American society is plummeting downhill - Column

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), July, 1994 by Gerald F. Kreyche

Democracy has its roots in ancient Greece. Its express goal there was to lift all citizens in a quest for excellence. Whether looking to the Olympics, the theater, literature, government, discussions held in the marketplace, or the general culture, there was a common thread that intertwined all in the pursuit of both the common and individual good.

The American version of democracy is a far cry from that venerable legacy, catering not to what is higher, but to what is lower, bringing down the knowledgeable to the level of the ignorant. For example, excellence is condemned in academics, dismissed as elitism. In its stead, the ideology of political correctness has been adopted. Time-honored standardized tests in which blacks and Hispanics have done poorly are branded biased by them and their liberal support groups. As a result, testing has become less rigorous and standards have been lowered and sometimes dropped completely-all to keep individuals in college who really don't belong there.

Higher education is not for all

Somehow, no one questions the false assumption that every person in the U.S. has the native ability to earn a respectable college degree. Based on this type of thinking, any college student could major in physics, mathematics, or philosophy. This is no more the case than the idea that everyone can be an artist, poet, tool and die maker, expert in chess, or super athlete. The hard facts are that some just don't have the wherewithal to do justice to higher education.

This should not be viewed as a disgrace, as happiness and success in life are not assured by a degree. (I have seen too many alienated and frustrated students who are unhappy in college, knowing that their interests and talents lie elsewhere. They are there only because parents, and now society, insist they be there.)

The spinoff from this has affected other standards, such as the tests taken by firemen, policemen, and other public servants. Under the aegis of sensitivity, so many extra points are given to minorities (to apply to the test before it is taken) that the deck has been stacked from the beginning. Supposedly, this is democracy, yet the playing field now is grossly uneven.

What is being settled for is not excellence produced by competition, but mediocrity and something less, produced by social do-gooders. We finally have reached the lowest common denominator. and society is suffering for this. Consequently, our age has become one of sloppiness, vulgarity. and indecency, where moral virtue, decorum, and propriety virtually are sneered at as old-fashioned and bourgeois, to the detriment of all concerned.

Kids look like Charlie Chaplins in their baggy attire with cuffs dragging on the pavement. Meanwhile, PLO leader Yasser Arafat seems to have set a trend for those who are fond of being unshaven. Today, one ponders the question, "When is a beard not a beard," but merely unkempt stubble? (The question well applies to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.)

Brazenness to the forefront

Subtlety, always a mark of sophistication, has given way to brazenness. Even the government is into spreading condom advertisements. Newspapers now accept personals under classifications of "Women Seeking Women" or "Men Seeking Men." Often, even the qualifications demanded are listed.

Bra ads are another case in point. The model no longer is pictured as demure and modest, but stares one right in the eye, forcing the viewer to be the first to blink. Great Britain's new push-up Wonderbra practically guarantees a show of cleavage even to the Twiggies of the world. (One might pose the question: Aren't these a commercial enticement to sexual harassment?)

T-shirts and bumperstickers, with their vulgar messages, are the great communicators of our deteriorating culture, replete with four-letter words, often accompanied by graphic illustrations. Graffiti on walls everywhere are proclaimed urban art, when in fact they are not even kitsch, but simply defacement proving that the gangs are in charge of the 'hood.

Today's entertainers make Elvis' gyrations look like classic dance. Now it is de rigueur for those like Roseanne Arnold, Madonna, and Michael Jackson to fondle their crotches in the hope of getting a rise out of the audience.

Black rappers are sinking society fast. For them, all black women are whores and bitches-and they include in these categories their mothers and sisters! Whites should be raped or killed, preferably both. The police are society's mortal enemy. If such lyrics aren't incitement to riotous behavior and destructive to democracy, nothing is.

Daytime TV shows are especially adept in letting it all hang out. No topic is unsuitable for the airwaves it seems, as discussion abounds on subjects such as pre-menstrual syndrome, birth control, what one's first sexual experience was like, and how it felt to have one's penis or scrotum cut off by an outraged wife or lover.

Telephone companies permit one to dial 900 numbers that provide a seductive voice talking dirty at the other end, giving callers sexual thrills. Respectable newspapers now carry ads that promise penis enlargement and/or implants.