Robert Ericksen: War-torn (1945)

"Sadly, they largely prove incapable of feeling ashamed."

TheWarOnDecency began with a lessening of standards. Entertainment adopted a coarseness, as if its audience had been struck stupid. Plot and story slowly went to Hell in favor of Soap Operas and, ultimately, something labeled “Reality.” This reality, though, was reality’s archenemy, its theatrical opposite. Intended to titillate, it abandoned formal constructs of entertainment. Audience members were invited to engage in what was labeled as guilty pleasures: coarse language without any clear purpose, cruel lifeboat drill exercises, and endless derision. Some Other or another served as the endless butt of meaningless jokes. Some smartass was elevated to the role of hero, though his character and values remained unshakably shady. Awfulness seemed to be the sole purpose, as if its mere presence signified great success. Spectacle replaced subtlety. Cruelty amplified the underlying purpose. Those who regularly watched truly felt as though they were getting away with something and eventually forgot that they were ever supposed to feel guilty about anything.

What began as drama proved so popular that it migrated into sports, news, and even cartoons. No corner of the entertainment space remained safe from this influence. Even those genres traditionally grounded in truths took to fudging their facts. Those who retained their ability to discern fact from fiction were not attracted to this new medium. Those who couldn’t discern, quickly became addicted. Those who developed the Jones abandoned everything they’d known to join the ever-burgeoning throng of folks demanding that edge from their entertainment and, eventually, even their social media systems. They became children of the lie so pervasive they never noticed what they’d lost. They proclaimed their newfound freedom without acknowledging the considerable chain they’d voluntarily agreed to padlock around their necks.

It was the performative Christians who funded the movement, those who chose to pray in public and hoped to recreate something resembling a Jim Crow state. They were firmly in favor of public executions if only for the spectacle they produced, while simultaneously just as firmly against even the most therapeutic and necessary abortions. They presented themselves as superior moral authorities without providing substantial evidence to support their assertions. They sure seemed certain in this decidedly uncertain world. Those who yearned for the mythical good old days were drawn to these messages, though it seems unlikely that very many had ever actually parsed those memes for consistency or validity. A swathe of the country became utterly dependent upon cleverly spun lies to feel as though they were in control of their lives. Liberty became conflated with a dedicated dependence upon continual reinforcements, often in the entertaining form of conspiracy theories.

The hate seemed a byproduct of simple inertia. Once focused upon false equivalences, any story seemed to do. Whether or not an assertion was true grew to seem unnecessary. Was it entertainingly presented? Did it humiliate someone in the telling? Did it leave me feeling vaguely superior? TheWarOnDecency was first merely corrosive before it became decidedly self-destructive. It sought to smother its audience before setting about to smother the very foundations of our democracy. Society itself was corrupted. The very wealthy suddenly seemed confident to inherit the Earth. Damn the everyman. Damn convention. Finally, might just as well damn Decency in the process.

That this began with some guilty pleasures shouldn’t surprise anyone, for Decency has always demanded a particular discipline. Sure and inevitable erosion has always depended upon more than the occasional willing suspension of disbelief, but the corrosive influence of endlessly repeated “guiltless” pleasure. An internal moral overseer, careful to monitor outward behavior, might prevent the occasional behavior from becoming the defining sin. Encouraged to abandon limits to acceptable behavior, people seem to become caustically moral. They become self-righteous before focusing on inflicting their own self-righteousness on others. They might sin with sudden abandon, but they counterbalance that behavior by ganging up on others who are guilty only of imaginary shortcomings. The list of potential Others grows ever longer with repeated practice.

Any WarOnDecency requires that perverts be in charge, and they must demand an authoritarian hand. Democracy cannot rightfully support such degradation because democracies, like Decency, tend toward averages, and degradation only exists at extremes. Decency, too, seeks agreeable spaces, avoiding the more raw and caustic. Decency, though, can spoil the poison. It can render corruption intolerable, and that, all by itself, proves unacceptable to those who deal in guiltless pleasures. Those conducting a WarOnDecency should rightfully be ashamed of themselves. Sadly, they largely prove incapable of feeling ashamed.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz