In defense of nose-punching

In the same spirit as my earlier posts "In Defense of Stalkers" and "The Lost Art of the Celebrity Crush," in which I argued that our society has become too repressed on the topics of love and attraction, I now bring you "In Defense of Nose-punching." As with the previous post, my intention is not to argue that all conflict is good, but that we as a society have gone too far in covering up the expression of these feelings in their natural and healthy way.

22 years ago, George Bush Sr. promised to make this a "kinder, gentler nation." At the time, this seemed like just empty political rhetoric, but looked back upon now, his words do mark some kind of a watershed in our society. Although I believe his speech was just a signpost of changes already starting to occur and not the instigator of the change, real changes did start to happen in American society with the dawn of the 90's. This is the time when multiculturalism and political correctness became terms that everybody, not just the intellectual elite, was debating. And while the ideas of the extremists never passed into common use, that doesn't mean that these movements haven't had real effect on our society. Ask almost any college-age person today, and they will agree that all people deserve respect, whatever their beliefs, ethnicity or orientation. Look at how the debate over homosexuality has shifted. Twenty years ago we were arguing over whether they had the right to exist, and now we are arguing over whether or not they have the right to get married. These are all good changes.

I think it's good that people are more tolerant of each other when this reflects their true feelings, but the flip side of this is that I also see people papering over their differences and allowing them to fester instead of confronting them. When political correctness came to the fore, how you said something became more important than what you said, and I think this had a chilling effect and made lots of people just stop talking about important things, at least in public with strangers. Instead of potentially offending someone and risking conflict, it became safer just to hole up with a group of people that you already know agree with you. The problem with this is that both sides become more extreme in their views, more convinced that they must be right, and less able to deal with the other side when they eventually do meet.

I have been watching a lot of television from the 80's recently and reflecting how different this world is from the one that I grew up in. It amazes me how much more violent television was, at least in a personal way. People were always punching each other in the nose and having fistfights! Nowadays, television is much more likely to show impersonal violence, with groups of people hiding behind pillars and shooting at each other without even being able to see each other. I think this is a good metaphor for the changes in our society. Instead of coming out into the open and dealing with each other as individuals, we stay in hiding with our groups and take cheap potshots at each other that are unlikely to do any real damage, but also unlikely to solve anything.

I have only scratched the surface of this topic and probably will come back to revisit it over the next few weeks. I want to think about what it really means to be brave and what it really means to be kind and gentle.