Bees in Our Bonnets
by modern living editor Jason Capodimonte
June 1, 2005
They have spelling bees on television now, for the love of all that's holy. For the last couple of weeks spelling bee news has been everywhere, working up interest in the (televised) Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington. One of the big Canadian news stories of the last week has been the sending of a team of Canadian elementary pupils to the Scripps Bee.
Now, one problem with sending a Canadian team is that there is no standard for Canadian spelling. If you want to spell it centre, that's fine. If you want to spell it center that's fine, too. Just spell it the same way every time. But pretending to have standards is what it's all about these days.
In this age of diversity and of refusal to be "judgmental," the television schedule is full of shows which unambiguously tell you whether you dress right, whether your house looks right, whether you cook right, and in general whether you're behaving right. Dr. Phil didn't become so popular by being able to see all sides of an issue. Once he's decided what side he's on, that's the side you'd better be on. Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, and all the other judges are also pretty, um, judgmental.
And as last week's article about makeovers says, many television shows present women's problems as the result of a failure to to follow a code of proper behaviour. According to TV and the rest of the media, our lives would be a whole lot better if we'd just all conform to a single standard way of living.
People who don't conform spend a lot of time being shamed on TV. That's the motive for the Springer-type shows. Maury Povich's daily paternity test round-up is not intended as social science research into the sexual mores of the lumpenproletariat, it's intended as a way of establishing what's the right way to behave.
[I'll just note here that I got from spelling bees to lumpenproletariat in a mere five paragraphs, no doubt a world record for this type of analysis.]To return to the epidemic of censoriousness sweeping the media, other commentators have attributed it to the rejection of moral relativism by the masses. That is why NEW IMPROVED HEAD exists, to combat analysis like that. I mean, the masses haven't heard of moral relativism, so how can they have rejected it?
I and my fellow fellows here at the New Improved Institute for Analysis of Contemporary Social Life believe that the epidemic of censoriousness is more likely to be a consequence of reduction in social mobility. As higher education becomes more costly, the lower orders are less able to go to university and obtain the type of qualifications which would move them to higher social strata.
Well, they can't be happy about that, can they? Important people must have had to do something, right? Well, they did. They promoted the human potential movement.
The human potential movement tells you that you are capable of achieving whatever goal you want to achieve. Dr. Phil says that, Wayne Dyer says that, Anthony Robbins says that, the gang at Starting Over say that. Pretty inspiring, eh? Well, there is one nasty corollary to that assertion – if you haven't achieved something, it's entirely your fault. What, you're capable of achieving anything and you can't even raise the money for university? Better get your act together.
So, with the paths upward blocked, or at least strewn with more and bigger obstacles, people are persuaded to believe that they can still get ahead just by applying themselves. If they can't get ahead, then they didn't apply themselves, which means they're a bunch of lazy-ass good-for-nothing layabouts.
And rather than face that possibility people moderate their goals. Why face the possibility you're a lazy-ass lout when you could achieve something else which is nowhere near as beneficial but will still be a sign of your personal worth? People aspire to dress better, or to have better decorated rooms, or to be more sexually circumspect than uneducated teenagers of poor character and low IQs. And to justify those aspirations they have to have standards to judge themselves by. In fact, they have to have STANDARDS. How can you say your rooms are properly decorated if there are no STANDARDS for interior decoration?
And of course society is able to compensate for the reduction in the quality of university graduates resulting from the reduction in the size of the pool from which university applicants are drawn by selling a lot more paint! And cable channels to show all those standard-worshipping shows on. And spelling bees. Which have standards.
Bees in Our Bonnets © John FitzGerald, 2005
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