Silly Little Country

Hanson is Depressing Me

I don't like reflexively pointing to Victor Davis Hanson's observations, but I wish more classicists, and even medieval historians, tried more honestly to give us some perspective on today.
What he says here resonates horridly to my mind:

And when you compare the relentless smirking and snickering of a David Letterman or Bill Mahr with past variety hosts of the 1950s, or TV shows like Desperate Housewives or Sex in the City with Bonanza or Paladin, then we get a good glimpse of the rapid devolution to a postmodern society. Not that we don’t have genius and flair in our midst, but the gap reminds me a lot of the change in temperament of a Juvenal or Petronius compared to an earlier generation of Horace and Virgil. While Trimalchio and his bunch argue over stuffed song birds and dancing catamites, some legionary is on the Rhine or Danube holding back the tide. One wonders about an audience’s taste that went from Fibber McGee and Molly to Howard Stern in less than 50 years.

I found that reference to the legionary very sad and fitting. Knowing the support our soldiers struggling with a not dissimilar tide are facing, in terms of the political attitudes back here. And my heart breaks at the smugnesses of the Lettermans and the Mahrs, and the sad thought that Canada is so pathetic we don't even have their equivalents.

Maybe the biggest tragedy is that we demonstrably have MORE genius and flair in our midst, but none of it realizes the importance of that legionary, and is in fact confident of the legionary's not mere irrelevance, but dispensability. Well, I hope they are more geniuses than I, because I clearly do not agree.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 2:19 PM