The following is one of the best descriptions of what has been going wrong with out culture and our country. It may well be a defining essay on conservatism. It is certainly one of, if not THE, best insight into the 'slippery-slope' of liberalism. (Yes, Rich, she is beautiful to behold as well; and her mind is exquisite.
Please read to the end, she pulls it together so very, very well.
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A broken window into civilization
by: Kathleen Parker
December 1, 2004
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-edpparker01120104dec01,1,7942655.column
COMMENTARY: KATHLEEN PARKER
As we marveled over the basketball brawl between players and spectators at a recent Indiana Pacers-Detroit Pistons game -- and then the fourth-quarter melee between Clemson University and University of South Carolina football players -- I kept thinking, "broken windows."
The "broken windows" theory of social breakdown goes more or less like this: If a broken window in a building is left unrepaired, pretty soon all the windows are broken, and so goes the neighborhood.
By now familiar, the theory was conceived and popularized by Harvard professors James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. They wrote in the March 1982 edition of The Atlantic Monthly that if broken windows are not repaired, "the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside."
"Or consider a sidewalk," wrote Wilson and Kelling. "Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars."
The authors determined that the way to prevent vandalism -- and thus more serious forms of crime and urban deterioration -- was to fix the broken windows. To clean up the sidewalk. To fix the small things before they become big things.
As mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani put the theory to work by strictly enforcing laws against small crimes -- subway-fare evasion, for example -- and major crime dropped significantly.
Wilson and Kelling explained that the reason one broken window leads to more broken windows is because human beings respond to these signs as an absence of caring or of anyone being in charge. In the absence of authority -- the symbolic adult -- children tend to behave badly. Order breaks down. Civility disintegrates.
Given which, it seems reasonable to extend the broken-windows theory to the larger culture. Why wouldn't a similar lack of adult attention to standards of human civility eventually result in the cultural equivalent of broken windows?
It does not seem a stretch that what we witnessed on the basketball court and the football field is merely the inevitable conclusion of the general coarsening we've witnessed in the culture the past few decades.
Where Wilson and Kelling considered broken buildings and littered sidewalks, we might consider a profane and sex-saturated culture in which coarse language, base human interaction and incivility are no longer the exception but the norm.
In such a climate, shock jocks and post-pubescent television producers think scatological humor and titillation on public airwaves is a hoot. It's knee-slappingly funny during family time -- the more and better to offend.
Setting aside for a moment the utter banality of what passes for entertainment -- and the yawn that has replaced contempt amid extreme familiarity -- such cultural coarsening nourishes the impression that nothing matters and no one cares.
Parents struggling to raise decent, well-mannered children in this swamp know, of course, that everything matters. Even the words we use. When we ignore the little niceties -- tolerating coarse language or behavior in public -- we invite larger fractures in civilization, which is a fragile facade after all.
Talking like this, of course, will get you labeled a rube, a prude or, worse, a censor. What's with profanity, anyway? They're only words. Comedian George Carlin, who is funny without the seven words he built his most famous skit around, made us feel silly for caring about language.
As for the relentless fascination with variations on ye olde bump 'n' grind, confusion sets in. What's wrong with sex? Not one thing -- in the right place and time. But the courtesy of observing certain rules of decorum -- previously known as manners and once taken for granted -- is passe. Soooooo whenever.
It is considered sophisticated, on the other hand, to ridicule America's "obsession" with such things as Janet Jackson's nipple, famously revealed during her "wardrobe malfunction" in the Super Bowl halftime show. It was just a breast, for heaven's sake! What's the biggie?
Nipple-schmipple. No it wasn't just a breast. A mother nursing her infant is just a breast. Janet and Justin's little prank was a deliberate act of juvenile defiance, a self-indulgent, narcissistic display by emotionally stunted adults playing fast and loose with the rules for their own amusement. It was a middle finger shoved in Middle America's face.
The point then, as now, is only this. Either we believe in and honor community standards or we don't. Ignoring simple standards, constructed to protect and advance civilization, is like ignoring the broken window. In time, the culture -- like the neighborhood -- goes to you-know-where in a handbasket.
Kathleen Parker can be reached at kparker@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5202.
Copyright © 2004, Orlando Sentinel Get home delivery - up to 50% off
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3 comments:
I understand and aplaud the insite this lady is giving us on values and the ramifications of neglect. However, raising a child in todays world is a lot more complicated than it once was.
On one hand, I want to teach my children morals and I want to instil in them the need to care about other human beings. To understand that every action you preform or don't preform affects us all. On the other hand, if I keep them away from the inappropriate language and other strong content, I may be doing more harm then good.
It is true, that we live in a world that is changing faster than we can keep up with. The world may be heading in the wrong direction. I don't know. What I do know is that if I die or when my children grow up and are on thier own, will they be able to handle the real world that has been relatively hidden from them? Or will they crumble from the harsh realities that we have to face everyday?
I believe that communication is what has made techknowlegdy grow so fast. I also think that the same speed in which we can communicate has had a negative impact on society as well. We have alowed people to reach information faster than ever before. Knowlege without wisdom is a very dangerouse thing in most regaurds.
I have to go, I may finish this babbling that I am doing at a latter date. I am sorry for the randomness of this comment as I seem to have lost my track of thinking.
Take care
I understand and applaud the incite this lady is giving us on values and the ramifications of neglect. However, raising a child in today's world is a lot more complicated than it once was.
On one hand, I want to teach my children morals and I want to instill in them the need to care about other human beings. To understand that every action you perform or don't perform affects us all. On the other hand, if I keep them away from the inappropriate language and other strong content, I may be doing more harm then good.
It is true, that we live in a world that is changing faster than we can keep up with. The world may be heading in the wrong direction. I don't know. What I do know is that if I die or when my children grow up and are on their own, will they be able to handle the real world that has been relatively hidden from them? Or will they crumble from the harsh realities that we have to face everyday?
I believe that communication is what has made technology grow so fast. I also think that the same speed in which we can communicate has had a negative impact on society as well. We have allowed people to reach information faster than ever before. Knowledge without wisdom is a very dangerous thing in most regards.
I have to go, I may finish this babbling that I am doing at a latter date. I am sorry for the randomness of this comment as I seem to have lost my track of thinking.
Take care
Yes it is, and if we don’t do something to stop the moral decay then it will get a lot worse.
The idea is to prepare them as they grow. Naturally they will hear the inadvertent comments from their parents, and there will be more at school; if all the kids in society are being raised with a moral base then they will all, by and large, grow with the same experience. Exposing a five-year-old to a triple-X movie isn’t excusable by saying that they’re going to learn it sooner or later. This is the point of having a moral structure in our society, starting with school and a prayer to start the day. (Losing that was, INHO, [In My Honest Opinion] the first broken window, as I said before.) Here is an embarrassing example: I was fourteen-years-old and was with some friends and among them was a girl from our class. She was learning about sex and, I have come to believe, knew more than us boys but was somewhat shy about telling us everything; or maybe not. We were playing at “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” and had gotten down to rubbing our (hmm who’d reading this?) ‘good-bits’ together; but neither of us, neither she, nor I, nor the two other guys there, all within a year in age, knew enough to “PUSH” and so we all, at fourteen-years-old, left with all of our collective virginities intact! Do you think that could happen today?
Teach them morals, teach them and teach them. Let them know, with no uncertain terms, that some things are immoral; but you don’t have to show them those things that aren’t! Let them know, item by item, as they come up what isn’t; and, if you taught them right from wrong from the beginning, there won’t be many of those to talk about. All of us are born with a conscience, a way that God speaks to us. Teaching your kids morals simply strengthens that connection. They’ll know when something is wrong, after all, we did, didn’t we?
The world goes in the direction that the majority of people push it. If they are people with good morals than the world will get better; conversely, if they are valueless, then the world will be without values. All we can do is teach our children right from wrong; teach them the Ten Commandments and most importantly, why God gave them to Mankind – to set us free from tyranny and evil. Do that and you can give up your last breath with a feeling of a job well done. Don’t do that and you will die in doubt. Every child allowed to wallow in the mud will break a window; children that lead clean lives will fix windows. Teach them to fix windows! Buildings with too many broken windows will crumble; will your children break them or fix them?
This is a two-edged sword and like said sword, it will cut both ways. Information without wisdom can lead to folly, certainly; however, information is the path to wisdom. Morality is the catalyst that makes the difference. A moral person will hesitate to act foolishly and thereby save themselves and others from their rash decisions. An immoral person will act intemperately, and in their own self-interests, often causing chaos and havoc.
All of your uncertainties have the same answer: teach your children morality until they are children no more. Then they will teach their children and so on and so forth. Take them to church, even if you’ve lost your faith, so what? What else have you to lose but your children? They need to strengthen their connection to God and yours will be strengthened at the same time. Then you will see that it was the right thing to do. Remember what Jesus said, “You can tell a Prophet by his actions. For just as a good tree must bear good fruit, a bad tree must bear bad fruit.” How can teaching your children good lead to bad? How can letting them go without teaching goodness lead to goodness?
You needn’t even go to a church if you’d rather not, for it is also written that wherever four people gather to worship, there also is God. Gather the kids after Sunday (or Saturday) dinner and open a bible (~$7 at B&N) and read the Gospels for awhile; take turns reading aloud and ask questions that require further reading. Teach them right from wrong and about God and Jesus (and Mohamed if that’s your way) but teach the love and kindness and forgiveness. Dismiss questions of about the excesses of religions as the excesses of the men who ran them. Men are weak; God is almighty, all knowing, all forgiving, all loving; teach them to love.
Just think on this and I think you’ll find your way back…
Take love…
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