Even if we fixed the economy, we’d still have to fix the culture
Of Thee I Zing’s subtitle is “America’s Cultural Decline: From Muffin Tops To Body Shots.” If you are sufficiently culturally aware to know what a “muffin top” and a “body shot” are (and incidentally, if you don’t have time to master all these exciting new trends, these two can be combined into one convenient “muffin shot”), you may not think them the most pressing concerns as the Republic sinks beneath its multitrillion-dollar debt burden. But, as Miss Ingraham says, “Even if our economic and national security challenges disappeared overnight, we’d still have to climb out of the cultural abyss into which we’ve tumbled.”
Actually, I think I’d go a little further than the author on that. I’m a great believer that culture trumps economics. Every time the government in Athens calls up the Germans and says, okay, we’ve burned through the last bailout, time for the next one, Angela Merkel understands all too well that the real problem in Greece is not the Greek finances but the Greek people. Even somnolent liberal columnists grasp this: a recent Thomas Friedman column in the New York Times was headlined, “Can Greeks Become Germans?” I think we all know the answer to that. Any society eventually winds up with the finances you’d expect. So think of our culture as one almighty muffin shot, with America as a giant navel filled with the cheap tequila of our rising debt and#… #no, wait, this metaphor’s getting way out of hand.
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No, no, no Mark. According a lot of the Hot Air regulars, the culture is just fine. It’s our bank accounts we’re ready to burn the country down over.
And the music lyrics? Come on. What’s a little misogyny and profanity when we should really be worried about how much sales tax we’re paying on the CDs? I mean, your kids need to hear it from someone. Why not a complete stranger?
hawkdriver on September 3, 2011 at 8:40 PM
I’d say the only way you can save the economy is if there is a cultural change.
MeatHeadinCA on September 3, 2011 at 8:50 PM
Dagnabbit!
IU_Conservative on September 3, 2011 at 8:50 PM
Please excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude
But tonight I’m f**king you . . .
Isn’t that the guy who said on stage at his concert “I have a small pen1s”?
Like Simon the used car salesman in “True Lies” – “I got a little d1ck, it’s pathetic!”
Tony737 on September 3, 2011 at 8:52 PM
At least two generations too late, I’m afraid.
OldEnglish on September 3, 2011 at 8:53 PM
… an alarming number of chaps would rather see you naked on their iPhones Anthony Weiner–style than actually get you naked in their bachelor pads.
Because they live at home with mom and dad.
We’re gonna have a whole generation of people who don’t know how to talk to each other.
Like Laura said, these kids are zombies.
Tony737 on September 3, 2011 at 8:56 PM
The freer the people, the better.
mythicknight on September 3, 2011 at 8:58 PM
Maybe the song is an ode to the person who said to him, “So, when are you going to get started?”
lorien1973 on September 3, 2011 at 8:58 PM
Every modern generation is more crass than the last. The problem is not the pop culture, but the social culture that says it’s okay to spend more than you make because you are entitled to a lifestyle that everyone shares. As far as Can the Greeks be Germans?, well that question wouldn’t need to be asked if the Germans didn’t have some stupid idea of entering into a union and allowing everyone to use their currency.
The EU will have to dissolve and every country goes back to their own currency, as a currency is only as good as the culture of the people who create it. That goes for America as well.
keep the change on September 3, 2011 at 9:03 PM
You are talking about 50 years of damage to basic fabrics and tenets of culture, courtesy of the Boomer Generation, the Me Generation and the Great Society Program.
bayview on September 3, 2011 at 9:05 PM
Social Security harms the culture. Having a family takes much effort. Raising children costs money, takes time, requires you to be emotionally involved and prevents you from having open calendar, and pretty much requires you to remain married, even if you are slightly less than passionately in love with your spouse at the moment. It comes with many rewards to compensate for all that effort. You get the joy of closeness and unconditional love, the pride of accomplishment, and the children can also provide you with security in your future after they have been raised. Social security has broken that connection between secure old age and family. This has cheapened the value of children to individuals and society as a whole. Couples started choosing to have fewer if any children at all. Rather taking the time and money for more personal and selfish endeavors. Since many people did not have children, they petitioned the government to give them an easy way out of marriages, and government complied. Since marriage became a temporary living arrangement, even fewer children were wanted, as they made the whole divorce thing people were given option to take messy, costly and emotionally unsatisfying, if only there were a way to not have unwanted children, and we got abortion on demand. Since marriage is not longer about children, and sex is no longer about children, it stands to reason that the gays should be allowed to get married, does it not, so hell, lets give gays the right to marry and adopt children to raise. Did you know that gay males are 20 times more likely to molest a male child than straight males? So what exactly do you think will be the outcome of handing over children to gay male couples, and low and behold, we have psychologists now coming out saying that they do not think there is anything wrong with minor attracted people, and that of course will lead to sex is about fun and kids love to have fun do they not?
If you really fix the spending problem we have, society will either collapse or be forced to go back to a time when marriage meant something and more people had children that they cared about raising properly.
astonerii on September 3, 2011 at 9:24 PM
I honestly believe it is too late…I think we have passed the point of no return…outside of true divine intervention, the world is heading for collapse……we have economic problems because we have become so depraved…..we are as one wise man wrote, slouching towards Gomorrah…..indeed we have already arrived….
Albertanator on September 3, 2011 at 9:34 PM
Hey, Mark. The 1950s had tasteless aspects, and the 1850s had tasteless aspects too. I happen to think it was tasteless of unmarried Laura Ingraham to buy two babies. But, you can do that if you want and are rich enough. That’s your business.
How are you going to fix it? Send govt stormtroopers out into the field to correct people’s behaviors per your instructions? I can’t get a body shot anymore because some old farts say it is tacky and it brings down property values or something? What everyone does doesn’t have to meet the approval of everyone.
Unless, you live in one of those homeowners association hellholes. shudder Go listen to Lawrence Welk on your own time.
Moesart on September 3, 2011 at 9:35 PM
Steyn is the finest socio-political writer I know of.
This is the finest Steyn article I know of.
itsnotaboutme on September 3, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Throw a rock into a pack of dogs, & the one that yelps is the one that got hit.
Re. your yelp, one way to “fix it” is to get society to recognize that it needs fixing.
itsnotaboutme on September 3, 2011 at 10:01 PM
Yup.
Yup. Judge Robert Bork, wasn’t it?
itsnotaboutme on September 3, 2011 at 10:15 PM
So do I.
And for evidence of the self-centered crassness Steyn speaks of, you need look no further than the clueless and indignant ranting of Moesart on September 3, 2011 at 9:35 PM
Rod on September 3, 2011 at 10:23 PM
Do you consider all adoption tasteless, Moesart?
Or exactly what?
Alana on September 3, 2011 at 10:50 PM
It is very simple. You fix the culture by fixing finances. You get to spend what you earn minus a small government fee for doing what the constitution says it can, and people who refuse to clean up their act will just simply go without.
astonerii on September 3, 2011 at 10:58 PM
You social conservatives can’t “fix” the culture or control it to bend to your will any more than liberals can “fix” the economy with their centrally planned socialist nonsense.
How exactly would Laura Ingraham “fix” grade-schoolers in the latest “prostitot” fashions? By establishing a brutal, repressive police force like in Iran and Saudi Arabia, tasked with coercing compliance with Ingraham’s cultural ideals out of a resisting public? Or perhaps she would waste our time and money with annoying and ineffectual public service announcements?
Face it, cultural conservatives: you lost the “big picture” battle completely, and acting like socialists isn’t going to get you any results beyond spurring liberal recruitment of youth. The fact is, culture is driven by industries that are a core part of the hard-core liberal base: (1) the entertainment industry, (2) the media, and (3) fashion. The liberals knew that these industries were of massive strategic importance in cultural trends and influencing the public, so the liberals naturally gravitated towards them. They’ve dominated the trend-setting for many decades now.
Cultural conservatives, I’m not one of you simply because you have this nasty habit of acting like socialists and imposing your will through criminal laws and oppressive regulations that often have unintended consequences. You allow the liberals to demonize the republican party by trotting out people like Rick Santorum, who more than anyone else right now embodies the dangers of excessive social conservatism.
Now then, on to what really matters: just as conservatives always tell liberals to practice what they preach, for example by giving to private charity to help their pet causes, instead of forcing the rest of us to give to their pet causes against our will through taxation, I SAY THE SAME TO YOU: let other parents raise their kids how they wish, and if you care so much about saving American culture, do it with your own family, your own children, your own friends. Make them ambassadors of the virtues of the greatness of things like modesty and tradition. Do it in your own lives instead of trying to use the government as a weapon to impose your will on others.
kaltes on September 3, 2011 at 10:59 PM
Ah, kaltes, the pro pedophile, pro sexual deviant argues that there is nothing that can be done to fix the culture.
I argue there are things we could do, but they are not likely to happen. Making people like kaltes earn a living the hard way would be one of those methods most likely. Actually producing something of value does not seem to be something I would imagine kaltes is capable of doing.
astonerii on September 3, 2011 at 11:14 PM
Commenting without reading the column is a waste of everyone else’s time. There was no agenda to use government to change the culture. None at all.
Ted Torgerson on September 3, 2011 at 11:40 PM
Freaking tired of saying it. You push “your” social agenda every time you post. We’re just pushing back.
hawkdriver on September 3, 2011 at 11:58 PM
Heh, the church nazis coming out tonight. When society leaves you in the dust I’ll be smiling.
mythicknight on September 4, 2011 at 12:14 AM
Go crawl back into your holes, the adults are here to talk about policy.
Obviously I read the article if I was quoting from within it. I made it pretty clear that using government to change the culture is really the only large scale option social conservatives have. What else could they do, whine about it to a hostile press? The Steyn piece, re-blogging the book, is a “call to arms” saying that the US is going down the drain, blah blah blah. Left unsaid is how to go about doing the “fixing”. Whining about some people in society writing crude music lyrics is easy, writing about how we should possibly infringe on the freedom of speech to combat these lyrics is another.
There is a significant implication that the culture must be changed coercively, since there is no other way to do it.
The point of Steyn’s piece, that America’s economic problems are inextricably linked with a lack of conservative social values (as supposedly evidenced by some ridiculous anecdotes), is ridiculous and wrong. Germans have legal prostitution and an age of consent of 14, which would send you social cons into fits, so by all means, hold them up as the model for social conservatism.
kaltes on September 4, 2011 at 12:40 AM
Im not aware of how the comments are moderated, but could someone report this comment and have it deleted?
It is a pure personal attack, and a scummy one, with no substantive commentary whatsoever, so I can’t imagine the moderators would approve of such blatant trolling.
kaltes on September 4, 2011 at 12:44 AM
I thought you were the live and let live sort of person. You know, pedophiles have feelings too, and can’t we all just get along? And here you are trying to quell a person’s voice? Shame on you kaltes. That is just not how you should act. That kind of stuff does not fly here. I was just reminding people and letting others who might have not seen your comments on the pedophile posting, what your views are, such that they can take your argument for the value it deserves.
No substantive commentary at all?
Looks substantive to me.
astonerii on September 4, 2011 at 12:49 AM
I am looking for the substance. It looks more like nothing but attacks and
astonerii on September 4, 2011 at 12:52 AM
Kaltes: Said theocratic scum also has a habit of openly calling for people to be persecuted in the streets, based on their thoughts, so I don’t think anyone takes him seriously. At least, no moral person would support him..
mythicknight on September 4, 2011 at 12:54 AM
I never said anything about thoughts. It would require actions on their part to earn such a reward.
astonerii on September 4, 2011 at 1:01 AM
Yes, two male adults in love is such a crime against humanity to you. Do you sleep well at night knowing your barbaric ways are long gone in modern free society? I suppose you’d fit right in at Iran though.
mythicknight on September 4, 2011 at 1:07 AM
These kinds of lyrics would never fly in China. The lower and middle class in China still have their heads together. China’s problem has always been its tiny elite immoral ruling class.
Whereas our elites have told our lower and middle classes that saying “tonight I’m f**king you” and having welfare babies are equivalent to freedom, identity and self-worth.
haner on September 4, 2011 at 1:07 AM
There’s a very strong way to enact change without government intervention – don’t buy the crap.
That’s all. If no one bought it, believed it, wore it, listened to it, then they’d quit mass producing it.
You didn’t read the article clearly. Steyn was talking about *behavioral* issues. Ones that don’t need government intervention. We’ve had the shame, embarrassment, good taste, judgment bred out of us. There seems to be no value placed on anything except “doing what feels good”, which lowers our expectations and what we find acceptable.
Now if you want to read “government intervention” in what Steyn wrote, then by all means. If you have read Steyn before and are a fan and know his history, you’d know full well that would be the ABSOLUTE LAST place he’d sniff for meaningful change. If you think that’s the only way that change can be enacted, then you are part of the problem. Real change can only come with willing participation of the public.
But that would require hard work and introspection and that seems to be scarce nowadays.
kim roy on September 4, 2011 at 1:24 AM
Let’s say some parent is letting his/her kids dress like sluts in grade school, listen to rap music with all kinds of sexual lyrics, and so on. You can’t really do anything about it.
I read the article quite clearly. It is a bunch of garbage about the supposed downfall of American civilization because of some ridiculous pop culture nitpicking from “uptight squares”, who are evidently completely oblivious to the fact that their examples of moral decay are nothing compared to the perverse indulgences of the cultural golden age that supposedly existed long before they were born. Oh no, a black man made an oblique reference to sex in a rap song! /faints
Social cons don’t deal in public service announcements, they deal in laws. Right now the battlegrounds are abortion and gay marriage, where social con victories are essentially meaningless to the greater society, but in the name of reversing this supposed “moral decay” social cons, if they had the power, would launch a volley of the most oppressive laws this side of sharia: outlawing and/or heavily restricting pornography, throwing teens in prison for the shocking crime of having sex, expanding indecent exposure laws to force people to cover up (just like in Iran, yay!), harsh drug/alcohol laws, persecuting gays, and the list goes on.
Imposing social control through laws, primarily criminal laws, is exactly what the hard core social cons like some of the posters here would do.
kaltes on September 4, 2011 at 3:09 AM
@kaltes, except that allowing abortion required federal government intervention, they won’t call it a law because it was legislated by the Supreme Court, but Roe v Wade is a law that makes an exception to every state’s law against murder. Oh and “gay marriage” is also a government intervention to specifically put a state government stamp of approval on gay “marriages”. So, which side is the side using laws to screw with culture?
And how can murdering 50 million innocent children be “essentially meaningless to the greater society”?
Aside from that I see no reason to reply to your straw man arguments about what you think social cons would do (which is oddly nothing like what we social cons have proposed) when in power.
joe_doufu on September 4, 2011 at 3:46 AM
I went for a walk yesterday on the local bike/hike trail. A young couple, late teens probably, was sitting on a bench. Both were covered in tattoos and had multiple piercing on their faces. This was in a solid middle class area. I wondered how their parents allowed such sh-t and what gainful employment they could ever qualify for.
AcidReflux on September 4, 2011 at 5:45 AM
Nazis? Weak.
The Church has been growing since it’s birth, as a certain rabbi with a few hundred followers 2000 yrs ago said it would (he predicted his gospel would be preached in every nation). One society may reject the Lord of glory, but his Kingdom will continue to advance until he returns.
I hope you make peace with the Lord soon.
itsnotaboutme on September 4, 2011 at 7:05 AM
Voltaire predicted in the 18th century the imminent irrelevance of the Bible. After his death, they were printing Bibles in his old house.
Nietzsche famously said “God is dead” in the 19th century. In the 2011, I think God is that Nietzsche is dead.
In the 20th century, millions of Bibles were destroyed, the governments of nearly 2 billion people militantly tried to destroy the faith, & more saints were put to death as martyrs than in the previous 19 centuries combined. But the Church outlasted & overcame Communism.
Hope you find some other reason to smile.
itsnotaboutme on September 4, 2011 at 7:14 AM
*facepalm* Sorry. It should say:
I think God is saying that Nietzsche is dead.
itsnotaboutme on September 4, 2011 at 7:15 AM
I don’t get the tattoo thing at all. Why would anyone want to cover their body in somebody else’s bad “art”? They end up looking like cheap billboards — covered in graffitti. And it’s so ubiquitous now that younger people can’t even pretend it’s an act of rebellion or a way to assert their individuality. When middle-aged grannies are walking around with multiple tattoos, how can it possibly be “cool”? And when everybody and his brother is doing it, how can it be seen as anything other than just another mindless act of conformity?
(But don’t worry, kaltes, I’m not advocating a law against tattoos. If people want to deface their own bodies and look like idiots, that’s their business.)
AZCoyote on September 4, 2011 at 7:18 AM
It’s sad that you had to end your excellent comments with that, but he or mythicknight would’ve accused you of “Dominionism” if you hadn’t. Kinda like the knee-jerk racism accusation the Left hurls at us.
itsnotaboutme on September 4, 2011 at 7:46 AM
I firmly believe this. The left has known this for decades. That’s why they control the broadcast and print media, the entertainment industry, and public education to shape people’s view of the world and their thinking.
It would seem to follow that one concrete step toward restoring the culture is break the left’s control of media, entertainment and education, and replace it with principles and values of our own.
As a libertarian-leaning conservative, I agree that legislating morality is usually ineffective. Where laws involving a moral issue are involved, they should not be decided by courts, but should come from the lowest feasible local legislative level.
petefrt on September 4, 2011 at 8:51 AM
LOL! Another liberal who sees conservatives as a bunch of meanies trying to ruin your nihilistic fun.
Kaltes, it’s the liberals who are the fascists of today. They actively interfere in parents’ rights to raise their children as they choose, and to communicate their values to those children. Everything a conservative parent aims to teach his/her children is undermined by the school system.
To answer your question, I would “fix” the “prostitot” by burning her clothing and teaching her about self-respect. As a start.
disa on September 4, 2011 at 9:13 AM
Here’s a thought: America has been raped by liberalism.
“You’ll do it and you’ll LIKE IT, or we will mess you up!”
disa on September 4, 2011 at 9:20 AM
Ladies, admit it – what you really want is to be loved for who you are. Beauty fades, and there will always be firm young women coming of age. Is the thrill of being naughty really worth it? Do you truly value yourself more as you are cast aside (or cast aside) an every-increasing number of men?
disa on September 4, 2011 at 9:26 AM
OMG! Tacky people shopping, little girls dressed too sexy, pretty boy musicians sexing up their lyrics… gasp!
“This is no social crisis, just another tricky day for you.” Fix the freaking budget, return to constitutional government and set people free to decide for themselves what to wear, listen to and eat. Do any more than that politically, and we will be destroyed.
elfman on September 4, 2011 at 9:28 AM
Oops, this was supposed to read:
“Do you truly value yourself more as you cast aside (or are cast aside by) an every-increasing number of men?
disa on September 4, 2011 at 9:29 AM
Many on the Left assume social cons seek Big Government control of the culture because they are projecting:
The Left seeks varying degrees of command and control of the economy, speech rights, health care, education, private property (wealth, assets), etc.
They assume social cons (and everyone else, for that matter) approach humanity the same way: the endgame for all political ideologies is to control the civil society through Big Government policy.
Of course, the American conservative philosophy is the opposite of this. It’s not possible to have government control of “the culture” with limited, decentralized government. Conservatism protects society from those that seek to control culture.
visions on September 4, 2011 at 9:29 AM
elfman on September 4, 2011 at 9:28 AM
Elfman, you’re missing the point. Steyn (and Ingraham) are pointing out that our culture is becoming rotten. Obviously we aren’t talking about imposing REGULATIONS (like the libs do) to force everyone to behave our way.
Yes, the fiscal thing is a reflection of a much larger problem – the culture of entitlement. Sadly, a lot of that “entitlement” is encouraging imprudent people into self-destruction.
disa on September 4, 2011 at 9:32 AM
Yes. And vice versa.
Culture and economics go hand in hand. You can’t fix one without fixing the other.
logis on September 4, 2011 at 9:42 AM
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