R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (seen at left in the Attitude of a Classic Douchebag made famous by Selwyn Duke) is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator, a position which he seems to feel entitles him to waste more consonants than the average American. Today, however, he’s sharing his insights with the readers of Human Events (I’m sure there must be somebody besides me that reads it) and chief among them is the somewhat surprising claim that the U.S. military is exactly like Hitler’s war machine, except our troops are more inclined to cast an absentee ballot. Or something.
In recent years when I have heard the ongoing dirge about the deficiencies of America’s young men, I have had my doubts. The army that we have sent abroad to confront some of the most barbaric enemies Western civilization ever has faced is superb. Confronting savages — usually on their own soil — our forces have been professional to the utmost, the Wehrmacht but with democratic values!
If the Army brass is smart, they’ll ride the coattails of Emmett’s glowing testimonial and change their recruiting slogan from “Army Strong” to “Nicer than Nazis!” Although, I’m not entirely sure what he means by “the Wehrmacht but with democratic values!” part. Perhaps he’s suggesting that while our military would also be willing to reduce a ghetto full of Jews to dust, they’d vote on it first, probably in a straw poll, or Iowa Caucus format.
Withal, they are brave, spirited, manly.
And as Meatloaf has been known to observe, two out of three ain’t bad.
As for my personal experiences with the men of the younger generation
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of an ongoing investigation.”
I have found them for the most part to be first-rate: intelligent, diligent — again — manly
I haven’t seen this much jock-sniffing since my high school track coach let his springer spaniel run around the locker room after practice.
Admittedly, the cohort I have encountered is not vast.
“Or it’s possible I’m confusing the U.S. Army with my Sunday afternoon Roman Legion LARPing group.”
Most have been young writers or reporters or the young men introduced to me by my youngest daughter. As they were often young men in the service of her employer, Blackwater, their high quality is not surprising.
I wonder if Anne, in her capacity as Blackwater’s chief spokeswoman, coined the evasion, “Morale Welfare Recreation.” Because — and I hate to be critical — that’s a bit transparent; and if you’re a government contractor who’s going to demand reimbursement for the cost of supplying your high quality young men with prostitutes, then the least you can do is lock your PR flacks in the conference room and make them spitball a decent euphemism. I mean, the Imperial Japanese Army devised the snappy circumlocution “comfort women” to describe a similar program, and that was without the benefit of modern focus groups.
All are retired special ops guys, and once the lurid canards about Blackwater collapse from lack of evidence, their bravery and devotion in protecting American diplomats will stand as another splendid chapter in American soldiering.
It comes immediately after the chapter on Civil War General Joseph Hooker.
So, what is the evidence that the young men of the country are sub-par?
Well, apparently they compose less than 50 percent of the college population. Why worry about that? Most universities are simply pretentious extensions of high school, presided over by a professoriate that is — with heroic exceptions — mediocre, tedious, ill-informed, bovine and anti-intellectual. Better it would be for young men to take a couple of years of business courses and join the adult world.
This is beginning to sound like William F. Buckley doing one of those trade school commercials on basic cable. “Would you like to make more money? Certainly, we all would. Are you mediocre, tedious, ill-informed, bovine and anti-intellectual? Then you have all the prerequisites necessary to matriculate at ICS. Here at ICS the instructors will mold you like the Lord God breathing life into inanimate clay, and you will arise, endowed with the gnosis necessary to practice TV/VCR Repair, Auto Mechanics, Bookkeeping, Refrigeration, Arc Welding, or just take a couple years of business courses that will qualify you to labor, not unlike Hercules, in the rich, loamy fields of Accounting, or Restaurant/Hotel Management.”
Yet there apparently really is evidence that many young men are loath to join the adult world. The demographics suggest as much.
Translation: It’s fine — even manly! — to whoremonger in a war zone, but here at home, Young American Men — in the prime of their Young Manlihood! — have been reduced to a generation of infantile, diaper-wearing David Vitters by the castrating effects of beer commercials.
From an unexpected source, I recently got a sense of those demographics, namely, the ads televised during the Super Bowl. The clever minds that create those ads have obviously studied the characteristics of the audience they want to snare, which appears to be an audience of young men. All the ads I saw depicted young men who were stupid, giddy, neurotic and adolescent unto middle age. They were charmless, often dressed like schoolchildren
So, Buster Browns and short pants? Or were they sporting those nautical-themed uniforms worn by Japanese schoolgirls?
Often the Super Bowl ads depicted these patheticoes in humiliating states of catastrophe.
And yet FEMA still hasn’t shown up at that touch football game Betty White was playing in.
One promoting a disgusting snack called Doritos — an inescapable insult to Latin cuisine —
I appreciate Emmett’s attempts to enliven his column with a little cosplay, but it’s not always easy to following the transitions. I think in this paragraph he’s pretending to be an emissary from a higher alien intelligence, observing the curious diet and customs of terrestrial natives. “…and the autochthons subsist on a confection they call ‘Devil Dogs,’ although it does not appear to contain either canines or mythological avatars of evil. Unfortunately, the actual ingredients so far remain opaque to our analysis.”
ended with a loutish young man wearing a dog collar and writhing on the ground, supposedly another exemplary Doritos customer. Would you buy Doritos if you were depicted in such an undignified way?
Certainly not! In fact, I always dressed to dine on Doritos, until the Zesty Taco Chipotle Ranch turned my spats orange.
Are sensible adult viewers supposed to conclude that because an obvious idiot adores Doritos, we will, too?
Are housewives to sensibly conclude that because Ajax releases a “white tornado,” they will be sucked into its vortex and transported to Oz every time they mop the kitchen?
I am told there is also a wave of films whose protagonists are such coarse and stupid louts. My moviegoing confidants speak of “Step Brothers” and “Knocked Up.” Perhaps I shall order a copy of each if I am laid up long enough with the flu.
I am informed by reliable correspondents that public spectacles have progressed (if that is indeed the mot juste) from the dazzling, yet manly “Wild West” shows of my youth, to “moving pictures,” which seek to capture men in degrading episodes, such as that depicted in Record of a Sneeze.
Now, every generation has its allotment of poor souls. Yet I can think of no generation that has cast the poor soul as the norm. In fact, there was a day when young men were seen as young gentlemen. They aspired to being intelligent, hardworking, interested in a variety of exacting pastimes: sports, the outdoors, music, reading. In its early days, Playboy magazine was marketed to just this sort of discerning young man, one interested in jazz, sports cars, what then passed for high-tech consumer goods, what are now called careers and, of course, women undraped. Believe it or not, in the 1950s and for a while thereafter, Playboy was an intelligent — if amoral — magazine. Today, of course, it is coarse and stupid.
Maybe you should cancel your subscription.
So maybe Playboy, too, is evidence of young American men’s failings.
The man who co-founded the Arkansas Project and brought us the Paula Jones allegations wants you to know that it’s okay to wank to dirty pictures, providing that — at the supreme moment — you close your eyes and think of Coltrane.
The pathetic young men depicted in the Super Bowl ads at least do not appear dangerous. Crapulent after a few beers and a sack of Doritos, they probably pass out and catch colds sleeping on park benches in their shorts and sandals.
Yes, when I was a lad, my friends and I would always gather in a park with our beer and Doritos to watch the Super Bowl. Oh sure, it was a bit annoying having to continually pass the telescope, but our bench had an unrivaled view of the appliance store window.
At some point a few years from now, they really will enter middle age, at least physiologically. Their sad condition will not inspire emulation. An even younger generation of men will aspire to manliness, and American history abounds with examples of manliness for them to imitate. Young women, do not despair! Help is on the way.
Emmett will personally taste test each male member of the next generation to ensure they’re at the peak of manliness, before stamping their taut rumps USDA and passing them on to the young women sitting despairingly by the phone. It’s like Match.com, but more hands-on. Or mouth-on.
So, what is the evidence that the young men of the country are sub-par?
“I watched a lot of television and deduced it by the ads that I was dumb enough to sit through.”
Left by TM on February 15th, 2010