Tag: manners

Categories
ideological culture social media

Of Loudmouths and Silence

Rob Reiner, Donald Trump, civility, rudeness

The murders of Rob Reiner and his wife — allegedly by their son, Nick — were horrific enough. But because the elder Reiner was, in rallies and interviews and on social media, a spittle-​flecked progressive who said vile things about his opponents, including the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it was inevitable that President Donald Trump’s reaction would fail to serve as a stellar example of gracefully acknowledging the death of a 
public figure.

After calling the fatal knife attack a “sad thing” but before exclaiming “May Rob and Michele rest in peace,” Trump made the incident about himself. 

The butchery, he asserted, “reportedly” was the result of “the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.” Trump referred to Reiner’s “raging obsession” and “paranoia” that reached “new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before.” 

More extreme than Rob Reiner’s derangement may be Trump’s own. 

But the actor and director, in his heyday, also demonstrated some difficulty assessing his public persona honestly. Reiner never seemed to realize that he became the “Meathead” he played (maybe with only inadvertent satire) on All in the Family in the 1970s.

Some folks find it hard to condemn Trump for being petty and political upon Reiner’s death when that seemed to be precisely what Reiner was upon, say, Rush Limbaugh’s.

Both Reiner and Trump inhabit the “loudmouth” camp of public rhetoric, using strong condemnatory language and a reliance on over-​statement when railing against their opponents. At death, do loudmouths deserve less honor?

The acceleration of history being what it is, perhaps, “too soon” no longer sticks as a useful censure when it comes to gallows humor and double-​murder indecency.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Nano Banana and Firefly

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism

Loco Micro Repression

Close but no cakewalk prize.

Modern social justice advocates sometimes come up with legitimate complaints … only to wander off terra firma and into cloud-​cuckoo land.

“Microaggressions” is one of these airy wanderings, and Katherine Timpf has spotted another in the ever-​growing catalog of social justice beefs:

The size of our society’s chairs is now being considered a “microaggression” against overweight people, according to a guide released by The New School, a private college in New York City. 

Proponents of this cause, Timpf notes, insist that “Microaggression is not ‘Micro’ in Impact,” and that the best response to faux pas, slights, indelicacies, and what-​have-​you is snitching to the administration and intervention from same. Quite overbearing, if you ask me. During my too brief college stint it would have been considered an insult — a microaggression? — to think that young adults could not handle minor affronts such as so helpfully listed at The New School.

But let’s get real here. Microaggressions do not justify treating adults as children and setting up college administrators as in loco parentis tribunals — much less Molotov cocktails, sucker punches or bike locks in socks. At best, as has been pointed out elsewhere, Ned’s microaggression justifies Zed’s microretaliation. Nothing more.

So how does one micro-respond? 

Manners; etiquette.

In olden times, a well-​mannered person, when snubbed or otherwise insulted had the option of responding with a cutting remark … without any actual cutting, without even raising the tone of his or her voice. 

Activists and collegians really should look into it.

And not bring up chair size: the micro-​chair/​macro-​posterior issue has too many “microaggressive” jokes built into it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
ideological culture media and media people

Killer Apprehended, Vitriol’s to Blame

On Saturday, a mentally unstable 22-​year old man opened fire in a shopping center in Tucson, Arizona, seriously injuring a congresswoman, murdering six and wounding eleven more.

According to the New York Times, “Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics.” The Washington Post’s coverage could have run under the same headline: “The mass shooting Saturday morning that gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D‑Ariz.) and killed a federal judge raised serious concerns that the nation’s heated political discourse had taken a dangerous turn.”

No mention of the person who actually pulled the trigger. Instead, insinuations that those who have strongly expressed their political opinions are the real culprits.

“The rhetoric has devolved and descended past the ugly, and past the threatening, and past the fantastic, and into the imminently murderous,” argued MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. Olbermann’s guest, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, while admitting he didn’t know the shooter’s motivation, suggested the violence was the “inevitable” result of “violent political rhetoric” and “incitement.”

The Huffington Post trotted out Arizona Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva to relay the day’s message against “vitriolic rhetoric” from “extreme elements of the Tea Party.” Grijalva attacked Sarah Palin, arguing, “if she wants to help the public discourse, the best thing she could do is to keep quiet.”

Let us mourn the deceased, support the injured, prosecute the guilty. Yes. But it is indecent to twist an act of violence into an excuse to smear opponents and silence robust political debate.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense

What Would Dixon Do?

Maybe it’s just me … and all other normal people. But I’m more worried about policemen who abuse authority than those too “culturally insensitive” in their cheerful greetings.

Yes, that’s the latest crisis: Bobbies who say “Good evenin’ all” as they walk the beat.

Or so says a police manual published in the English county of Warwickshire. The manual claims that this greeting is culturally confusing. Even if the beloved Dixon of Dixon of Dock Green, Britain’s long-​running answer to The Andy Griffith Show, always opened with just those genial words.

A police spokesman explains that “‘afternoon’ and ‘evening’ are somewhat subjective in meaning.… In many cultures the term evening is linked to time of day when people have their main meal of the day.”

Someone’s gotta respond to this kind of concocted quandary, and a woman named Marie Clair of a group called the Plain English Campaign has taken on the chore. She asks: “Is anyone really going to be confused by [the word] ‘evening’? And if you can’t say what a lovely afternoon it is, what are you meant to say — what a lovely 3 PM?”

Other British agencies are targeting harmless words like “child” and “youngster.”

So, crime may be raging in the sceptered isle, but at least the bureaucratic monitors of politesse are bravely battling “insensitive” clarity and good will.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.