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ANARCHY RULES
THE DISORDER IN TODAY'S SOCIETY IS MANIFEST IN EVERYTHING FROM TRAFFIC TO
WARNING LABELS TO ELEVATORS, AND IT'S ALL THE BABY BOOMERS' FAULT
Published on Sunday, June 18, 2000
© The Buffalo News Inc.
The other night I was watching one of the new wave of popular TV shows,
"Who Wants to Wrestle a Millionaire." Guest referee Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor was trying to intervene as the kindergarten teacher
from Topeka used a folding chair and a flying drop kick to settle her screaming
match with opponent Donald Trump. The issue was whether "a robin"
was (a) a spool of thread, (b) a bird, (c) a felony or (d) a sandwich. It
was then that I realized that we have lost it. "It" being our
sense of order and perspective.
I thought about when and why it happened. I am basically a child of the
'50s, and as such, had grown up with media images of neatly stocked shelves
in bomb shelters, elementary school classrooms in which dungarees and
sneakers were prohibited (in case of nuclear attack, no doubt) and a clear
knowledge that tonsils were undesirable and should be removed.
Then Jack Kennedy was assassinated. Within minutes Mark Lane was
questioning the findings of the Warren Commission, and everything changed.
How dare he! This was the Warren Commission, for crying out loud! Could a
group of stodgy old establishment politicians and political appointees in
suits possibly make a mistake, or worse -- lie? The seeds of disbelief were
sown.
The next day the Vietnam War began in earnest, and a day after that, the
anti-war movement swung into high gear. While some American boys were
taking up sentry positions in Canada to protect our northern border, other
boys and girls were taking to the streets to protect us from us.
The "Establishment" was attempting to corner the market on
lying, or at least on the rather liberal use of euphemisms
("protective reaction strike," "winning the hearts and minds
of the people"). The seeds of disbelief were sprouting. After a few
events like the 1968 Democratic convention, the My Lai massacre trial and
the early stages of Watergate, even the soldiers were joining the anti-war
movement.
'If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing'
The lesson we were learning in all those instances was that it was
appropriate to question, and even defy, arbitrary authority. Arbitrary
authority was being defined as the power and rule structure of cynical,
corrupt, out-of-touch, previous-generation, pillars of society -- the
Establishment.
It is not that questioning or even defying the Establishment, under
certain circumstances, is a bad exercise; in fact, the Founding Fathers
actually recommended that we practice it occasionally. However, this is
America, and the informal national motto is "If it's worth doing, it's
worth overdoing."
Now we, the anti-establishment youth of the '60s and '70s, have grown up
to be the Establishment. We have been, and have almost finished being, the
child-rearers, the educators and worst of all, the lawyers.
In the intervening years, the concept of "arbitrary" in the
phrase "arbitrary authority" has been corrupted, misinterpreted,
personalized or just plain omitted. "Authority" takes a variety
of forms. When codified, it runs the gamut from conventions to legislated
regulations with various degrees of sanction to taboos.
To a great extent, the assignment of responsibility for actions is
determined by various levels of authority, so that rejection of authority
seems also to be associated with a refusal to accept responsibility. In
other contexts, "authority" takes on the meaning of expertise
(e.g., "a leading authority on the art of hamster dipping"). But
what has happened to these various forms of authority?
"Conventions" are rules that exists solely for the purpose of
guiding behavior in certain circumstances so that chaos and disaster can be
avoided. For instance, most traffic rules are conventions. However, many
drivers flout traffic rules today because they believe them to be
arbitrary.
Four-way-stop intersections are more hazardous than minefields. Drivers
have lost sight of the fact that the car to the right has the right of way,
and the driver who sits and waves everyone else through, being ultra-polite
and not using the right of way when expected to, is as dangerous as the one
who shoots through the intersection on the tail(pipe) of the car
immediately in front of him as if being towed on a short chain.
Some conventions, rather than being arbitrary, like driving on the right
side of the road, are based on common sense: Don't park your car diagonally
across two or more parking spaces in a crowded lot; don't roller-blade in
hospital corridors; and one of my personal favorites, allow people out of
an elevator car before you enter.
This latter example may sound ludicrously obvious, but I see it every
day at the University at Buffalo -- students begin crowding into the
elevator as soon as the door opens, and before those inside the elevator
can get out.
Folks, it isn't a subway; it's an elevator. At universities, the young
people of today learn to do science on high-tech hardware, solve complex
equations and acquire foreign tongues; yet they don't show the slightest
appreciation of the complexities of elevator logistics.
If at first you don't succeed, sue
Moving up to the level of rules and laws, we come to the area fraught
with the most anarchy and mischief. It is here that we see the influence of
the lawyers, the Litigatory-Americans.
Our society has evolved a guiding principle during the last quarter
century: that no individual need take responsibility for his or her own
actions until ordered to do so by a judge. The footnote to that principle
is "and until all appeals are exhausted."
How else could we explain successful damage suits over hot coffee
spilled on oneself, or over the use of a hair dryer in the shower, or over
the absence of measures that would make it absolutely impossible for a
sobriety-challenged ignoramus to hurt himself because he climbed over a
barbed-wire fence into a restricted area and played with a piece of heavy
machinery?
Rather than teach and encourage common sense, rather than take the blame
because of one's own carelessness, ignorance or irresponsibility, our
strategy has been first to sue, then to try to place a label on everything
that is potentially harmful.
There are warning labels on cigarettes, car visors, plastic bags, toys,
hand tools, power tools, dental tools and even coffee cups. Why, though, is
there no label on the bottoms of bottles that reads "Open other
end" or on pillows that says "Do not attempt to swallow
whole"? Since everything is potentially harmful to someone in some
way, the rest of the labels will come as soon as the cases are tested in
court.
It's not my fault
Renunciation of responsibility has gone to absurd extremes. I was
accosted by an irate student a few years ago just after I gave an
Introductory Psychology midterm exam. He claimed he did not know there was
going to be an exam on that day. I did not mention that it was on the
syllabus, but I did tell him that I had announced the impending test at every
class meeting in preceding two weeks. His indignant response was,
"Well, I wasn't there, OK?"
Actually, the responsibility-assignment buck does not even stop with a
judge. I watched Judge Judy become livid when relating a decision to a
losing plaintiff because the plaintiff kept muttering "Whatever."
When Judge Judy finished, the plaintiff remarked, "Well, that's just
your opinion."
During the debriefing on these court TV shows, disgruntled litigants
often assert that the judge was just wrong. The logic seems to escape them
that the decisions aren't purely subjective and arbitrary; that case law,
precedent and some notion of fairness determine the decision.
Of course, these are TV shows -- the participants agree beforehand that
the decision of the judge will be binding. In any real court case, there is
always a Litigatory-American available to appeal the case on behalf of the
hopelessly irresponsible.
Saturday Night Live brilliantly slashed at frivolous suits a few years
ago when, in a skit, it presented a law firm advertising that it
specialized in suing on grounds that the law firm pioneered:
"bystander trauma" and "post-litigation stress
disorder."
What about the next level of legal or moral authority, that of
commandments and taboos? Do we see erosion at this level? The 10
Commandments, or rather the 10 Suggestions, have become equivalent in moral
impact to the recommendations in the back of the booklet that comes with a
new washing machine. "For best results, always wash white and dark
articles separately and never covet thy neighbor's ass."
As for taboos, I only have to cite the example of a recent Jerry
Springer Show, on which I saw (I was channel surfing, of course) a man
explain why he wanted to marry his daughter. If I could have stopped
retching long enough to phone the show, I would have asked him why, if he
thought that incest was acceptable, he drew the line at out-of-wedlock
incest? I can just imagine his answer -- "What are we, animals?"
No rules
The extent to which this creeping anarchy has infiltrated into the
English language would give Mark Twain apoplexy. Some current usage is
downright irritating. One is the exclusive and highly dramatic use of
direct discourse -- not "I told him not to go," but "I'm
like 'Don't go!' " I am guessing, or hoping, that this pathology is
transient. More to the point here are anarchic phrases that signal
permanent deterioration of the language and perhaps thought processes, like
the illogical "I could care less."
Where does that leave us?
We are now a society that is non copus mentis, "with minds that
won't cope." We are now a society in which children are considered to
be traumatized when they don't get what they want; in which employers,
during an employee layoff, summon teams of professional crisis counselors
to help the remaining employees cope with "survivor guilt;" and a
society in which a belief in a particular religious cosmology, psychic
phenomena, astrology or any form of alternative medicine is now given equal
status with empirical scientific evidence because of the misconception that
a scientific "theory" is an unproven supposition.
We are also a society in which people "preboard" airplanes;
managers "incent" workers; white-collar workers learn "to
office" at home; major-league baseball teams pile into the stands to
beat up the spectators; and in which Litigatory-Americans explore the
possibility that chimpanzees and gorillas that master a rudimentary form of
sign language are entitled to legal representation. Yes, if it's worth
doing, it's worth overdoing.
I know this seems like a lot to lay at the feet of Lee Harvey Oswald, or
whatever cabal accomplished President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, but
I think the logic is clear and straightforward. That is when the problems
began.
Authorities on history, culture, sociology, psychology and philosophy
may disagree with me, but I'm like "Whatever!"
___________
MARK B. KRISTAL is a professor of psychology and interim dean of the
School of Health Related Professions at the University at Buffalo.
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