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OT: Vroon's latest ARG Critical Convictions, The Land of the Timid
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Oscar
Feb 27, 2016, 12:26:32 PM2/27/16
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Below is an abridge version VROON's latest installment of Critical Convictions, titled The Land of the Timid (March/April 2016, Vol.79 No.2):
The USA has become a wimpy place. The evidence is everywhere. Everyone seems afraid of everything. We are not "the land of the free" but the land of the timid.
Children are outrageously overprotected. 60 years ago children "went out to play" and disappeared for hours on end--and no one worried.
College students are increasingly protected from "offensive" ideas. Why? A decent education requires coming to grips with ideas you don't like. But people nowadays claim they are "offended" by those ideas. They feel no obligation to respect people who disagree with them--or even to listen to them. But it even applies to adults: when was the last time you had a vigorous conversation, an argument, something challenging? Do you subscribe to any magazine that questions your ideas and opinions? The Internet has isolated people from each other and made it possible to filter what you are exposed to so you won't have to deal with anything inconvenient. That is wimpy, childish and inexcusable.
People mostly have phones now with "caller ID". They won't answer a call unless they recognize the number.
People are afraid of confrontation, so they don't say what they really think. In fact, they try not to say anything. "Texting" has become a way of _avoiding_ conversation, as young people freely admit.
No one questions "received wisdom" (conformity of thought) in meetings; they just go along and never "rock the boat". They are afraid to do anything that might bother anyone else.
People are afraid to be critical; for example, they give everybody a standing ovation at concerts. Here wimpiness meets sentimentality (they are closely related). If you are not confident that you know a great performance when you hear one, you can just treat every performance as if it were great. That is very irresponsible, but audiences have become that timid. One of life's great obligations is NOT to praise what is not worthy of praise.
Insincere praise is everywhere; it is especially dished out to children (in the name of "self-esteem") who seldom deserve praise at all.
People talk about "issues" or "challenges" instead of problems or disappointments or handicaps. Yes, our use of language is getting wimpy, too.
People can't resist change or "the latest thing" and become slaves of technology instead of asking whether the changes and new things are needed or worthwhile--whether they make things better.
I read recently that 37 percent of adults are afraid to be out after dark. They aggravate the problem that if good citizens abandon the streets, the streets get increasingly taken over by bad ones.
TV in general is bad for your health: the more you look at it, the worse your health gets, and the more likely you are to die (American Journal of Preventive Medicine). But it is also notorious for creating passivity. News, sports, entertainment--it all just reduces you to a passive lump on a sofa. It thinks your thoughts for you and it feeds your fears. Americans are addicted to passive entertainment--even in sports--and it means that increasingly they don't think at all (or exercise).
Massive linguistic conformity rules. People doing fake and unreal, because what they say is "pre-approved" by the media and everyone around them. They talk--as they think--in safe cliches. What people say no longer reflects what they really think--or would think if they let themselves think. That is too risky--someone else might disapprove or find it "offensive".)
We are (in most of the country) very timid drivers. Part of the problem is that we force people to drive who should not be driving. Maybe half the drivers on the road are too timid to be good at it. They don't seem to be able to merge, for example. The "acceleration" lane entering an expressway has become a "stop and worry" lane.
When it comes to driving, the US has infantilized all of us. We are not allowed to use our judgement or even to develop judgement. There are signs and laws that tell us what to do in every situation, from the speed we can drive around the next curve to when we can pass. There are cops hiding around every corner and at the bottom of every hill--sometimes there are even cameras--to keep you in line and make you a wimpy driver. Good drivers are fast, efficient, and aggressive; but our whole society is producing timid drivers. We reward timidity and penalize alertness--in driving as in everything else.
People are afraid of the weather. Again "the media" are responsible for constant alarms.
People are terrified of "identity theft". I had to fight with one of our writers to get her Social Security number--which of course I have to have for anyone we pay. Again, the media make people think all kinds of crime are far more prevalent than they really are. People who are afraid and alarmed are easier to control, as both politicians and advertisers know.
People are afraid of smoke; many claim to be "allergic" to any whiff of the vague smell of tobacco smoke, even if it's only found by sniffing the furniture. This is such nonsense!
We seem afraid of nudity. In my father's day (and even a few years back in my own day) men swam naked at the YMCA and showered and changed in a public space. Nowadays people seem to afraid to be seen naked, and the Y has had to make separate shower stalls. I remember my fear of being seen naked as a child in the junior high locker room. It was childish, and I outgrew it. No one seems outgrow childish fears and embarrassments any more. They want to be protected from anything that might bother them. Protection is wimp-making, and no one seems to grow up.
We are afraid to try new foods and drinks.
[People] treat music the same way. My friend Robert, who has been at almost every symphonic concert I have gone to for the last 20 years, tells me he has a new girlfriend who will not go to a concert with him. She says, "That's just not my music"; and he assures me she won't even give it a chance. Dump her, Robert!
We are miserably self-indulgent and never force ourselves to do anything. Like spoiled children we do anything we want to do, eat anything we want to eat, and so forth. "Self-control" seems a foreign concept--puritanical. We haven't the character to resist temptation; we just yield like weaklings. And we expect everyone around us to understand and sympathize and not comment that we are weak and immature.
Maybe this comes from the blurring between the sexes (a possible side effect of feminism--or of women taking over so many jobs and doing so much writing?). Women were expected to be weaker; men had to be strong and manly to protect them. When was the last time you heard that? Actually, most women do want to be protected from anything they don't want to bother with. And most American men are shockingly effeminate by the standards of 1950 or 1960. Young men today are afraid of anything unfamiliar. (I repeat: they all wear the same clothes, drink the same beer, and listen to the same music.) When I was growing up such behavior and fears were have been considered unmanly--something to be ashamed of. We considered laziness and conformity deplorable. And we assumed that a man had to be aggressive to make something out of himself. We also assumed that becoming a man meant being able to stand on your own two feet--not living off your parents, for example. Parents today have kids in their 20s and 30s living with them.
We are way too tolerant. We put with a lot more than we should. Just think of what we put up with from other people's children. Or from noisy overgrown children who are physically "adult". When was the last time you complained to a noisy neighbor or to a parent about her child? And of course we are bullied and pushed around everywhere we turn, from the police to the supermarkets and big corporations. Why do we tolerate that? What happened to the spirit of freedom? We are all too willing to give up freedoms for more "security" (largely an illusion).
The police are bullies--and way out of line in much of this country, but Americans--wimps that they are--put up with police abuse all the time.
There are no standards; we never seem to hold people to standards of behavior or morality. Standards give life its backbone and challenge--give a job the same thing, give a marriage the same thing. Life must be a struggle--humans need that. No one is really poor anymore, and there doesn't seem to be any more striving and attaining. People mostly do their jobs half-heartedly. They seldom seem to have brains fully in gear. Half-heartedness is very wimpy.
Most people are afraid of criticism. We need constant reassurance. We are afraid to stand alone--even to be alone. We need to be in touch with our family all the time. (Stupid cell-phones.) Why? Insecurity? Or is this just another form of wimpy self-indulgence?
An entertainment culture has made us passive--another wimpy characteristic. We don't aggressively seek the truth; we just let the media (including the Internet) throw opinions at us and "information" (a misnomer--it's designed to get you to buy products). We don't actively think; we react to the thoughts and ideas thrown in our face by our "media". Even the way we use words is uneducated and shows that we no longer read books or consult dictionaries. What words mean to us is how we have heard them used. And we all conform; we all use words the way TV and the Internet use them---and that is often simply wrong. Again, passive acceptance of whatever comes our way seems to be the rule instead of vigilance, critical thinking, and individuality. And again one can only conclude that we have become wimps--we have no character or independence or originality. We just conform.
(Was it Henry Ford or Thomas Edison who said he would never hire someone who salted his food before tasting it? Well, I will never hire a writer who talks and writes the same garbage as everyone else in our benighted society.)
It is obvious to anyone who remembers the past that what was promoted as "democracy" has turned out to be bureaucracy. We are ruled by bureaucrats--legions of them in government and business--and they try to foist on us the illusion that because we can vote we live in a democracy. Don't believe it! Think critically!
We are patronizing to blacks. I can't imagine why blacks out up with it. We baby them and treat them like children who don't know what to do with themselves. It started in the 60s, in reaction to gruff mistreatment of blacks (which was certainly deplorable). I remember in 1965 or 66 a black fellow student told me he liked the way I treated blacks. "But I don't treat negroes any different than I treat anyone else." He said, "That's my point. You don't baby me, protect me, or hold the door for me. You treat me like I can take care of myself." Are we determined to turn black men into wimps, too?
I guess it is naive of me to expect a country governed by fear to raise up real men and women instead of timid caricatures. Our masters certainly prefer us wimpy.
The USA has become a wimpy place. The evidence is everywhere. Everyone seems afraid of everything. We are not "the land of the free" but the land of the timid.
Children are outrageously overprotected. 60 years ago children "went out to play" and disappeared for hours on end--and no one worried.
College students are increasingly protected from "offensive" ideas. Why? A decent education requires coming to grips with ideas you don't like. But people nowadays claim they are "offended" by those ideas. They feel no obligation to respect people who disagree with them--or even to listen to them. But it even applies to adults: when was the last time you had a vigorous conversation, an argument, something challenging? Do you subscribe to any magazine that questions your ideas and opinions? The Internet has isolated people from each other and made it possible to filter what you are exposed to so you won't have to deal with anything inconvenient. That is wimpy, childish and inexcusable.
People mostly have phones now with "caller ID". They won't answer a call unless they recognize the number.
People are afraid of confrontation, so they don't say what they really think. In fact, they try not to say anything. "Texting" has become a way of _avoiding_ conversation, as young people freely admit.
No one questions "received wisdom" (conformity of thought) in meetings; they just go along and never "rock the boat". They are afraid to do anything that might bother anyone else.
People are afraid to be critical; for example, they give everybody a standing ovation at concerts. Here wimpiness meets sentimentality (they are closely related). If you are not confident that you know a great performance when you hear one, you can just treat every performance as if it were great. That is very irresponsible, but audiences have become that timid. One of life's great obligations is NOT to praise what is not worthy of praise.
Insincere praise is everywhere; it is especially dished out to children (in the name of "self-esteem") who seldom deserve praise at all.
People talk about "issues" or "challenges" instead of problems or disappointments or handicaps. Yes, our use of language is getting wimpy, too.
People can't resist change or "the latest thing" and become slaves of technology instead of asking whether the changes and new things are needed or worthwhile--whether they make things better.
I read recently that 37 percent of adults are afraid to be out after dark. They aggravate the problem that if good citizens abandon the streets, the streets get increasingly taken over by bad ones.
TV in general is bad for your health: the more you look at it, the worse your health gets, and the more likely you are to die (American Journal of Preventive Medicine). But it is also notorious for creating passivity. News, sports, entertainment--it all just reduces you to a passive lump on a sofa. It thinks your thoughts for you and it feeds your fears. Americans are addicted to passive entertainment--even in sports--and it means that increasingly they don't think at all (or exercise).
Massive linguistic conformity rules. People doing fake and unreal, because what they say is "pre-approved" by the media and everyone around them. They talk--as they think--in safe cliches. What people say no longer reflects what they really think--or would think if they let themselves think. That is too risky--someone else might disapprove or find it "offensive".)
We are (in most of the country) very timid drivers. Part of the problem is that we force people to drive who should not be driving. Maybe half the drivers on the road are too timid to be good at it. They don't seem to be able to merge, for example. The "acceleration" lane entering an expressway has become a "stop and worry" lane.
When it comes to driving, the US has infantilized all of us. We are not allowed to use our judgement or even to develop judgement. There are signs and laws that tell us what to do in every situation, from the speed we can drive around the next curve to when we can pass. There are cops hiding around every corner and at the bottom of every hill--sometimes there are even cameras--to keep you in line and make you a wimpy driver. Good drivers are fast, efficient, and aggressive; but our whole society is producing timid drivers. We reward timidity and penalize alertness--in driving as in everything else.
People are afraid of the weather. Again "the media" are responsible for constant alarms.
People are terrified of "identity theft". I had to fight with one of our writers to get her Social Security number--which of course I have to have for anyone we pay. Again, the media make people think all kinds of crime are far more prevalent than they really are. People who are afraid and alarmed are easier to control, as both politicians and advertisers know.
People are afraid of smoke; many claim to be "allergic" to any whiff of the vague smell of tobacco smoke, even if it's only found by sniffing the furniture. This is such nonsense!
We seem afraid of nudity. In my father's day (and even a few years back in my own day) men swam naked at the YMCA and showered and changed in a public space. Nowadays people seem to afraid to be seen naked, and the Y has had to make separate shower stalls. I remember my fear of being seen naked as a child in the junior high locker room. It was childish, and I outgrew it. No one seems outgrow childish fears and embarrassments any more. They want to be protected from anything that might bother them. Protection is wimp-making, and no one seems to grow up.
We are afraid to try new foods and drinks.
[People] treat music the same way. My friend Robert, who has been at almost every symphonic concert I have gone to for the last 20 years, tells me he has a new girlfriend who will not go to a concert with him. She says, "That's just not my music"; and he assures me she won't even give it a chance. Dump her, Robert!
We are miserably self-indulgent and never force ourselves to do anything. Like spoiled children we do anything we want to do, eat anything we want to eat, and so forth. "Self-control" seems a foreign concept--puritanical. We haven't the character to resist temptation; we just yield like weaklings. And we expect everyone around us to understand and sympathize and not comment that we are weak and immature.
Maybe this comes from the blurring between the sexes (a possible side effect of feminism--or of women taking over so many jobs and doing so much writing?). Women were expected to be weaker; men had to be strong and manly to protect them. When was the last time you heard that? Actually, most women do want to be protected from anything they don't want to bother with. And most American men are shockingly effeminate by the standards of 1950 or 1960. Young men today are afraid of anything unfamiliar. (I repeat: they all wear the same clothes, drink the same beer, and listen to the same music.) When I was growing up such behavior and fears were have been considered unmanly--something to be ashamed of. We considered laziness and conformity deplorable. And we assumed that a man had to be aggressive to make something out of himself. We also assumed that becoming a man meant being able to stand on your own two feet--not living off your parents, for example. Parents today have kids in their 20s and 30s living with them.
We are way too tolerant. We put with a lot more than we should. Just think of what we put up with from other people's children. Or from noisy overgrown children who are physically "adult". When was the last time you complained to a noisy neighbor or to a parent about her child? And of course we are bullied and pushed around everywhere we turn, from the police to the supermarkets and big corporations. Why do we tolerate that? What happened to the spirit of freedom? We are all too willing to give up freedoms for more "security" (largely an illusion).
The police are bullies--and way out of line in much of this country, but Americans--wimps that they are--put up with police abuse all the time.
There are no standards; we never seem to hold people to standards of behavior or morality. Standards give life its backbone and challenge--give a job the same thing, give a marriage the same thing. Life must be a struggle--humans need that. No one is really poor anymore, and there doesn't seem to be any more striving and attaining. People mostly do their jobs half-heartedly. They seldom seem to have brains fully in gear. Half-heartedness is very wimpy.
Most people are afraid of criticism. We need constant reassurance. We are afraid to stand alone--even to be alone. We need to be in touch with our family all the time. (Stupid cell-phones.) Why? Insecurity? Or is this just another form of wimpy self-indulgence?
An entertainment culture has made us passive--another wimpy characteristic. We don't aggressively seek the truth; we just let the media (including the Internet) throw opinions at us and "information" (a misnomer--it's designed to get you to buy products). We don't actively think; we react to the thoughts and ideas thrown in our face by our "media". Even the way we use words is uneducated and shows that we no longer read books or consult dictionaries. What words mean to us is how we have heard them used. And we all conform; we all use words the way TV and the Internet use them---and that is often simply wrong. Again, passive acceptance of whatever comes our way seems to be the rule instead of vigilance, critical thinking, and individuality. And again one can only conclude that we have become wimps--we have no character or independence or originality. We just conform.
(Was it Henry Ford or Thomas Edison who said he would never hire someone who salted his food before tasting it? Well, I will never hire a writer who talks and writes the same garbage as everyone else in our benighted society.)
It is obvious to anyone who remembers the past that what was promoted as "democracy" has turned out to be bureaucracy. We are ruled by bureaucrats--legions of them in government and business--and they try to foist on us the illusion that because we can vote we live in a democracy. Don't believe it! Think critically!
We are patronizing to blacks. I can't imagine why blacks out up with it. We baby them and treat them like children who don't know what to do with themselves. It started in the 60s, in reaction to gruff mistreatment of blacks (which was certainly deplorable). I remember in 1965 or 66 a black fellow student told me he liked the way I treated blacks. "But I don't treat negroes any different than I treat anyone else." He said, "That's my point. You don't baby me, protect me, or hold the door for me. You treat me like I can take care of myself." Are we determined to turn black men into wimps, too?
I guess it is naive of me to expect a country governed by fear to raise up real men and women instead of timid caricatures. Our masters certainly prefer us wimpy.
Paul
Feb 27, 2016, 1:26:15 PM2/27/16
to
But he still thinks Lopez-Cobos is a great conductor.
Oscar
Feb 27, 2016, 1:36:43 PM2/27/16
to
Paul, funny you should mention that. I attended a distended Lopez-Cobos concert at Disney Hall, Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 (w/ Garrick Ohlsoon, who certainly has the measure of the piece, as well as the technical command of it) and Dvorak Symphony No.8. Brahms before intermission. What a slow-motion train wreck. The tempos were _ridiculously_ drawn out. I wanted to walk out, and I am not the walking type. Even Ohlsson was turning to the conductor waiting, nay, seeking, his cues. The orchestra had to have thought it some kind of joke, and it's not like Giulini we're taking about, either. This is a conductor of modest talents and average insights. I don't know what he was trying to do. Very disappointed. The Dvorak was better, but I had been listening all week to a live Szell performance from the 1960's, recorded for broadcast with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and recently issued by Audite. Lopez-Cobos ain't fit to carry Szell's baton. Pfft.
PIerre Paquin
Feb 27, 2016, 1:37:05 PM2/27/16
to
On Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 1:26:15 PM UTC-5, Paul wrote:
> But he still thinks Lopez-Cobos is a great conductor.
Nothing like shitting on profundity! Right, Paul?
> But he still thinks Lopez-Cobos is a great conductor.
Ed Presson
Feb 27, 2016, 4:44:00 PM2/27/16
to
"Oscar" wrote in message
news:a0ed9ec5-0238-4ac1...@googlegroups.com...
satisfying concert as a guest conductor (of the Seattle Symphony) to my
great surprise. I don't remember the complete program,
but it included music from Faure's P&M, and extended excerpts from Falla's
Three-cornered Hat. Very nicely done. That said, I rarely find his
recordings (even the ones I've kept on my shelf) rank at the
top if I have more than one version of the work. Maybe that night was the
exception.
Ed Presson
John Thomas
Feb 27, 2016, 6:01:40 PM2/27/16
to
On Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 9:26:32 AM UTC-8, Oscar wrote:
> I guess it is naive of me to expect a country governed by fear to raise up >real men and women instead of timid caricatures. Our masters certainly prefer >us wimpy.
Overly generalized to (apparently) everybody. But much of what he writes is true. Apparently a large minority of the electorate is looking for a Führer to solve their imaginary problems for them.
> I guess it is naive of me to expect a country governed by fear to raise up >real men and women instead of timid caricatures. Our masters certainly prefer >us wimpy.
MrBleuvert
Feb 27, 2016, 8:03:01 PM2/27/16
to
Oscar
Feb 27, 2016, 10:02:06 PM2/27/16
to
On Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 6:01:40 PM, John Thomas wrote:
>
> Overly generalized to (apparently) everybody. But much of what he writes is true. Apparently a
> large minority of the electorate is looking for a Führer to solve their imaginary problems for them.
Cheshire Clinton the Pandering Penguin will just promise free roving Wifi to everyone everywhere ('chicken in every pot' for the 20-teens), stoke their "grievances" even more than O'Bummer, turn certain highway rest stops, bus stops and subway terminals into federally-patrolled "safe zones", and make even more strident Madeleine Albright-approved appeals and guilt trips to women's "solidarity" of all the young women who totally turned off by her. Did I mention free tuition and free abortions?
>
> Overly generalized to (apparently) everybody. But much of what he writes is true. Apparently a
> large minority of the electorate is looking for a Führer to solve their imaginary problems for them.
Madeleine Albright at Hillary Clinton rally, Concord, N.H., February 4, 2016: "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other... [some] don't understand the importance of why young women have to support Hillary Clinton."
NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd to Clinton, February 6, 2016: "Do you want the vote to be decided on gender lines like this?"
Clinton said, laughing, "Oh, you know, as you remember Madeleine has been saying this for many, many years. She believes if firmly. In part because she knows what a struggle it has been and she understands the struggle is not over. So I don't want people to be offended what she is expressing as her-"
Todd interjected, "Do you understand why some might have been offended by it?"
"Well, good grief, we're getting offended about everything these days. Honest to goodness. I mean, people can't say anything without offending somebody," Clinton argued. Albright "has a life experience that I respect. I admire her greatly and I think what she was trying to do, which she has done in every setting I've ever seen her in, going back 20 plus years, was to remind young women in particularly that you know, this struggle, which many of us have been part of, it's not over and don't be in any way lulled by the progress we've made. And I think it was a light hearted, but very pointed remark which people can take however they choose."
Oscar
Feb 27, 2016, 10:05:25 PM2/27/16
to
On Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 10:02:06 PM, Oscar wrote:
>
> "Well, good grief, we're getting offended about everything these days. Honest to goodness."
P.S. And who says "honest to goodness" anymore besides old, white, uptight (great-)-grandmas? Her team should inform her of more current lingo, replacing the 1940's homespun "honest to goodness" with a more urban, hip & loud analog like "DAYYUMMM, FOOL". Harder, tougher, more hood. Nicki Minaj could then be Hillary's surrogate!
>
> "Well, good grief, we're getting offended about everything these days. Honest to goodness."
John Thomas
Feb 27, 2016, 11:37:13 PM2/27/16
to
Why this is marked as abuse? It has been marked as abuse.
Report not abuse
Oscar
Feb 28, 2016, 12:10:34 AM2/28/16
to
On Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 11:37:13 PM, John Thomas wrote:
>
> [Expletive redacted] off, Oscar.
Nicki Minnaj fan, eh?
>
> [Expletive redacted] off, Oscar.
Nicki Minnaj fan, eh?
Gerald Martin
Feb 28, 2016, 12:21:24 PM2/28/16
to
I'd like to meet more timid drivers on the road.
Mark K
Feb 28, 2016, 1:19:30 PM2/28/16
to
On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 11:21:24 AM UTC-6, Gerald Martin wrote:
> I'd like to meet more timid drivers on the road.
Vroon clearly doesn't drive in Chicago, where the regional sport is cutting people off.
> I'd like to meet more timid drivers on the road.
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