Shame on us

With a little more shame we'd see less of Britney

Advances in technology have made our lives easier in many ways. We live longer - much longer - than earlier generations, and we live better. Medical advances have improved the quality of our lives as well as the length.

In addition, we have the advantage of numerous lifestyle changes made possible by technology. We not only have canned food and frozen food, we have organic food, fast food and junk food, to boot. We don't have to learn to play the fiddle badly to prove our love of culture the way Sherlock Holmes did; we can just load up our iPod with Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. More annoyingly, we can use the stentorian opening of Beethoven's Fifth for the ringtone on our cell phone.

But if we are so inclined, we can ignore Beethoven altogether. Technology is the great leveler. It means that the masses have direct access to culture of their own choosing, no matter how bad it is. That's why millions more phones have rap than Rachmaninoff for their ringtones. And it's why television is so dangerous - it gives people what they want, and what they want mostly is junk. Like eating at Burger King, you can "have it your way" 24/7 in the vast American electronic wasteland - all Anna Nicole Smith all the time, or all murder and mayhem all the time (Serial Killer Planet, anyone?).

Then there is the Internet - the World Wide Web with which we weave the ever-increasing illusion of our own omnipotence. Knowledge, after all, is power. Isn't that what they say? Or what they used to say in the old days when people used to say things which meant something - when culture carried with it a healthy shield of self-reflection and self-doubt. When is the last time that the institution of television engaged in any self-doubt? But of course there is no reason why it should, because its whole purpose is to provide whatever the public wants rather than to instruct or edify the public about what it should want - not to reflect thoughtfully but to reflect mindlessly like the mirroring pool of Narcissus.

And that sums up the difference between culture in the age of the mass media and personal technology versus culture in the age of reason and personal restraint. It's not so much that there was censorship in the old days. It's that censorship wasn't needed. When weird Wilbur from down the corner decided to draw dirty pictures on the sidewalk, he was ostracized and shamed. He didn't necessarily go to jail, but someone came down and washed away the stain he had made. He certainly didn't get to go on all the cable TV talk shows to explain why he is an artist and how the First Amendment guarantees him the right to express himself publicly no matter how disgusting or perverted his neighbors find him to be. Maybe Wilbur went home and drew dirty pictures in his notebook, but he hesitated to ever show the pictures to anyone else again.

Nowadays, there is no such thing as shame. It literally doesn't exist in our society as a social tool to maintain order. If it did, we would not read every couple of weeks about another over-sexed teacher deciding to become amorous with a 16-year-old student. If it did, we would not read about Britney Spears immodestly flashing a photographer with her not-so-private parts, and then becoming even more famous than she was before. If it did - if shame existed - we would not have major corporations promoting pornography in their hotel chains, their cable TV operations, their book stores, their Web sites, and their film studios.

And the reason shame doesn't exist anymore in any meaningful way is because technology has made it irrelevant. Oddball Wilbur doesn't have to get permission from his neighbors or his mayor or his church anymore to be as obscene as he wants to be; he just logs onto the Internet, accesses the least common denominator of our lowest urges, and vomits out any damn thing he wants. Who can stop him?

In a way, an unexpected way, technology has unleashed the potential demon which Alexis de Tocqueville warned about after his visit to our shores in 1831. In his book "Democracy in America," he warned that the "unlimited power of the majority" was the biggest threat to our republic. He was already concerned at that time with the ability of the majority to impose its will on legislators by electing them with "certain positive obligations which [they are] pledged to fulfill." Can anyone say special interests? How about political action committee? Or the will of my constituents?

De Tocqueville warns that such overbearing influence by the majority has the power to "do away with the guarantees of representative government," and that "with the exception of the tumult, this comes to the same thing as if the majority itself held its deliberations in the market-place."

But even the forward-thinking de Tocqueville could not have anticipated the throng and passion of the Internet, nor the absolute abject surrender of politicians to the opinion poll which we have witnessed today. And what the opinion poll is to politicians, self-obsessed self-gratification is to the rest of us. Thus, we have the phenomenon of "schoolmarms gone wild." Thus we have the endless cavalcade of doctors, lawyers, teachers and clergy who get their unexpected 15 minutes of fame on NBC's "Pervert of the Week," and host Chris Hansen's shock that people keep showing up to get arrested week after week for pedophilia. It's the sting that keeps on stinging, and clearly publicity is not the correct method of putting an end to perversion. Publicity without shame is just a social lubricant for continued offense.

But shame is exactly what technology has done away with. Shame can't work at the national level; it has to work at the local level. You can only be ashamed in front of people who know you and who care about you, and who might have some control of your future and destiny. These days, however, our irresponsible behavior catapults us right past our parents, preachers and neighbors and lands us on the Oprah show or the Larry King show. Such miscreants may be reviled by many in the audience, but it's all money in the bank to the offender, and to the TV network as well. There is no sin that cannot be dabbed with perfume and rouge and turned from a strumpet into a madame. Face it, sin is sexy, and sexy sells.

And meanwhile, we all turn to each other in shock and ask ourselves what is wrong with our country, what is wrong with our people, what is wrong with our democracy.

De Tocqueville had the answer to that question, and it will displease many of the majoritarians who enjoy their ability to codify in law any whim or behavior, however egregious, as a right to be taken for granted. That is, indeed, their ability and power under our form of government, but if that power is used without reference to moral law, then the tyranny of the majority becomes an instrument of social destruction rather than a social good.

De Tocqueville, who feared putting absolute power in the hands of the many, noted that the saving grace of American democracy was the religious character of its people, which applied a governor to what the Frenchman called "the numberless temptations which chance offers."

"There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature that that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth."

Indeed, de Tocqueville goes even further and contends that "Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot," and explains exactly why religion is necessary in a republic.

"How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?"

Unfortunately, this describes perfectly our modern-day republic.

Thus, although a majority of Americans still profess to be religious on Sunday, they enjoy the benefits of a religion that has no power to shame and no power to shape the public discourse. Thus, the tyranny of the majority today has no higher power looking over its shoulder, no strong hand of tradition to pull it back from the brink.

In other words, it would no longer be possible to agree with de Tocqueville that "while the law permits the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what is rash or unjust."

Instead, the law permits us to do whatever we please, and if it doesn't, we change the law. Our selfishness will not be denied, nor can it be shamed. Indeed, if religion should raise its voice to defend traditional values, then it is religion which is shamed and ridiculed, not the other way around.

More freedom; less shame. A dangerous combination which turns democracy into its own worst enemy.