Family Values
This hoo-hah about the entertainment industry targeting youth with messages of sex and violence reminds me of the scene in "Casablanca" when Claude Rains, my uncle by marriage by the way, expresses shock that there was gambling going on in Rick’s American Cafe. A moment later he was handed his winnings from the roulette table. The movie biz and the people who make video games are about selling product. Teenage boys are all about pushing the life-death envelope; viz, their driving proves — to them at least — that they are invulnerable.
The problem boils down to greed and stupidity. The producers will do anything they can to separate a teen from his allowance. Even when it means designing computer games that feature young women having their necks hacked open and their spinal cords pulled out. Such a game sold over two million copies. The stupidity is a society that fails to engage our adolescents with ideas and projects that are healthy and intelligent, that stimulate the mind rather than the viscera.
I don’t make these points with any sense of revelation, but rather suggest that we shouldn’t be surprised. Consider the old Chinese proverb that if you continue in the same direction, you’re likely to wind up where you are headed. We are now in our second generation of families with both parents working and television. Parents have abdicated the culturation of our youth, and society seems to have given up on having any standards whatsoever.
It’s not for want of trying. Compassionate non-conservatives — otherwise known as do-gooders — devote most of their waking hours to providing for the hungry, homeless, ailing, looney, and otherwise needy. Meanwhile, people who don’t get their share accuse everyone else of being racist, sexist, ageist, or otherwise discriminatory. And those with slim hopes counsel us to be more tolerant? Tolerant? How remarkably condescending!
Our society is incredibly fractionalized. There is very little sense of who we are as a people. And we are desperate to feel connected. Look at how we judge the Olympics, not by athletic performance but by the number of gold medals that athletes from our country win.
I connect this to people wearing shorts to church, cursing loudly in public, and cutting off other drivers. This may seem off the mark, but let it set for a minute. Because I believe our mess has to do with a lack of grace, dignity, humility, courage, and self-respect. These are not genetic qualities. They are family values. Much more important than tolerance. They must be entrained in every human being, and the responsibility for the inculcation of these values falls to the parents.
Indeed, it is this passing of the baton of social responsibility that is the primary function of parents, and one they are failing at badly. That failure leaves an enormous hole in the child’s psyche. A child is left without answers or a context with which to weigh the essential questions. Who else can impart such critical information but parents? Teachers? Friends? Colleagues? Not bloody likely.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.