Harry and David: Whittington’s got it, Gregory doesn’t
Writing by treason on Sunday, 19 of February , 2006 at 7:59 am
Bill Buckley’s got it. Dick Cheney’s got it. George H.W. Bush? Got it. As I’ve said, Harry Whittington’s got it. Peggy Noonan’s got it. Brit Hume? He’s got it. What is it? I’m not so sure anymore. I used to call it class, but I really don’t know what that means these days. Back in July I’d written something called “1992-2005: The End of Class.” Maybe it’s something that’s on its way to extinction, like the passenger pigeon.
My little bugaboo with American culture. We all think we know what it is, but I’m not so sure we do. Too many people think class has something to do with money. That’s preposterous. There are a lot of classless rich people out there. And there are poor, uneducated ones who ooze class.
Look up the word and you get “elegance of style, taste, and manner; in dress and in behavior.” Hmmm, close. Manner and behavior are part of this. A way of acting. Bearing. How one conducts himself.
Harry Whittington appeared before the press the other day and exhibited it. What we saw was a true Southern gentleman. Texas is a big state and it’s a blend of many elements. It combines the genteel South with the wildness and ruggedness of the West, yet it’s not all Southwest. Harry demonstrates an old time Texan charm, refinement, fortitude, and decency.
Decency. Respectabilty. Uprightness. Integrity. Propriety. Dignity. Discretion. Modesty. Are these elements of class? Again, I think I have some idea what I mean when I say the word, but I’m not sure how others define it. In the middle of the night I’ll wake up and surf the channels, and inevitably I’ll land on something repellent. I discovered a tawdry little program on MTV called Parental Control. The premise is simple. Parents who dislike the individual who is dating their progeny interview several candidates and choose two for the progeny to date in hopes of said progeny ditching the current squeeze for a new one. The current squeeze is forced to watch the dates with the parents.
The word “class” comes up a lot on this show. One female squeeze watched her beau with a candidate who stripped; rubbed herself on a pole, his lap, and his face; then licked food off his hands and sucked his fingers. Her reaction: “That f*ckin’ skanky ‘ho’ s got no class!”
I haven’t dated in a few years, but it appears that the average date is identical to Nine And A Half Weeks. (Liked the book, hated the movie.) The mother, who chose this particular candidate, defended her: “She’s got energy!” The father, who’d had the intention of choosing a “hottie” for his son, wondered why he hadn’t picked her. After all, he’d asked each candidate to read, in her “sexiest” voice, a sleazy passage from a book. Only a couple girls seemed uncomfortable. One might have blushed.
Tell me — do girls blush anymore? When I was young, I was teased relentlessly about how quickly and how frequently I would blush. I still blush. I probably even blushed when I was watching all parties on this show - parents included - exhibit utter classlessness both in behavior and speech. Yet everyone was criticizing everyone else for not “having class.” Each person was convinced he or she had it and no one else did. The sole bearers of urbanity.
I made T watch an episode and, when a couple decided to have the inside of their lips tattooed on their date, even he recoiled. I also watched Bush at a town hall meeting the other day and was fascinated by his response to a question about how he sees the future. Bush said that he’s an optimist. He’s watched the culture change but firmly believes it will change again. He thinks people will choose to be responsible and decent. They’ll understand what virtue means.
Virtue. Decency. Consideration. I can’t help think about the days after September 11 when I’d sit at a four way stop and watch four drivers all gesture to the others to go first. You. No, you. No, you first. No, you go ahead. After you.
We let pedestrians cross the street and the guy in line behind us at the store holding one item go ahead of us. We smiled at each other. We greeted one another. We behaved like human beings. Well, at least we behaved the way human beings are capable of behaving when they’re considerate of one another. Treating others the way we ourselves would like to be treated.
I heard a discussion on the radio this week about vile behavior at a local high school and thought back to when I was in school. I remembered the year in Arizona when I attended an elementary institution that practiced corporal punishment. Each classroom had a smaller room, like a large closet, attached to it and that was where teachers would lead a student who had violated some rule or acted inappropriately. There, the student would be punished. I remember how the other students would sit straighter in their chairs and focus all their attention on the tasks at hand. Everyone was on his best behavior after a student took that trip to the side room.
I hate to say it, but I know it’s on our minds. Do we have to be “punished” again to remind us to remember our manners? As we examine what we mean by “freedom,” we might also examine what we mean by the word “class.”
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