On Societal Coarseness

First off, I must apologize to those one or two people that are actually reading my blog. Take my trip to Dallas, work, family coming into to town and Thanksgiving; throw them all into a week and voila, you have no posts for almost two weeks. Again, my apologies to the two people who were disappointed. Now, on to what you came for.

A rather disappointing trend I have noticed as of late is the general coarseness, crudeness and vulgarity of our modern society. Part of what inspired this post is I was having a discussion with a friend the other day and we were talking about how so much of the internet is crass and vulgar. It seems to be "successful", you have to be "shocking". Another part of what inspired this post is I was standing in the store the other day with my three young children and my wife. It was a small store; there was our family, two employees, a group of four twenty-somethings and a couple of other people. There, in the middle of the store, one of the twenty-somethings dropped an F-bomb, right out loud. No one even noticed. Me, I did a double-take. Come now. It’s bad enough to use that language in front of ladies, but my children? Really. Unfortunately, this seems to have become a pervasive problem in our society. Primetime television has no problem with “the B word”, SOB and innumerable other “lesser” swear words and profanities. Why has this become acceptable?

And it’s not just language. Sex sells. Nudity sells. Have you seen underwear commercials lately? There was a time such things were spoken of in hushed tones. Advertisements were discreet. Now, put the fliers in the Sunday paper. Splash them across the screen in primetime. Show the women prancing around the house in their underwear (Side note here. Who prances all over the house doing all kinds of stuff in nothing but your underwear?). Shoot, take products that aren’t even related to underwear and throw panties in there. Perhaps I’m just noticing things in the last few years as my kids get older, but it seems these things have changed. It seems I can’t even watch a ball game without scantily clad women acting suggestively in commercials (we’ll leave the cheerleaders and the excessive cleavage shots out for now). Now, I’m not a prude and I won’t deny that I “appreciate the female form” but I don’t need to be exposed to this on a constant basis and my kids surely don’t. But far from protecting our kids from these things, we embrace them. We wrap these things into our kid’s lives. May I point you to the Bratz?


Besides the materialism and shallowness that things like these obviously promote, hello, are you raising your daughter to be a hooker? Oh wait, perhaps it's a "Porn Star in Training". You've got to be kidding me. I can't imagine a parent anywhere who would be proud or even OK if there 30 year old daughter became a "Porn Star". People actually encourage that at a young age? And what of the skimpy girl's panties that have "yummy" printed on them (This I have seen with my own eyes in a national retailer). What? I don't want anything printed on my nine year olds underwear, much less a reference I'm not sure I completely understand and I certainly don't want her to understand. The sexualization of our children and of all of our society is indeed disturbing.

And there are other things too. For instance, what's up with all the tattoos and piercings? It seems you don't see a girl under the age of 30 these days without a tattoo somewhere. A quick side note here. The small of the back seems to be the location of choice. Setting aside the fact that that should be covered by a decent outfit, doesn't that seem incredibly painful? I cringe as I think about it. Perhaps I'm just a wimp; back on topic. Seems like most guys have at least one ear pierced, if not a tongue or, heaven forbid, some other area. There was a time that things like this were reserved for societal outcasts and oddballs. Today, they're mainstream. Now I'm not saying this is a horrible thing and will lead to the downfall of Western Civilization. But what ever happened to a sense of decorum? What happened to some semblance of class? Shoot, it's hard to find jeans that aren't "destroyed" anymore. Now I'm not saying we should all walk around in a suit and a tie, I mean, khakis and a button-up is about as dressed up as I like to get, but honestly, would it be that bad if people looked halfway decent before they walked out of the house? You know, put on jeans that don't have holes in them, shirts that aren't faded and without piercings sticking out of your body at all sorts of odd locations and angles. Perhaps I'm just a curmudgeon, but it really does seem to be getting out of hand.

What gets me is I'm not sure what's causing it all. I do have a theory though. Nothing's right or wrong. It's all about "expressing yourself" and "following your heart". People have no meaning in their life, so they look for meaning in fashion, sex, being "different" (even though they end up being just like everyone else). People have got to realize that your meaning and worth are not established on these physical trappings, but on something bigger, something outside yourself. The only place I see you can find meaning is in God.