Piddingworth Greg Benton |
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| 'Piddingworth...where St. George's Cross is not yet banned.' --Mark Steyn |
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| Honour all men. Love the Brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the King. (1Peter 2) |
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| Trust in the Lord and He will give you the strength & courage to do your Duty... Rose West Leonard |
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| SENTIMENTALLY YOURS |
| When former U.S. President Bill Clinton in his first presidential campaign replied to an appeal for help from a man suffering from AIDS, the smooth politician replied: 'I feel your pain'. The general public response to this exchange was of gushing admiration for a would-be President who showed his 'feelings'. It is what the British public angrily demanded of the Queen when the late Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in Paris. 'Come out and show us you feel badly about all of this...just like us who have smothered the palace with our flowers and teddy bears!!!!' All this as if Elizabeth II had not shed her own tears and grieved in her own, and more appropriate, way. The malignancy of sentimentalism has swept through our culture like a brush fire consuming a forest. It's everywhere. Lately in Toronto it has become customary following the murder of a youth in a part of the city somewhat overrun with a sub-culture of gangs, drugs and violence, to immediately set up an 'altar' of 'public' sentiment consisting of flowers, notes, stuffed animals and the like. Even when the victim has been known to have been a participant in a way of life that invites death, he is still regarded as a 'good kid' who wanted to be an astronaut or some such thing. Similar memorials have been placed at points on roads and highways where someone dear has been killed in an accident. Some of these are maintained over years! When a Canadian soldier is killed in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, what was the prevailing response on the part of the government and the family of the deceased, i.e., a dignified, quiet and respectful repatriation, funeral and burial, has been replaced by gushing appeals for the whole country to prove that it feels just awful about this. Many, including some shameless family members, used the death of a soldier as a political opportunity to call out the hard-hearted Prime Minister...lower all the flags to half-mast! Bring in the television crews to show the body!!!! The government acquiesced, of course, remembering the useful tactic employed by Clinton. I feel your pain. We all feel your pain. Much of this has morphed into a 'Support The Troops' movement. On the surface, this is an obvious appeal for the patriotic support of our men and women in uniform, but underneath is really an exercise in the same kind of sentimentalism that has distracted the public from recognising the significance of serving and/or dying in Her Majesty's forces, i.e., the paramount virtue of 'duty' and sacrifice. It evolved from an American tradition for families of those serving to 'tie a yellow ribbon' around a tree in honour of their son or daughter with the hope of their speedy and safe return. The degree to which that simple and personal act has become a 'movement' is commensurate with the emotional sentimentality of a group advancing their particular interest than the service of the sailor, soldier or airman far away. Reducing the 'duty' of supporting our warriors to almost a 'charitable' cause (and they are legion!) with the wearing of little yellow ribbons is very sad indeed. Loyalty to one's country and those who defend it ought not to be portrayed in the same way as the appeals for the support of a junior hockey team or save the baby seal. That those who parade their ribbons and wear their 'colours of support' are sincere in how they feel about our troops there can be no doubt. The same might be said of those who grieved with their pots of daisies over Diana or the little kid killed in a drug deal gone bad. Sincerity is in ample supply. It is difficult to imagine the 'greatest generation' of world war two, or their parents, 'feeling' the need to parade their 'feelings' about the service of their adult children who volunteered to do their duty. That doesn't mean that they didn't have those feelings of fear, or loss or pride but that the means through which they were expressed focused, not on themselves, but on the service. The grief of the Silver Cross Mother is something that demands respect in every generation; including this one. It is a dignified recognition of the loss and symbolic of the country itself, as a 'Mother', mourning the death of 'her sons'. Remembrance and other services in places of worship provide an appropriate context in which those sentiments can be offered and it is in these places where the memorial transcends the feelings of the participants; permitting those sentiments to find some comfort in the hands of a higher power. In addition, it is appalling that our sentimentalism, rather than due respect for the fallen, remains our society's prevailing behaviour accorded the life and role of the military. When I was young, I recall many parades, tattoos, and other public events that weren't mini-repetitions of military funerals. They were meant to celebrate and honour the Navy, Army and Air Force and those who serve as well as permit those serving to 'show off' a little bit. Yes, one might become a little sentimental at the sight but the events themselves were not driven by shallow emotion or token patriotism. After all, the armed services had already 'earned' the respect of their country. There is no need for them to compete for a place in 'Military Idol'. At the root of all this gushing sentimentalism is a less than virtuous characteristic, namely, a collective vanity or narcissism that permeates almost all of popular culture in the 'West'. When Bill Clinton told that poor fellow with AIDS, 'I feel your pain', the emphasis for Clinton was on the 'I' far more than on the 'your' or even the 'pain'. There has been a substitution of sorts in our culture of 'feelings' over 'reason' where the response of 'me' takes precedence over the objective significance of an event or even the common good itself. It is a kind of 'displacement' where one notes a transferral of civic or religious responsibility from the self to the elevation of emotion that is often extracted from human events; especially, but not limited to death. From furry little animals to disease to the environment to the plight of the unfortunate, everything in and around us these days is inbued with inordinate emotional overdrive. In death, many people, including politicians, so impose their own feelings into the deaths of others that the victim, and the cause of death, become blurred or even forgotten to the extent of using that death to advance some tear-jerking interest or simply to satisfy their own emotional needs. Even funerals themselves have become, in some cases, so sentimentalised that the thought for the departed becomes lost in a sea of feelings that are all gushed out in a series of 'eulogies' and more often than not have far more to do with the euligiser than the poor old soul whose body lies in the casket. The wisdom of the 'wake' at home, with all the stories, drinks, and emotional outbursts has for many substituted the purpose of the funeral, i.e.,to surrender the soul to God and seek the consolation of faith. An advertised 'Celebration of a Life' is more commonly like the witness at an AA meeting: 'Hello, my name is Frank and I'm an alcoholic...this is my story'. By the time one gets to anything resembling a prayer, the assembly is exhausted from a collection of the feelings filling the room, many of them sweet and cloying with an emphasis on 'how much the departed meant to ME!' Like those who put up their Christmas decorations two months before the feast, our culture, having turned away from the inspiration, deep virtue, principles and traditions that are represented in the symbols of our religious, civic and military heritage, clings to the sentimental associations through which it sees itself. It's all cute and cuddly and sweet and, being cheap, it costs little or nothing; unlike the real thing. We desperately need to grow up. Emotionalism and inspiration are often confused; the former relying upon sentimentality whilst the latter finds it's source in virtue. Behaviour that depends upon manipulative emotional appeals or responses is invariably thin and unreliable. Children, being children and lacking sufficient development or experience of reason and moral virtue, resort to the emotional triggers that they hope will produce for them a positive result, i.e., get me what I want. Sadly, many of their parents, so vulnerable by their own lack of personal growth and intellectual maturity, respond to their kids in kind. 'I want my child to feel that I love her'. Good grief. How many children of this generation cannot distinguish between the 'love' of Barney the Dinosaur and the love of Mummy and Daddy? The notion that 'feelings' are paramount to the sense of self can be found in the 'self-esteem' movement that has embedded itself in 'education'. The women who used to wear that little patch on their blue jeans saying, 'If it feels good, do it', have spawned children and grandchildren who believe just that and by sheer emotional force have integrated their sentimentality into the public square and even the boardroom. Yet, how many of us would wish that an airplane be flown according to the pilot's emotional self-esteem or sentimental disposition? Or a surgeon who cuts your gut open by following his 'gut feeling'? There is a reason that commercial advertising appeals to our sentiment more than our reason. We want to feel good about what we buy in the same way that Mummy's cookies satisfy our need to be fed something sweet. Those guys in advertising know the culture. What then of 'duty', of 'principle', of pursuing goodness, excellence, beauty, or freedom or peace for their own sake? A culture in the perma-grip of 'group therapy' is not healthy. The vanity of sentimentalism inhibits human virtue and the fruits that follow. Like John Lennon's dreadfully insipid song, 'Imagine', we are too often 'led' by those who appeal merely to our own emotional fantasies and appetites instead of to our hearts and reason. There comes a point in every child's life when Mummy or Daddy simply has to advise them that Santa Claus, aka Father Christmas, is not literally real, but a spirit. It's devastating news, of course, and for some it does some real damage to their self-esteem. There are a lot of middle-aged people who, defying all reason, still feel like Santa will bring them what they want. The antidote to this syndrome of sentimentalism is to be found, not on the psychotherapist's couch, but in the places where each of us is inspired to live according to something greater than ourselves...or our feelings. In those places where the things that count are held up and encourage us to reach for; whether for God or our neighbour, near or far away, in the service of the great cause of our civilsation. The sight of a fallen soldier who gave his life for just such a cause ought to inspire rather than merely evoke our own feelings of inadequacy. Instead of gushing forth about what that soldier's sacrifice has done to our feelings, we ought to reflect on it's significance beyond the narrowness of our own sentimentality. Laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep... but life (and death) are more than laughing and weeping. |