MAY 1999 Volume 28, Number 5
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MAY 1999 Volume 28, Number 5 IMPRIMISBecause Ideas Have Consequences 27th The End of year Admiration The Media and The Loss of Heroes 840,000 subscribers Peter H. Gibbon Research Associate, Harvard University Peter Gibbon notes that journalists have eter Gibbon is a research often encouraged cynicism and celebrity wor- Passociate at Harvard Univ- ersity’s Graduate School of Ed- ship at the expense of idealism and heroism, but ucation. The author of numer- he suggests that their influence can be more ous articles in harmful in the era of “instant communication.” such publications Dr. Gibbon’s remarks were delivered at “The as Newsweek, the Fourth Estate: A History of Journalism,” a sem- New York Times, inar hosted by Hillsdale College’s Center for the Los Angeles Constructive Alternatives and Herbert H. Dow II Times, and the Program in American Journalism. Washington Post, he is currently at travel around the country talking to work on a book about the disap- Americans about the loss of public heroes. I pearance of public point out that New York City’s Hall of Fame heroes in Amer- for Great Americans attracts only a few thou- Isand visitors each year, while Cleveland’s Rock and ican society. Dr. Gibbon holds Roll Hall of Fame draws over one million. degrees from Harvard, Case- I describe a 25-foot stained glass window in the Western Reserve University, and Cathedral of St. John the Divine–dedicated in the Columbia University Teachers 1920s to four athletes who exemplified good char- College. A longtime teacher and acter and sportsmanship–and I offer a quick list of administrator, he has done titles of contemporary books on sports: Shark extensive research on the educa- Attack, on the short and bitter career of college tional systems of Japan, China, and Germany, and for ten years coaches; Meat on the Hoof, about the mercenary he served as headmaster of the world of professional football; Personal Fouls, on Hackley School in Tarrytown, the mistreatment of college athletes; The Courts of New York. Babylon, on the venality of the women’s profes- sional tennis circuit; and Public Heroes, Private Felons, on college athletes who break the law. I contrast two westerns: High Noon, which won four Academy Awards in 1959, and Unforgiven, which was voted “Best Picture” in 1992. The hero of Also in this issue: High Noon, Will Kane, is a U.S. marshal. The hero Daniel Sundahl of Unforgiven, Will Munny, is a reformed killer and Editors Wanted: alcoholic reduced to pig farming. Inquire Within I mention that our best-selling postage stamps feature Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe and that A Monthly Publication of Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 IMPRIMIS Because Ideas Have Consequences our most popular TV show was, until it left the air we can turn to countless radio stations, videotapes, recently, Seinfeld. and web pages. I remind my audiences that Thomas Jefferson This explosion of information means is now thought of as the president with the slave we now have a vast menu of choices mistress and Mozart as the careless genius that allows us to be transported to who liked to talk dirty. many different worlds and pro- I add that a recent biography of vides us with educational opportu- Mother Teresa is titled The Missionary nities undreamed of thirty years Position. ago. It also means that we spend I offer some reasons for the more time in front of televis- disappearance of public heroes. ion and computer screens Athletes have given up on and less time reading to being team players and role our children. It is no models. Popular cul- wonder that our chil- ture is often irrev- dren have shorter erent, some- attention spans times deviant. and smaller Revisionist his- vocabularies. torians present an unforgiving, skewed picture of the past. Biographers are increasingly hostile toward their subjects. Social scientists stridently A Wired World assert that human beings are not autonomous but are conditioned by genes and environment. Hovering in the background are secularism, long with this vast menu of choices is the which suggests that human beings are self-suffi- absence of gatekeepers. As parents, we cient and do not need God, and modernism–a need to realize that there are dangers that complex artistic and literary movement that repu- come with too many choices and too few Aguides. We need to remind ourselves that their diates structure, form, and conventional values. Finally, in an age of instant communication, well-being depends not only on nutrition, sun- in which there is little time for reflection, accura- light, and exercise; on friendship, work, and love; cy, balance or integrity–the media creates the but also on how they see the world. Subtly and impression that sleaze is everywhere, that nothing powerfully, the media helps shape their world view. is sacred, that no one is noble, and that there are The media has a liberal bias, but its central no heroes. bias is toward bad news. Accidents, crimes, conflict, and scandal are interesting. Normality is boring. The prevalence of bad news and the power of the Nothing to Admire image encourage children–and us–to overesti- mate the chance of an accident, the risk of disease, adio, television, and computers offer the rate of violence, the frequency of marital infi- news with such speed that newspaper delity. The average policeman, for example, never and magazine circulation has plummet- fires a gun in action, and most Americans are ed, and readers have smaller vocabular- monogamous. Ries. I recently wrote an op-ed piece syndicated in In a wired world with no restraint, the media several newspapers. My title, “Nil Admirari,” can misinform us. It can also make us suspicious, which means “nothing to admire,” came from the fearful, and cynical. It can lead us to lose faith in Roman lyric poet Horace. None of the newspapers our nation, repudiate our past, question our lead- used the title, and one editor reminded me that ers, and cease to believe in progress. newspaper stories are now aimed at a sixth-grade We know the worst about everyone instantly. reading level. Over and over again, we see clips of George Bush In the Age of Information, the image reigns. vomiting, Dan Quayle misspelling “potato,” There are 81 television sets for every 100 Gerald Ford tripping. No longer do we want our Americans. In the typical household, the television child to grow up and become president. We harbor is on six hours a day. Television has become our dark suspicions about the personal conduct of chief source of local and national news, and scoutmasters, priests, and coaches. We think army broadcast journalists have become more promi- sergeants harass their subordinates. We have trou- nent and more powerful than columnists. There ble calling any public figure a hero. A wired world used to be three channels. Now, there are over one becomes a world without heroes, a world of nil hundred. When we weary of television channels, admirari, with no one to admire. 2 Americans tell pollsters the country is in moral treated like philosopher–kings, telling us how to and spiritual decline. In the midst of peace and live. In a recent interview, actress Sharon Stone, prosperity, with equality increasing and health star of Basic Instinct, advises parents to make con- improving, we are sour. With our military powerful doms available to their teenagers. and our culture ascen- Aggressive and anxious for dant, pessimism prevails. In the Age of Infor- ratings, television news shows feature hosts and guests who mation, the image come armed with hardened Crusaders reigns. There are 81 opinions. Many are quick to or judge and prone to offer easy television sets for solutions for complex Rogues? problems. “Talking heads” every 100 Amer- argue, yell, interrupt, and hould we blame rarely make concessions. journalists? It is icans. In the typical But in the world of nil certainly tempt- household, the tele- admirari, journalists are ing. Just as we now reviled more often than Sblame teachers for the revered. In the 1980s, muck- vision is on six hours poor performance of stu- raker Steven Brill skewered dents, so we can blame a day. lawyers. In his new maga- reporters for the nation’s zine, Brill’s Content, he malaise. But just as teachers are not responsible lambastes journalists. In Right in the Old Gazoo, for poverty and disintegrating families, journalists former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson accuses are not responsible for satellites, fiber optic cables, journalists of becoming “lazy, complacent, sloppy, transistors, and microprocessors–the inventions self-serving, self-aggrandizing, cynical and arro- that make possible instant information. Journalists gant beyond belief.” In Breaking the News, writer did not cause the sexual revolution. They did not James Fallows comments that while movies once invent celebrity worship or gossip. Nor did they cre- portrayed journalists as crusaders, they are now ate leaders who misbehave and let us down. portrayed as rogues “more loathsome than . At the same time, in the world of nil admirari, lawyers, politicians, and business moguls.” journalists are not innocent, and they know it. How much of this is new? Roger Rosenblatt, a veteran of the Washington Since the founding of America, reporters have Post, Time, Life, and the New York Times Magazine, been harsh critics of public figures. George says, “My trade of journalism is sodden these days Washington did not like reading in pamphlets that with practitioners who seem incapable of admiring the essence of his education had been “gambling, others or anything.” In his memoir, former presi- reveling, horse racing and horse whipping.” dential press secretary and ABC News senior editor Thomas Jefferson did not relish the label “effemi- Pierre Salinger writes, “No reporter can be famous nate.” Abraham Lincoln did not appreciate being unless they have brought someone down.” And portrayed by cartoonists as a baboon.