement in our real lives (us being the small cultural subset of white middle-class america) sucks the warrior instinct out of us and deposits it upon the stories we tell as reflected by our pop culture. Just maybe, though I'm not entirely convinced, but maybe, the increasingly graphic violence in movies, television and video games does not desensitize the humans that feel the need to watch it, but preserves the aggressive instinct in a harmless fantasy bubble. In other words, increasing violence in this venue is a good sign for those of us rooting for a progression towards peace. I never thought I'd say this, but, hooray for Mortal Kombat!
But, of course, this from a person who argued once that increasing divorce rates are not a pernicious sign of the destruction of the institution of marriage, but an auspicious sign of intolerance for unhappiness.
I'm not saying it's true.
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