Posted on 07/22/2003 3:08:33 PM PDT by Hobsonphile
A crude culture makes a coarse people, and private refinement cannot long survive public excess. There is a Gresham's law of culture as well as of money: the bad drives out the good, unless the good is defended.
In no country has the process of vulgarization gone further than in Britain: in this , at least, we lead the world. A nation famed not so long ago for the restraint of its manners is now notorious for the coarseness of its appetites and its unbridled and antisocial attempts to satisfy them. The mass drunkenness seen on weekends in the center of every British town and city, rendering them unendurable to even minimally civilized people, goes hand in hand with the appallingly crude, violent, and shallow relations between the sexes. Britain's mass bastardy is not a sign of an increase in the authenticity of our human relations but a natural consequence of the unbridled hedonism that leads in short order to chaos and misery, especially among the poor. Take restraint away, and violent discord follows.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
I feel cheated.
FMCDH
For example, the boundless prurience of the British press concerning the private lives of public figures, especially politicians, has an ideological aim: to subvert the very concept and deny the possibility of virtue, and therefore of the necessity for restraint. If every person who tries to defend virtue is revealed to have feet of clay (as which of us does not?) or to have indulged at some time in his life in the vice that is the opposite of the virtue he calls for, then virtue itself is exposed as nothing but hypocrisy: and we may therefore all behave exactly as we choose. The loss of the religious understanding of the human condition—that Man is a fallen creature for whom virtue is necessary but never fully attainable—is a loss, not a gain, in true sophistication. The secular substitute—the belief in the perfection of life on earth by the endless extension of a choice of pleasures—is not merely callow by comparison but much less realistic in its understanding of human nature.Yes, exactly.
Yes! If I see the word "transgressive" one more time on the arts page of my local rag, I think I'll go down to their offices and rip someone's head off.
What's left to "transgress," in any case?
Great article, thanks for posting it.
Me too.... I expected pictures.
Namely, that laws are meaningful only so long as most people would obey the spirit of the laws even if the letter had never been written.
As my favorite John Adams quote put it:
"We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."
It's also true that the demise of "little" things such as an aversion to pornography or adultery has historically been accompanied by the demise of big things, such as honor and trust (see, e.g., Rome and Athens).
Those who say, "you can't legislate morality," are basically correct. It would be nice, however, if the people who said that weren't also the ones working hardest to undermine morality in the first place.
I've never cared for 'bodice rippers' be they written by women OR men. I heard about this book when I was in high school in the 60's, but never had any overwhelming desire to read it. After reading Dalrymple's article, I'm sure I never will.
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