Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review June 1, 2004 / 12 Sivan, 5764

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


One man wore jacket and tie at high school graduation


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Last week, the producer of my radio show, Allen Estrin, attended his niece's graduation at a public high school in St. Louis. At a certain point in the proceedings, he noticed that he was the only man in the audience wearing a jacket and tie; and only three other men wore a tie without a jacket.


This story exemplifies yet another aspect of the age in which we live, the Age of Stupidity. Only in an age that rejects wisdom could most people believe that clothing is unimportant. Callers to my radio show have often told me, for example, that it is entirely unimportant what people wear even to church — after all, G-d sees people's hearts, not their clothing, right?


Clothing has come to have no other purpose than providing comfort to the wearer. Fewer and fewer people appreciate how much what we wear affects both us and the people around us.


That is why the dummies who award and receive doctorates in education almost universally reject school uniforms. They don't (or don't want to) realize how much the clothing that students and teachers wear affects the way students and teachers act and regard school. Until very recently (specifically since the Stupid Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s), every elevated civilization has placed great emphasis on what people wear. Judeo-Christian civilization, for example, teaches that God Himself made the first clothes.


What we wear communicates what we think of ourselves, but even more so, what we think of the world around us.


When guests dress up for a wedding, they do so in order to honor the bride and groom and to proclaim how much they honor the marriage ceremony.


When students and teachers dress up for school every day, they are honoring education. It demonstrates the foolishness of the people who run American education that they, of all people, so often lead the attack on school uniforms. Incredibly, they don't understand how much respect education loses when students wear to school what they wear to the mall.

Donate to JWR


When parents and others attending a high school graduation show up in shorts, T-shirts, Hawaiian flower shirts and jeans, they are saying to the students that this night is no more significant than any other time they wear the same clothing. Just ask students how they would react if all the male guests wore jackets and ties and all the women dressed equally formally.


How has this devaluation of clothing come about?


As usual when explaining the origins of the Age of Stupidity, one answer is secularism. At my older son's graduation from a religious Jewish high school a few years ago, every single man in the audience wore a jacket and tie and the women were similarly formally dressed. Secularism not only induces stupidity ("Wisdom begins with awe of G-d," the Psalmist correctly noted), it also de-sanctifies almost everything. In the radically secular age in which we live, nothing is holy. Not even schools.


Liberal secular society has two primary concerns before wisdom — health and equality.


Health: It was a non-issue to most everyone at the graduation that people came in shorts and T-shirts. But imagine the reaction if one person had lit up a cigarette. Panic and screams of hatred would have been unleashed. The poor soul would have been rushed out of the building as if he were a terrorist — which is precisely how the smoker would have been viewed thanks to the mind-numbing propaganda of how fatal a whiff of secondhand smoke is. In every preceding generation, however, when wisdom was valued, a man or woman who wore shorts to a graduation would have been regarded as out of place as a smoker would today.


Equality: A word that is often used to describe formal clothing is "classy," a word which itself derives from "class." Because of its derivation, however, the word is rarely used today — it conflicts with one of our era's dominant values, egalitarianism. Therefore more and more people dress and act . . . classless, such as when they all wear T-shirts. That is also why so many teachers don't dress up to teach — the egalitarians who run American education don't want students to regard teachers as being of a higher class than students.


My producer, however, is a classy guy. And for that reason, he was quite out of place at his niece's high school graduation.


But at least his niece was appropriately honored.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He the author of, most recently, "Happiness is a Serious Problem". Click here to comment on this column.

Up


05/25/04: The greatest sin
05/18/04: The news media and Nick Berg 05/11/04: Shame on the news media, too
05/04/04: Same-sex marriage: Good for gays, bad for children
04/27/04: Pat Tillman, one of the 36
04/20/04: People are beautiful, the world stinks
04/14/04: Bob Kerrey clarifies the liberal view of blacks and women
04/05/04: Why no Christian suicide bombers? — and other thoughts on Islamic terror
03/30/04: What does 'Judeo-Christian' mean?
03/09/04: Who supports same-sex marriage?
03/02/04: Frisco and the Islamists: Fighting the same enemy
02/24/04: Why young women are exposing themselves, Part Two
02/17/04: Why young women are exposing themselves: Part One
02/10/04: Probing the Massachusetts justices' minds
02/03/04: My minute with President Bush
01/27/04: On public cursing and other public sins
01/24/04: $#^% Republicans
01/13/04: A column about my last column
01/06/04: JIMMY CARTER: ‘COMPASSION FOR MORDOR’
09/09/03: The Dems' counter-revolution
08/12/03: What makes a liberal?
08/05/03: A grand victory at the Grand Canyon
07/29/03: Vanessa Bryant deserves admiration, not contempt
07/22/03: Tony, you're killing us: Inside a Leftist brain
07/15/03: Would you rather your teenager smoke or cheat?
07/01/03: Liberal damage to black America is enormous
06/24/03: Unlike any other arrogance
06/18/03: More innocents die when we don't have capital punishment
06/10/03: Only a Palestinian civil war will bring peace
06/03/03: The legal system is now our enemy
05/28/03: Monkeys and atheists
05/20/03: Women pretending to be men
05/13/03: My week at Stanford
05/06/03: Burn families, barbecue chickens: why some can't tell the difference
04/25/03: Much talent, little wisdom
04/15/03: America the good
04/08/03: Dear Germany: Have you learned anything?
04/01/03: Saddam offered professorship at U.S. college
03/25/03: Grieve for Rachel Corrie's parents, but spare us the hagiography
03/18/03: Blame the Jews?
03/11/03: The Lone Ranger rides again
03/04/03: Dan and Saddam
02/26/03: Which will the world's future be: Muslim, European or American?
02/18/03: When have millions of Europeans ever been wrong?
02/11/03: Don't waste your money on an expensive college
02/04/03: What the world would like the president to say
01/28/03: How memories paralyze: Why Jews and blacks vote Democrat, cont'd
01/21/03: Why Jews and blacks vote Democrat
01/14/03: Why the Arab world hates America --- time to myth-bust
01/07/03: Conservatives have talk radio; liberals have everything else
12/31/02: If you believe that people are basically good . . .
12/17/02: Lott, Clinton, and the problem of the career politician
12/10/02: The healthiest and longest living generation of humans since the 900-year-olds of Genesis are being scared silly
12/04/02: Morally neutral reporting is dishonest reporting
11/26/02: Understand Nigeria and you understand the Islamic threat
11/19/02: James Bond meets his most fanatical foe yet -- anti-smokers
11/12/02: Conservatives need to be more compassionate on divorce
11/05/02: Of course, the great majority of Muslims are peaceful -- so what?
10/29/02: Nice guys finish first: Thoughts on the World Series
10/24/02: A Jew defends evangelical Christians
10/16/02: Bigot laureate well represents New Jersey
10/11/02: Why the Creator must always be higher than the Angels
10/02/02: Loudmouth "stars" are remaining surprisingly quiet about Israel
09/25/02: Bob Greene is a good man
09/11/02: 9-11 made America better
09/04/02: What I learned at the Minneapolis Metrodome about liberals and homosexuality
08/28/02: Teach our college co-eds about Islam --- but teach them the truth
08/22/02: LET THEM EAT PEANUTS!
08/14/02: How the nuclear family became "controversial"
08/07/02: Every generation is tested by great evil
07/31/02: Those who curse the Jews and those who bless them . . .
07/24/02: Children should talk to strangers
07/17/02: Why my son's best friend is black
07/11/02: Why Hesham Hadayet may be scarier than al Qaeda
07/03/02: "Pro-Israel lobby" is not why America supports Israel
06/26/02: Why does the Left support the "Palestinians"?
06/19/02: The commencement address I would give
06/12/02: Why do adult children live with their parents? Because they actually like them
06/05/02: The stripper and the Christian school: Thoughts on what a Christian school should do when a parent is a stripper and on who the biggest sinner here is
05/31/02: Don't worry, New York, you are safe from a terrorist threat
05/15/02: A proud member of the world's two most hated peoples
05/10/02: What Israelis are saying
05/06/02: Thank Heaven for moral violence
04/29/02: Give back the Nobel Peace Prize: A letter to Elie Wiesel
04/22/02: Why so many students cheat
04/12/02: Is it 1938 again for the Jews?
04/05/02: It's the values, stupid
01/31/02: Smoke and lose your son
10/30/01: Why Arab/Muslim anti-Semites are worse than the Nazis

© 2002, Creators Syndicate