The Lost Art of Serious
(This is a draft essay. It will likely be revised later so please do not reproduce it. Gracias. - JR)
The Lost Art of Serious
On the radio the other morning, a retired newspaper reporter talked about covering the tragic 1967 Detroit riots. After recounting all that he went through during those days, he said that the experience changed him. "After that," he said " I was a very serious person."
You don't here many people describe themselves that way anymore. Serious is pretty much considered synonymous with boring, or worse, heavy handed and sanctimonious. Serious has gone the way of double knits. Very unhip. A throwback, but not in a good way. A lot of people seem to make a small hobby of avoiding serious. How many times have your friends said they wanted to go see a movie, "something light," as though they had just returned from touring Dachau? How many times have you seen conversations quickly diverted the minute someone says something that sounds serious? Sampling the conversations of today's educated/professional middle class (of which I am a non dues paying member), you get the impression that what passes as good conversation is just really a Seinfeldian exchange of … bullshit. A complex dance where everyone walks up to the edge of serious and jumps back, as though the deprivations of the American professional class leave little room for anything but escapist diversions. Very odd for a group of people who have, by and large, benefited from rigorous educations and have access to an unprecedented amount of information, much of it cut and sliced to meet their particular niche interests.
Look at the news. Health news. Consumer news. More commercials. More "Lifestyle" pieces. Less and less serious news. Paradoxically, the most effective news delivery program out there, "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart is a mix of repartee, double entendres, stoner humor, and knowing cynicism. People like it, because Jon Stewart is not trying to be serious.
Keep it light. Keep it ironic. But keep it away from serious.
Two questions come to mind. What is driving our retreat from serious particularly during such serious times? What, if any, loss of have we suffered with the loss of serious.
First, I think the retreat from serious is driven in part by our (well founded) suspicions about sincerity. We have grown accustomed to a world in which we expect our business leaders, political leaders and religious leaders to lie about things big and small. We accept lying – or at least misleading -- as almost the natural human default position a self defense reflex, like dunking a punch. As a consequence, we mistrust anybody who appears to be attempting sincerity. In fact, the more they attempt sincerity, say by raising their hand and taking an oath, or locking eye contact and using a grave tone – the more we mistrust them. Face it. American newsmagazines have spent three decades now reproducing photographs of serious looking guys in suits and short haircuts, arms cocked at the familiar ninety degree angle above stories that report that the photo was taken only moments before they either a) let go a whopper, b) admitted that they previously let go a whopper or c) ratted out someone who told a whopper. These days, if you want anyone to believe you, if you want to convince anyone of anything, the worst thing you can do is tell them you are serious.
The other enemy of seriousness is the cult of "I'm not saying I'm just sayin.'" Words to this effect are used often as code for, " I may hold an opinion on this issue unless of course it will produce some friction between us. I don't want my convictions to get in the way of getting along ." This is strange because our radiowaves and TV screens are filled with talking heads whose sole purpose is to infuriate. Our President is one of the most partisan in history and we are constantly shown maps of red and blue America Yet, most Americans still shirk from any confrontation. Odd for a country born of one heck of a confrontation.
But maybe not so odd for a country that places a high premium on charisma and the ability get along. You don't have to look too far into our political or commercial culture to realize the benefits bestowed upon the charismatic. Political figures as discordant as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan had great success because people liked their optimism. Bob Dole and Hillary Clinton get (and got) pummeled as too serious, to shrill, too earnest. Like they want to run a country or something. Even the current President rode to his first victory by assuring us he was not very serious, certainly not serious enough to learn the leaders of other countries. Not so serious as to take serious problems seriously. Not serious like his dour know it all opponent. His campaign was one big back slap, while his opponent's was a traveling science fair. Similarly, movements who have made very significant contributions to American life often get derided for being too serious or confrontational. Think organized labor. Think the environmental movement. No one likes a wrench in the works. Going along to get along is a prized virtue or as one writer observed:
The last enemy of serious is our own toxic political culture. More precisely, the 60s mantra that the "personal is political" has been transformed from a call to live your beliefs to an execuse to attack the person for political advantage. Again, examples abound. Al Gore wins a Nobel Prize only to have people carp about the size of his home and his high school grades. How much more can we speculate on the state of the Clinton Union? How many pundits' (like Maureen Dowd) make their bones on pseudo psychological explanations and dissections of our leaders psyches? This dynamic – attacking the message by gutting the messenger -- creates a problem for serious because no one wants to be a target. Few will venture into the realm of serious if it means they open themselves up to personal attack.
What have we lost?
Too much. By abstaining from the serious we end up talking to each other from behind masks of indifference, well crafted cynicism, or dark humor. We are never quite being honest. We never quite put our irons in the fire, never make our commitments public. This degrades us all a little bit. It robs our civil society of any conviction. It robs each of us, slowly, of the ability to make hard choices and live with the consequences. In a sense we remain children, waiting for the grown ups to tell us what to do.
Perhaps equally as pernicious, is the unfortunate fact that when we cede the serious, there are plenty of opportunists who will jump into the breach. Often they are transparently self interested. Often they are zealots. More often they are just not very bright. But they are always willing to occupy the space we have retreated from. And so the serious remains an unexplored territory, hopelessly rugged and generally occupied by people we find distasteful.
We can do better. Seriously.
The Lost Art of Serious
On the radio the other morning, a retired newspaper reporter talked about covering the tragic 1967 Detroit riots. After recounting all that he went through during those days, he said that the experience changed him. "After that," he said " I was a very serious person."
You don't here many people describe themselves that way anymore. Serious is pretty much considered synonymous with boring, or worse, heavy handed and sanctimonious. Serious has gone the way of double knits. Very unhip. A throwback, but not in a good way. A lot of people seem to make a small hobby of avoiding serious. How many times have your friends said they wanted to go see a movie, "something light," as though they had just returned from touring Dachau? How many times have you seen conversations quickly diverted the minute someone says something that sounds serious? Sampling the conversations of today's educated/professional middle class (of which I am a non dues paying member), you get the impression that what passes as good conversation is just really a Seinfeldian exchange of … bullshit. A complex dance where everyone walks up to the edge of serious and jumps back, as though the deprivations of the American professional class leave little room for anything but escapist diversions. Very odd for a group of people who have, by and large, benefited from rigorous educations and have access to an unprecedented amount of information, much of it cut and sliced to meet their particular niche interests.
Look at the news. Health news. Consumer news. More commercials. More "Lifestyle" pieces. Less and less serious news. Paradoxically, the most effective news delivery program out there, "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart is a mix of repartee, double entendres, stoner humor, and knowing cynicism. People like it, because Jon Stewart is not trying to be serious.
Keep it light. Keep it ironic. But keep it away from serious.
Two questions come to mind. What is driving our retreat from serious particularly during such serious times? What, if any, loss of have we suffered with the loss of serious.
First, I think the retreat from serious is driven in part by our (well founded) suspicions about sincerity. We have grown accustomed to a world in which we expect our business leaders, political leaders and religious leaders to lie about things big and small. We accept lying – or at least misleading -- as almost the natural human default position a self defense reflex, like dunking a punch. As a consequence, we mistrust anybody who appears to be attempting sincerity. In fact, the more they attempt sincerity, say by raising their hand and taking an oath, or locking eye contact and using a grave tone – the more we mistrust them. Face it. American newsmagazines have spent three decades now reproducing photographs of serious looking guys in suits and short haircuts, arms cocked at the familiar ninety degree angle above stories that report that the photo was taken only moments before they either a) let go a whopper, b) admitted that they previously let go a whopper or c) ratted out someone who told a whopper. These days, if you want anyone to believe you, if you want to convince anyone of anything, the worst thing you can do is tell them you are serious.
The other enemy of seriousness is the cult of "I'm not saying I'm just sayin.'" Words to this effect are used often as code for, " I may hold an opinion on this issue unless of course it will produce some friction between us. I don't want my convictions to get in the way of getting along ." This is strange because our radiowaves and TV screens are filled with talking heads whose sole purpose is to infuriate. Our President is one of the most partisan in history and we are constantly shown maps of red and blue America Yet, most Americans still shirk from any confrontation. Odd for a country born of one heck of a confrontation.
But maybe not so odd for a country that places a high premium on charisma and the ability get along. You don't have to look too far into our political or commercial culture to realize the benefits bestowed upon the charismatic. Political figures as discordant as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan had great success because people liked their optimism. Bob Dole and Hillary Clinton get (and got) pummeled as too serious, to shrill, too earnest. Like they want to run a country or something. Even the current President rode to his first victory by assuring us he was not very serious, certainly not serious enough to learn the leaders of other countries. Not so serious as to take serious problems seriously. Not serious like his dour know it all opponent. His campaign was one big back slap, while his opponent's was a traveling science fair. Similarly, movements who have made very significant contributions to American life often get derided for being too serious or confrontational. Think organized labor. Think the environmental movement. No one likes a wrench in the works. Going along to get along is a prized virtue or as one writer observed:
The fact is that under the pretext of goodness, people neglect conscience. They place acceptance, the avoidance of problems, the comfortable pursuit of their existence, the good opinion of others and good-naturedness above truth in the scale of values.
The last enemy of serious is our own toxic political culture. More precisely, the 60s mantra that the "personal is political" has been transformed from a call to live your beliefs to an execuse to attack the person for political advantage. Again, examples abound. Al Gore wins a Nobel Prize only to have people carp about the size of his home and his high school grades. How much more can we speculate on the state of the Clinton Union? How many pundits' (like Maureen Dowd) make their bones on pseudo psychological explanations and dissections of our leaders psyches? This dynamic – attacking the message by gutting the messenger -- creates a problem for serious because no one wants to be a target. Few will venture into the realm of serious if it means they open themselves up to personal attack.
What have we lost?
Too much. By abstaining from the serious we end up talking to each other from behind masks of indifference, well crafted cynicism, or dark humor. We are never quite being honest. We never quite put our irons in the fire, never make our commitments public. This degrades us all a little bit. It robs our civil society of any conviction. It robs each of us, slowly, of the ability to make hard choices and live with the consequences. In a sense we remain children, waiting for the grown ups to tell us what to do.
Perhaps equally as pernicious, is the unfortunate fact that when we cede the serious, there are plenty of opportunists who will jump into the breach. Often they are transparently self interested. Often they are zealots. More often they are just not very bright. But they are always willing to occupy the space we have retreated from. And so the serious remains an unexplored territory, hopelessly rugged and generally occupied by people we find distasteful.
We can do better. Seriously.
posted by Jack Reed at 5:56 PM
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