Over at Townhall, (“Where America Comes to Froth”) Janet “Mad at my Mop” Crouse has been exposed to comedy, and is now frantically downing prophylactic fistfuls of Cipro:
Since my husband is facing a few days of enforced rest, I bought a couple of “two thumbs up” funny movies to keep him entertained and to distract us, two intense policy wonks, from the current political campaigns.
I generally avoid the company of intense policy wonks, but even I have to admit: they do know comedy.
We also watched a couple of episodes of Comedy Central on Television. Any true wit or humor is buried under far too many layers of crude language, potty humor and infantile behavior. The characters are too overdrawn and the slapstick too pervasive.
The zanni were impertinent, that Pantalone fellow was an insult to self-made millionaires like Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, and I’m pretty sure Capitano didn’t really support the troops.
The ultimate incongruity is having a clean-cut, beautiful girl engage in the coarseness and become part of the vulgarity.
Don’t laugh at the pretty girl with the bouncing and behaving hair — it’s a sign of poor breeding. Gentlemen only guffaw at unattractive girls with poor grooming.
To put it bluntly, both the movies and the comedy routines reveal the bankruptcy of the amoral modern liberal ideology ––
When will Hollywood finally make a laugh-a-minute, rib-tickling comedy about the efficacy of upper bracket tax cuts?
–the chaotic, absurd, impotent, libertine worldview of the Hollywood left.
Heh. She said “impotent.”
Some authors describe that worldview as “moral indeterminacy” and lament the “apolitical utopianism.”
Other authors describe that wordview as “panoptical beige,” or “vehicular onanism,” but we’ve had most of them put down.
Sadly, that worldview permeates American culture.
Time to call Rug Doctor.
When presidential candidates try to explain the connection between morality and politics, that culture is the audience. The people who laugh at today’s comedies probably are not capable of understanding the importance of faith and morals in shaping history and enabling civil society to function effectively.
Anyone who saw Knocked Up should be legally denied suffrage. It’s a scandal what statesmen like Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani have to endure from the culture that is the audience; Pericles didn’t have to put up with that crap! And just imagine if Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata today, with Laura Bush and Lynn Cheney trying to stop the Iraq War by withholding sex from George and Dick. People wouldn’t laugh, they’d vomit! And then they’d laugh at that, because puke is funny!
No wonder Victor Davis Hanson is always in such a bad mood.
Liberalism is impotent in the face of the challenges of reality.
Heh. She said “impotent” again. I’m beginning to think that not all the problems in the Crouse marriage can be traced to the string- versus sponge-mop controversy.
For instance, one challenge is when an adolescent — previously preoccupied with sex and the excitement of the chase — starts to look for genuine love and runs smack into the demands for fidelity and love’s inherent territoriality. Amoral modern liberals have no clue how to meet the demands of love.
Especially when love demands two million in unmarked bills and a helicopter, or it’ll start tossing out bodies at 10 minute intervals!
How can a person with a deep-rooted history of self-indulgence, who lives without restraint or accountability, possibly know what is the right thing to do, much less have the courage and character to do the right thing?
Only sexually repressed, misogynistic moral scolds in arranged marriages can possibly know true love. That’s why every other romantic comedy these days seems to star a Wahabbist.
One valuable aspect of movies is that effective storytelling boils down to presenting a collection of events that allows us to see the individuals’ personalities and character.
Perhaps one day, other art forms such as drama or literature might adopt this valuable technique.
The various events constitute a thread running through their lives that gives identity and a unique persona to the individuals. Each moment contributes to the whole and plays a role in shaping the entire lifetime.
Except in Three Days of the Condor, because we don’t see his entire lifetime, just three days of it.
Ironically, in order to produce drama, the playwright has to address reality and its consequences.
That is ironic. If only we could harness irony, and use it also as a valuable aspect of effective storytelling. Then we’d have two of them!
In that sense, life is like a tree, and our roots are our history.
“…Take, for instance, the history of my marriage. I started out dreaming of a lodgepole pine, but wound up settling for a bonsai tree. By the way, have I said ‘impotent,’ lately?”
The consequences of the past are carved into our psyche.
Unless you’re Charles Manson, in which case it’s carved into your forehead.
For instance, when a tree is cut, the rings of the trunk reveal the good and bad years — all the events of its lifetime are incorporated into the trunk of that tree. Similarly, all of the past is there in a person’s life; the accumulated experiences mold and shape the personality and the character.
So if you’re confused about your own past experiences, and where life has led you, take a chainsaw and — no, wait…
When those experiences are negative and harmful to the person’s development, we speak of that person as “carrying baggage.” Sadly, many of today’s young people are carrying an awful lot of baggage at a very early age.
[Note to Editor: The tree analogy wasn't working out, so I'm switching to luggage. I don't think anyone will notice...]
So, how can today’s presidential candidates communicate the importance of faith and morality for civil society in a culture that has repudiated the basic Judeo-Christian values?
What would be the point? If society has repudiated those values, then they’re clearly not important to the people whose votes you’re seeking. Try talking about something they care about, and lay off the hot button moral issues, like whether beautiful women should be allowed to tell dirty jokes.
How can the candidates bring reality and common sense, much less character and integrity, into the chaotic state of modern thought and behavior?
They can’t. They’re politicians. If they were interested in character and integrity, they would have gone into another line of work.
If the conservatives win the 2008 presidential election, it will be as much a matter of the liberals losing as conservatives winning.
That’s the spirit.
In hindsight, the vaunted genius of Karl Rove in the two Bush victories is now questioned. Political analysts are reevaluating Rove’s vaunted brilliance.
They’re thinking of downgrading it from “vaunted” to “impotent.”
Politics, like life, is full of contradictions.
And raisins.
The liberals, for all their so-called respect for privacy, rely heavily on opposition research. Note Hillary’s information about Obama’s 3rd grade essay about wanting to be President!
The bitch! She read his book! It wasn’t fair when Patton did it to Rommel, and it isn’t fair now.
The concept of privacy appeals to modern people whose narcissism and self-indulgence requires a veil of privacy behind which to hide and avoid accountability.
That’s why Janet parades around nude in front of the bay window; she’s teaching the liberals in the neighborhood a valuable lesson about responsibility.
Can a moral leader appeal to today’s amoral public?
We’re electing a political, not a moral leader, Janet. Can’t you just wait for the Rapture or something? If Jesus shows up and finds out you’ve already hired somebody else, he’s not going to be happy.
Probably not, unless reality intervenes.
Yep, in a crisis, first responders are fine and all, but what people really crave is someone to show up and lecture them about their moral failings. Gives them something to think about besides how much that pressure bandage hurts.
The British rejected Churchill’s warnings until Hitler’s invasion of Poland created a climate where realistic leadership was necessary. Then it became a fight for survival. Likewise, the American public won’t embrace a moral leader without necessity demanding a “savior.” Until such a time that a savior is needed, the public won’t turn to a moral leader.
Again, I really thought the position had been filled. We’re going to get in trouble with HR if we keep interviewing.
There is hope, however, because the chaotic state of modern leadership provides that possibility —
Translation: Bush and Cheney have fucked up the world so badly that at last there’s real hope for Armageddon.
– even though those willing to accept the boundaries of morality have never been, and probably never will be, a majority.
That doesn’t mean a commited minority can’t oppress the majority. I hear it worked great in South Africa.
“A couple of episodes of Comedy Central”? Um…could somebody tell here Comedy Central is a network, not a show?
Left by Tom Hilton on December 20th, 2007