As an old friend was fond of pointing out, “The brain is a pattern-making mechanism.” This is equally true when the connections your brain makes are true (discernment), and when they are imaginary (paranoia). I realize that 80% of political/social commentary blog posts are probably of the “Event A! Event B! Therefore Disaster C is occurring!”, but nevertheless here is a pattern I see emerging:
Event A: Woman is assaulted on UConn campus, mob cheers
Event B: Chicago White Sox create tableau in their locker room with two blow-up dolls inviting violation by baseball bat; in response, manager Ozzie Guillen goes on a “profanity-filled rant” and “wouldn’t apologize for the presence of the dolls because he didn’t think his team did anything wrong inside its own clubhouse.”
FoxSports’ Kevin Hench commented more or less as you might expect from FoxSports (my paraphrase): “Boys will be boys! Blow-up dolls are part of pop culture now! What is your hypersensitive issue anyway?”
An online poll of FoxSports users suggested that 92% agree this is no big deal. I’m trying — not very successfully — not to let this boggle my mind too much.
Edited to add: Dennis Perrin, self-avowed “recovering dickhead,” weighs in on Event A:
… the general culture, at least to my aging eyes, has coarsened to such a degree that a lot of young men feel no compunction about denigrating, hitting, slapping, groping, or even raping a woman.
Leave a Reply