What to Admire

Oh, I admire passion. It's part of the whole charisma thing. People who are passionate get our hearts pumping as well. it's probably something fairly primitive, as if passion indicated vigor, vigor indicated health, health indicated good leadership and suggested one was a good mate or some such crap.

But "saying what you believe in" and showing passion is not an indicator of good character, or trustworthiness, or leadership ability. That is one of the fictions of our age: that apparently sincere, passionate people are the people we should listen to. And the appeal is a lot harder to countenance in times like these. People tend to be more easily taken in by "true believers' in times of chaos and upheaval and crisis. Our historical moment is one of upheaval, perhaps, but our society is in many ways fat and happy. Why then does a run up the AM dial reveal so many demogogues and mad prophets, each in his own way full to the brim with nonsense?

I couldn't tell you, but it has to stop. Because those sorts of people are exactly the last ones to listen to. Because people who come across so militantly sincere are so often cynical and calculating. Because passion is a long time friend of extremism, racism, scapegoating, xenophobia, and cruelty.

This isn't a plea against rhetoric, but a plea against gullibility. Why is it that people who function so well in working life and elsewhere are so easily fooled by obvious emotional appeals? By religion that absolves them from having to make real moral choices and in turn provides them an illusory sense of superiority? By a politics that holds in dark contempt everything that operates north of the medulla oblongata and has the gall to claim higher values?

People simply aren't thinking. We don't teach thinking enough in this culture. Not how to think, but that sometimes you don't just go with your gut, which is pretty lousy at making decisions, and instead weigh options and ideas. It'd also be nice if we taught our kids to value beauty and character and knowledge and good sense instead of cunning and brute strength and shimmering aesthetic trivia. It's not so hard to raise a kid unconvinced and uncompelled by the scummiest and cheapest of pop culture. It's not so hard to raise a kid hungry for the splendor of human existence rather than merely attention and coerced validation. We should try it sometimes.

The big revolution in American culture will happen when we stop endorsing brutality and selfishness. It will happen when people see good judgment and prudence as the hallmarks of common sense, rather than the ability to manipulate others. It will happen when we stop confusing seduction and beauty. It will happen, most of all, when we stop listening to our inner asshole.