The Last Taboo
By Pete Wagner
Despite the mystery of its underlying cause, the effects of this thing we call popular culture are -- often like silver nipple rings -- plain to see. Chief among these effects is the deterioration of our sense of dignity, our loss of self-respect. Bear with me; this gets more interesting.
It is no secret that we (just pretend I am generalizing here) behave in ways today that would have been totally unacceptable forty, twenty, or perhaps even ten years ago. Excepting things that cannot be said (includes anything bad about certain groups and anything good about certain others), society condones just about any behavior or display not technically criminal. If there were a bell curve representing civilized behavior, we would see it getting a lot shorter and fatter in these hip-hop times. But this should come as no surprise; after all, we have been accelerating in this direction since the sixties, with each decade thereafter taking us faster and farther. Each year it seems we get enticing new ways to fall and compromise what is left of our dignity.
Notwithstanding the natural twists and turns, it has been a relatively clean downhill run. So clean that today at least half of us -- being born in the 60's and later -- only know the downhill view. Most don't even feel the speed or acceleration of the slide due to what might as well be called social-Newtonianism. As we haven't figured out how to read the instrumentation, we have no way of knowing we are in near free-fall, unless of course we notice the coffee no longer in the cup, but instead hovering around the cockpit. Fortunately logic dictates that we just can't slide or fall forever; unfortunately, however, this deduction comes with the assumption of a rock bottom and all its somber implications.
While the savvy, if not selfish, older generation has found a way to insulate themselves from the societal effects by establishing secure senior-living enclaves -- themselves another effect (which in this case feeds back into the cause), the young are not so fortunate. Aside from the very few who may live in the proverbial cultural bubble, the kids are in the thick of the mess every day of their lives, with no way to escape it, and no way to fend it off. While they all get their flu vaccinations like they are told, there is no such protection against the more dangerous cultural pathogens. They do, however, get lots of attention from the usual liberal types with the lingo, fancy titles and multiple degrees -- touting new theories on how oppressive parents are ultimately the cause of all problems. While this is a solid strategy for creating a lucrative practice, that's all it is.
Is it not mind-boggling? It is almost as if the culture has moved completely outside that old bell curve, and now lies at the relatively uncivilized edges rather than the civilized middle. The kids, being the most impressionable and thus most vulnerable, would naturally be most concentrated at the far edges. The right edge would represent unadulterated greed and lust, coming in both urban and corporate flavors. The left edge would represent the collective forms of dysfunctional and nihilistic bohemianism. The funny (as in not funny) part is how both are packaged to represent coolness and intelligence, which completely masks the underlying sinful nature of the corresponding behavior. It's brilliant marketing.
While we can say that adults always get what they deserve, the kids in this case are just innocent victims; they don't choose the parents, village, or society that rears them. Unlike the old folks who benefit from having lived in earlier, more civilized times, and thus have a basis for comparison and judgment, kids cannot be expected to understand the nature of their times. They thus cannot judge or see their treatment for what it actually is: an immoral sacrifice to the dark gods (whoever they are) of postmodernism. The kids only have what they have been taught/tricked into believing (I see no distinction there anymore). Adding to their dilemma is the fact that they are constantly fed the message that edgy (i.e., bad) is cool (i.e., good), which on their level means bad is good and visa versa. While perhaps a new "new math" can find logic in this, we should not be surprised when the kids, who are never very good in math anyway, end up with a convoluted and largely amoral belief structure. The resulting moral vacuum will then be inevitably filled, by default, by an unsophisticated understanding of a politically correct (i.e., biased) social system, and a politically corrupt (i.e., unfair) legal system. Naturally their role models then become the savvy young "pop culture" personalities who best walk the razor edge of stardom separating "not cool enough" and "too far", with the latter characterized by at least two Jackson's, a few young corpses and numerous inmates. Now, do you finally get the Eminem thing? In other words, he ain't Vanilla Ice, and he has yet to be convicted of blowing away a rival.
Parents mostly just throw their hands up, ...that is if they even care enough anymore to expend even that effort. Many of them are too busy being good little corporate monkeys or grubbing for money otherwise. Of course they do not want their kids to become edgy (i.e., bad) or even hang around with those types. Unfortunately their mere hint of this is just enough to greatly confound matters by creating a perfect opportunity for their kids to play out their cherished rebel roles. After all, rebelling against a confused, powerless, spiritually sold-out authority is every kid's dream. It's the stuff of Disney.
But unfortunately at this stage of the slide the whole dismal game (it's only a science if you understand it) is critically dependant upon the perpetuation of the fall and visa versa. Like incest between porn stars, once started it's likely to continue until one or both are physically (or metaphysically) incapable. Call it spiritual consumption disease -- obviously not something easily sold to those who have yet to contract it, regardless of the glossy photos, nipples or Neo-con desires. The good news, then, is that it may not be pandemic. The bad news, however, is that is has already killed Americana.
The institutions have had their opportunity to treat our disease but they have all failed. At this stage there does not seem to be a conventional cure. The political parties are always quick to propose new therapies, but they all turn out to be just easy-to-swallow sugar pills that only make us feel like we're not getting sicker. Pretty soon they'll need to prop us up just so we can swallow them. We're all still breathing but the ward is starting get that bad smell, and the grim one is smirking in the corridor.
What to do? The American Indian shamans had a cure for their forms of spiritual consumption disease. They would tell the inflicted to stop the intake of everything except water (pure hydrogen oxide -- sans chlorine, fluorides and all other dubious additives) for as long as it took for the body to sufficiently purge itself of all impurities and corruption. Only this result would allow the spirit to breath again. They knew that adding good stuff on top of the bad (i.e., the way of modern medicine) would just trap the bad stuff in deeper. The bad stuff has to have a way out, and deprivation of everything expect the purest substance would be the only way to create the flow and conduit necessary to facilitate it. The shamans also had a strategy to ensure that the malaise did not return. They would establish strict taboos on whatever they determined was responsible for the condition.
Shamans are a lot like good parents. Using their mystical powers, they lead the naive and innocent to the proper path, steering them away from life's abundant pitfalls. Explanations of their mystical powers and insights are neither necessary nor usually comprehensible. Noncompliance to their instruction becomes its own punishment; compliance becomes its own reward.
Unfortunately the shamans seem to have left us. Perhaps they know better than to work within a culture where just about everything should be taboo. Or perhaps they have not left us but just have their own taboo against lecturing parents about how they are failing their children. Indians do seem to have a refined respect for human dignity -- at least they did in the old shows. But they never did understand the white man. Now it turns out they had good reason not to.
