Back in 1934, tens of thousands of people showed up for the funerals of Bonnie and Clyde. Similar numbers showed up to view the body of John Dillinger just a few months later. (He was dead at the time, as well.) Only three years earlier, Al Capone was sent to prison. Not sure how many visitors he had.
America's perverse idolatry of Wealth has had numerous and, shall we say, interesting effects on the nation's moral compass--at least as portrayed in the tabloids, scandal sheets, Hollywood, and (of course) Sunday morning church bulletins.
Before we legalized insane redistributions of wealth through the lottery system, poor folks' fantasies hung their hats on the occasional embodiment of the legendary Robin Hood figure to tip the scales of injustice, so to speak. Rags to riches stories were great, but there was nothing better than some thug sticking it to The Man and sharing the wealth at the same time. It also struck a chord in another twisted American "virtue": If the inherent inequalities of the economic and judicial systems can't be eradicated, just give us vengeance. ("If Jesus ain't comin' back in my lifetime, at least let me see rich folk get what's comin' to 'em!")
I have mentioned before that, in America, one's moral vision is usually connected to one's station in life. in other words, "How much morality (or immorality) can I afford?" I also posited that the morality/immorality of the very rich and very poor are strikingly similar, for they both flaunt middle class conventions (the bedrock of American greatness) with reckless disregard. The rich can because they can afford lawyers and have nothing to fear. The poor can because they've got nothing, hence nothing to lose. Both can embrace a brand of nihilism (again, "...at least as portrayed in the tabloids, scandal sheets, etc...") that finds its greatest expression in phrases like, "Life sucks, then you die". It's also been in more well-received phrases like, "Me first!", "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!" and "Looking out for number one!"
[I saw a coffee mug in a store that said, "World's Greatest Dad" on it. It was on a shelf with twenty more that were just alike. As usual, I'm thinking that most people don't see the irony there. I mean, if you bought one of those mugs, logically, you would have to buy ALL of them. Otherwise, you'd be sending that great dad a mixed message--if he was paying attention, that is. I'm guessing that people who buy such articles probably had miserable childhoods. For in America, we revere the Ideal, pay homage to the Ideal rather than the Reality, in family matters as well as politics.]
Oh yeah, moral compass.
If you've been paying attention for the last forty years or so, let's say, you've noticed a rather dramatic shift in the moral compass of the middle class, although the Sunday morning church bulletin is largely unchanged. The vices-turned-virtues of Selfishness and Greed have opened (once again) entirely new vistas for self-improvement, self-satisfaction and self-realization while overshadowing, if not obliterating, old-fashioned ideas such as self-control and self-respect. At the same time, another liberalism was proposed: the U.S. Constitution originally was built upon the notion of the primacy of the individual rather than the dignity of the individual, and all the rights and freedom such dignity deserved. Suddenly, people in the public square were perfectly comfortable talking about "my rights", "my freedoms", "my money", "my tax dollars", etc. It wasn't coded language, by any stretch of the imagination. It was a bold assertion that life was nothing but competition amongst socially isolated individuals, survival of the fittest. Humans' understanding of themselves as a part of a whole--a family, a clan, a community, a nation was no longer seen as the result of random chance or unavoidable Fate, but as a choice. Because we belonged first and foremost to our self, we were free to attach our self anywhere we chose. More importantly, we could unattach our self from any form of commitment we felt was arbitrary or contradictory to our self-ish whims (now called "rights"). In other words, traditional values became obsolete because we were not around to help decide what these "traditions" should be.
As a lover of irony, I would be remiss to point out that this vehicle of the unattached self, turning its back on an intrusive past, concerning itself only with its own desires, has become the vision, the poster child, claimed by those calling themselves "conservatives". As I take a moment to laugh out loud, the idea pops into my head that walking to Mars is less of a delusion than the success of such a vehicle in achieving anything but the end of any society that it infests. If we remove any ephemeral statistics that contain dollar signs and look instead at the glaring consequences of ignoring our unavoidable dependence on each other and our environment, we have no choice but to admit defeat.
And, lest you get a little cocky, absolving yourself from this mindset, be aware that this self-centered view of Reality is very insidious. Knowing of its existence and deleterious effects does not exclude one from absorbing and implementing many of its thoughts and habits. For in very simple terms what it boils down to is putting one's wants ahead of someone else's needs.
The story of the little boy throwing the starfish he finds washed up on the beach back into the ocean is germaine here. Asking whether or not he realizes that he can't rescue all the starfish on all the world's beaches is unimportant and clouds the reality of our situation. The real question is, "Why has the man who asks this question given into Despair?" Absolute freedom, ironically, leads only to Despair. The opposite of Despair is Hope, and that is where salvation lies. The self-centered human cannot conceive of the need for Hope, because, by definition, Hope speaks of the immeasurable limits of the individual, of our very real need for others.
In 1969, Bonnie and Clyde were resurrected by Hollywood. Between their funerals and the opening night galas was a little event called "World War Two". And during those intevening decades between machine gun blasts in Europe and Asia and machine gun blasts on the silver screen, mass media helped Americans get their moral compass back. New and cherished traditions sprung up. Suddenly, the nuclear family instead of the extended family became the norm. Rosie the Riveter was domesticated and learned again how to sew and bake. Children's cheeks never looked rosier, come to think of it. Might made right and ruled the day. Law and order was black and white. Justice was blindfolded, but as we suspected, She was peeking under her blindfold.
And then Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway appeared, and cursed and drank and smoked and robbed and killed and fornicated, all to thunderous applause. Tens of millions lined up to witness their demise, many, no doubt, staying in the theater to watch it again! If they weren't celebrities before the film appeared, they were now. The outrage of middle class morality against this kind of decadence was swift and predictable. A Pandora's Box of pestilence had been opened, and it would take the moral conviction of all Americans to shut it tight.
Today, the battle to shut the Box continues, but it's tent has widened considerably. Think: Westboro Baptist.
Oddly, there was one disease that remained unnamed by the great, silent, moral majority. And that is "Celebrity". In this video age, celebrities flood the airwaves and the Internet, blooming and dying as if in time lapse photography. So, the "original" Bonnie and Clyde might have been celebrities during their heyday, they might even have been immortalized, but they are not godlike the way celebrities quickly became in the years after Mr. Barrow and Ms. Parker succumbed to the effects of numerous bullet holes.
Whether lining up for a funeral or a film, or crowding around a TV to watch Super Bowl commercials, the impulse is the same: people watching the Unfettered cavort in a world that bears no responsibilities, hence no consequences. The coffins that held the remains of Bonnie and Clyde might as well have been mansions in the Hollywood hills. Eternal life in America finds no better articulation than the numerous handprints on the sidewalk outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Today, the battle to shut the Box continues, but only when its soldiers can fit it into their busy schedules. Meanwhile, they too watch the Unfettered of All Ilks (UAI) cavort not only on the silver screen but in the halls of legislatures and in glitzy pulpits all across this land. As Christopher Lasch pointed out forty years ago, we once admired a person's character, but now it is Personality that we crave. And what is Personality, after all, but the unfettered Self descending from Mount Olympus, carefully nurtured and cultivated, giving the appearance of someone who has it all, who has always had it all. Always will.
Speaking of "Pandora's Boxes", it appears that I have opened one of my own. And, in splended mixed metaphor style, I have only scratched the tip of the iceberg! Yes, I recognize that this is a rather superficial examination of the madness of American ideals and realities. But here 'tis.
