Thomas Frank's Salon piece on the comedy of the late Harold Ramis is, as usual, spot-on. He shows how the seemingly anti-Establishment anarchy of Ramis' best-known films--"Animal House," "Caddyshack," and "Ghostbusters"--is little more than a series of battles between two aristocracies, a crumbling one and a would-be one that eventually wins. What doesn't win in any of these movies is anything representing communal values--generosity, humility, thoughtfulness and so forth. If anything, those on the left should be siding more with the crumbling establishment, since they embody those virtues to at least a small degree. So much can't be said for the winners, who, in Frank's view, paved the way culturally for the current-day wolves of Wall Street.
Frank's wrong, however, to think that Delta House, or even Ramis (or "Saturday Night Live," for that matter) was the wellspring for this cultural shift. In fact, it has nothing to do with comedy or entertainment. After all, the behavior in all of these movies has little to do with real wit, or even insight into life or humanity. All of it is little more than a creative series of bullying acts. We don't laugh at how clever these movies are. Put simply, we laugh at the bullying---and, more specifically, the success of the bullying.
And bullying in this country has been on the rise ever since the end of the Second World War, the last time that the liberals understood that the niceties of a liberal society had to be brutally defended by people with no respect for those niceties. Since the end of that war, liberals have pretended that victory settled the question of whether we would be a nation of laws, or of forces beyond society's control. Perhaps they were simply tired of fighting, or perhaps it was an exaggerated sense of confidence. Whatever the reason, they believed that they had created a world in which fairness and due process would reign supreme--especially in the victorious United States.
The bullies, on the other hand, knew better. They saw in the left's reluctance to fight an opportunity to use their good manners and turn them against them. They understood that if they bullied in an underhanded way, using imaginary grievances (the "Red Menace, anyone?), and leaving as few traces as possible, while playing a game of patience with regard to reaching their long-term objectives, they just might win. Today, nearly 70 years after the end of the war, they are on the verge of winning.
Frank is correct, however, in seeing the connection between the political and the cultural when it comes to bullying behavior. Bullying has not been confined to politics--it has seeped into every area of our lives, including our public schools. It has, in fact, reached such epidemic proportions that it has in fact become a political issue. And you can color me unsurprised on this subject; I was a victim of substantial bullying when I was in elementary school. I saw first-hand how little school officials can do if the bullies are shrewd enough to play the system against itself.
How will all of this end? Well, as I've said any number of times, that's up to us. I've been saying for much of the past few weeks that we need to organize, contribute and vote. We still need to do all of those things. But there's one thing we must do above all. Or not do. And that is cave into the bullying. I only learned to repulse my bullies when they learned that I would not give in to them. And sometimes--very few times, but sometimes--it may be necessary to bully back. That's how we stopped the Third Reich from ruling the world. It may well be how we need to prevent the Caddyshacking of America.
No comments:
Post a Comment