Naughty or Nice?

As the Christmas season approaches, we caution children about the need to be nice.  We tell them that if they are naughty, Santa Claus will not visit them—or if he does, will leave lumps of coal in their stockings.

But what about us adults?  Have we been behaving ourselves?  I submit that naughtiness is as rampant as it has ever been in my personal experience.  Never before has there been this much lying.  Never before have so many people sought to inflict injury on others.

The media and politicians once attempted to be role models.  They at least pretended to be high-minded individuals who desired the best for our nation.  Similarly, once ordinary Americans were civil.  They didn’t call each other names or refuse to talk to those with whom they disagreed.

At the moment, we are also in a full-blown moral panic.  Accusations of sexual impropriety swirl about us like snow in a blizzard.  The environment has grown so chaotic that we are unable to distinguish between a pat on the fanny and bona fide rape.

What has happened?  What poisoned the national atmosphere and converted us into a society of mean spirited finger-pointers?  Has so much gone wrong that we feel a need to punish anyone who might be remotely responsible?

In fact, corrupt behavior has become thoroughly brazen because it has long gone unpunished.  Starting at least with Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes, there have been few negative consequences for outrageous transgressions.  Mouths were not washed out with soap.  Careers were not put in jeopardy.

Instead a hyper-partisanship has gripped the country.  People on both sides of the political aisle are so consumed with winning that they are blasé about how they do it.  As former senate majority leader Harry Reid put it when caught lying about Mitt Romney’s taxes; “Well, it worked, didn’t it.”

This tactic may not seem to make sense, but follows from our current ideological crisis.  Liberalism has not worked.  Piling government programs on top on one another did not produce the promised nirvana.  It only generated bureaucratic gridlock.

But neither did an unregulated economy bring forth universal happiness.  While it generated unprecedented wealth, not everyone shared in the bounty.  As importantly, prosperity, by itself, did not ensure strong families or provide personal satisfaction.

Meanwhile, religion too proved unable to plug the gaps.  For some of the devout, it remains an end all and be all.  Yet they are in the minority.  Although most Americans continue to believe in God, they doubt that regular church attendance will fill their bellies or ward off disease.

So instead we flounder.  We are all sure we are going to heaven, but are convinced those other folks—the ones with whom we disagree—will not.  They are so cruel and vengeful; they merit a horrible fate.  Why?  The answer is self-evident.  Because they disagree with us!

The result is that naughtiness abounds.  Of course, we do not blame ourselves; we are too busy blaming others.  Unwilling to admit our confusions or the inability of our political agendas to deliver the goods, we divert attention by concentrating on the shortcomings of our adversaries.

Naturally, our adversaries do the same.  They return our accusations with matching fervor.  Consequently, few of us look to our own faults.  Even fewer try to figure out why we reached this impasse.

Not that long ago, it was assumed the American Dream would solve all of our problems.  After we became fabulously rich, there would be nothing to fight over.  As a result, we would live in bubbles of eternal joy, freed from the worries of our ancestors.

But then we got our cell phones, television sets, and personal automobiles.  This was more than our forebears ever imagined, but not enough to assuage the emptiness in our souls.  For that reason, someone had to be held accountble.  It must be those other guys.

Paradoxically, this buck-passing made us naughtier.  And so we began to praise being nonjudgmental.  No one was going to accuse us of being wicked.  Our lies were not really lies.  They were a defense of civilization.  Similarly, our selfishness was not really selfish.  It was our just desert for protecting all that is good and noble.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University