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About ArmaVirumque ( AHR-mah wih-ROOM-kweh) In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age. Recent posts
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Apr 13, 2007 08:46 AM
La Rochefoucauld famously said that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. There is something to that, not least because a little hypocrisy, judiciously applied, can do wonders to lubricate the machinery of our social--which of course is also the stage of our moral--life. I wrote a brief "defense of hypocrisy" a few years back for The Wall Street Journal in which I noted that hypocrisy, among all the vices, is regarded with particular disdain and horror by egalitarians. A hypocrite publicly upholds noble values and standards of behavior even though he knows he may sometimes fall short of the conduct they require. He does this because he recognizes that those values are worthy of support and commendation even if he cannot always embody them.Even a good thing can be over done, however, and the cataract of fetid, self-righteous hypocrisy that has engulfed talk radio host Don Imus has been particularly nauseating. Imus, as all the world knows, was raked over the coals and then fired from his show at CBS because he referred to the mostly black Rutgers women’s basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Now, your mother probably would not approve of your calling anyone a "nappy-headed ho," and your mother would of course be right. Gentlemen and ladies do not use such language. But radio talk show hosts do, all the time. Nevertheless Leslie Moonves of CBS is on record as saying "I believe all of us have been deeply upset and revulsed by the statements that were made on our air about the young women who represented Rutgers University . . . with such class, energy and talent."I don’t believe for one minute that Moonves was "deeply upset" by Imus’s comments (though he should be at least a little upset by using pseudo-words like "revulsed") any more than I believe that the Rutger’s team captain when she told Oprah Winfrey that Imus’s comment "stole our moment of joy." That’s mere politically correct pretense--hypocrisy in one of its less attractive allotropes. Now I have to admit that I cannot claim deep acquaintance with Imus’s show. But on information and belief I am willing to assert that he said things at least that rude on the average of 87 times per day. "For years," a Reuters news story reports, Imus has insulted blacks, Jews, Arabs, gays, Catholics and women. In December 2004, he referred to publishers of the book "The Christmas Thief" as "thieving Jews." He later said the phrase "thieving Jews" was redundant.In other words, irreverence is Imus stock in trade. So why pick on him now? Because his comment this time was racially tinged? If so, what was really offensive? I suspect it was less "hos"--rap- or gutter-speak for "whore"--than "nappy-headed." But if so, what does that tell us? After all, every self-respecting rap "artist" uses far more objectionable language on every mind-numbing cacophonous track he records. The invaluable Michelle Malkin went through the top six rap "songs" reprinting their lyrics and posting links to their accompanying videoes on her web site here: it’s enough, if I may so put it, to curl your hair. But where, Malkin asks, is the outrage over this agglomeration of sub-literate misogynistic garbage? Al Sharpton, I am sure, is ready to call a press conference with the National Organization for Women to jointly protest this garbage and protest the radio stations and big pimpin’ music companies behind it. Well, no. But Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are ready to call a hundred press conferences and accuse everybody in sight of racism whenever they think they can get away with it. And apparently they can always get away with it. Remember the Tawana Brawley case? A fifteen-year-old black girl claimed to have been raped by six white men. It turned out to have been a total fabrication--shades of the Duke lacrosse scandal--but Sharpton, who championed Brawley, somehow emerged from the circus as a serious politician, or at least a politician whom other politicians take seriously. Sharpton and Jackson are masters of the racial shakedown, and corporations big and small live in fear that they will find themselves on the wrong side of their traveling minstrel show of recrimination and politically correct blackmail. I don’t have much time for vulgarians like Don Imus. But I am ready to give him if not three then at least two cheers. His brand of irreverence is not everyone’s cup of tea. But the idea that he should be pilloried and hounded out of his job because Sharpton and Jackson managed to whip up a frenzied, racially-inspired campaign against him is nothing less than disgusting.
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