The nice thing about captions is they're short...they're pithy...they seem to capture the lightening of big complex ideas inside small handy bottles. Oh and do we have the bottles...! Illegal immigrants. Gun Nuts. Creeping Socialists. And lets not forget such all-time favorites as: Punks. Seniors. Fundamentalists. Lately, two very complex ideas have been conveniently squeezed into three bottled captions:
THE SIXTIES
The first half of the decade has found a hot new caption -- "Mad Men." The TV hit series begins its 4th season with a growing fan and critic base which has conveniently assumed this portrayal of a cigaratte-smoking, alcohol-boozing, amoral white man's world defines the times. Sounds right, looks right, but it ain't necessarily so. This handy take on Americana encompasses what, maybe 2% of the population? Sorry, folks, this is not sociology as much as it is one man's caption of one man's experience in a world that also beat with 200 million other and very different hearts.
The second half of the decade has also found itself a catchy caption -- "Revolutionary." Easy to see why the caption might fit when what is reported from these years are mostly the assassinations, the VietNam War, the violence in the streets of college campuses and Chicago conventions. As real as these all were, this is like the child peeking into the adults' party through only a crack in his bedroom door.
BIG GOVERNMENT
Now here's an idea older and more complicated than most. Which makes any handy-sized caption more desirable, but really less workable. And yet, work these captions must! Like jamming the proverbial round peg into the square hole. Not surprisingly, it has been part of our national history that government in America has always been seen as "too big." We didn't like it when it came from the King's London; and we haven't much liked it ever since.
Now we're witnessing yet another groundswell of paraders and self-proclaimed patriots who are making down-with-big-government their political religion. Right wingers...tea partiers ...neo-cons...Fox News ... Sarah Palin. Take your pick. Nothing really new. They all seem to briefly exist for one purpose. To shout down government as if everything from the IRS to Medicare to the Post Office to the cop on the beat are an evil force to be slain with either ballot or bullet.
The problem with trying to fit the Evil caption around Big Government is that if there is any evil at work, it has to do with the nature of bigness more than government. Bigness in anything -- from Wall Street to GM to the Military to the Vatican -- is where the trouble begins. Hardly a specialty or a monopoly of Government.
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Lets all say it once and for all -- captions are always cute, rarely comprehensive. That's what minds are for.
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Jack, "Mad Men": I worked with the fellow about whom the show was created. I don't have cable so I am not able to watch the show but from what I have read, it does meet the accuracy test. The ad men (and a few ladies) seemed both insecure and super competitive. Some who lost accounts committed suicide. Others became stars but at health's expense anyway. They may have been only 2% of a community but their work affected the multitudes!
ReplyDeleteJerry, you're right they did affect the multitudes. Actually I was in that game for about a year in the 50s. But while I saw some of this for myself, I'm not sure their lifestyle became America's lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteStill, it's a very interesting series. But here in Chicago we don't need cable...