The Title of the Blog - Part 7

And again I turn to the letter column of another paper for inspiration and take some cheap shots at the conservative folks. Rut, hello...

Thank you, Mr. S.D. Wray. Every week or two, I search my little corner of the world for some bit of wisdom. This I attempt to weave into some creative conglomeration of comments for The Bachelor to give you. This week, I turn to a fellow Wabash man for my inspiration. Mr. Wray, I owe you a debt of gratitude, for your words have sparked a bit of inspiration and possibly of revelation within me.

More than fifty years after Mr. Wray graduated from Wabash, he still finds enough time to keep abreast of conditions at his former school, to think about these happenings, and to comment thoughtfully and with purpose on what he finds. Mr. Wray, I congratulate you, and I hope that you would grant me permission to quote you like this:

There is a gradual awakening across our land of many parents and alumni who have been unaware of the degradation in all levels of education. The demand for greater accountability is increasing. It is time for [Melissa] Butler and [President Andrew] Ford and a host of others at Wabash so see that traditional values will prevail. ~ S.D. Wray, Wabash Class of ‘42, Greentown

Most of Mr. Wray’s letter discusses primarily the showing of 120 Days of Sodom, Morgan Knull, the Wabash Commentary, and a few other situations here at good old Wabash. But these are not the topics that I hope you will consider this week. Try instead to focus in on the last sentence of his letter, specifically on the phrase ‘traditional values.’ In the past decade or less, these words have been brandished about like some sort of holy sword, like the Excalibur of the politician. Some choose to wield it as they would a mace, clubbing people over the head while debasing the true spirit of traditional values. They have used these words as though they were some savage totem, to be touched only when absolutely necessary, and even then to be insulted or put down. I, for one, am outraged.

Perhaps a more thorough consideration of traditional values than these people have put in is needed. Traditional values are what made Ronald Reagan a great man. As his birthday (Feb. 6) approaches us, let us never forget that Old Ronnie was the man who lead us out of the dark times of Jimmy Carter and the last vestiges of hippies. Instead, we got a man who was not afraid to admit that he didn’t know much and a generation founded on more traditional principles like greed and selfishness. But, traditional values didn’t go much further back than our finest President.

Every high school history book relates – and distorts – one of our centuries darkest times for traditional values: the 1960’. This was the decade when blacks began to get even more uppity, demanding that they be given equal citizenship, when they had already been given separate but equal status, just as they had always been, just as ‘traditional values’ had demanded. Not only that, but they often refused to fight for their rights as people traditionally had. Nope, they wanted to get their way by passive resistance. Weenies…

Not only were the blacks a problem to traditional values in the sixties, but the teenagers were too. They wanted to change the world, wanted to make it so everybody could be happy and could love each other. They just didn’t realize that traditional values don’t have everybody happy. The teenagers started doing drugs and listening to ‘musicians’ like Bob Dylan, people who preached peace, love, and DOPE! Luckily, the sixties were also the decade of Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver, two examples of the finest traditional values has ever had to offer.

But the 1960’s weren’t the only decade to challenge traditional values. Nope, the 1860’s put up quite a fight as well. That was the decade when the population of the United States, a nation founded on the base of traditional values, split itself into two parts. Not the North and the South, because fighting is a traditional value, but into the blacks and the whites. It was that decade when the black people of America had their finest and worst hours. First, they actually had the honor to fight for something to believe in. But, sadly, they choose to fight against what had been tradition – something we should uphold at all costs – for centuries: slavery.

Moving back through our nation’s history, we find other groups fighting against tradition, a foolhardy thing to do even though a very small minority does occasionally succeed. Women demanded that they be given the right to vote when they traditionally had not. Children cried out when someone said that the tradition of child labor was wrong, that perhaps youth would be better served in schools than in mineshafts. Why, even the Indians fought us when we simply did what tradition demanded and conquered a proud but technologically backward people. Europeans have for centuries been doing those sorts of things, and I for one am thankful that traditional values do win out as they did over the redman.

But, traditional values come from a wellspring far older than even our occupation of North America. Traditions had been laid down for centuries in Europe as serfs plowed and tilled the fields for their masters, their owners, their noblemen. People were unable to read until that damn Güttenburg came along. Christians were fed to the lions. Women were taken first by the king and then by their husbands. Jews were persecuted. Opium was smoked. Women were property. Witches were burned at the stake. A man’s first sexual experience came when he was a boy and it was with another man, between the thighs. No homosexuality involved just solid Platonic relationships. If you wanted a woman, you bonked her over the head and dragged her back to your cave. Damn it, life was good.

But, in truth, life was better even before then. We had a little to worry about. We swung ‘round in the trees, picking food and eating it whenever we needed to. Sure our knuckles scraped the ground, but life was simpler then. Actually, if you ask me, we never should have left the oceans…but perhaps we should ask Mr. Wray…