
 |
|
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 26, 2006
/ 5 Teves, 5767
Looking for the who of you
By
Suzanne Fields
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Donald Trump gave Miss U.S.A. a generous Christmas present. He told Tara she could keep her tiara.
"I've always been a believer in second chances," said the man who made his name firing luckless losers who flubbed a first and only chance. Tara's first chances apparently included underage drinking and public smooching with strangers in bars. Her second chance requires rehab and establishing herself as a "great example for troubled people [who] have problems with alcohol, that have problems for life."
That's a tall order for a girl who just turned 21. Second chances are starting at younger and younger ages. You don't have to be a beauty queen to be beset by temptations before you're an adult, or sponsored by a fatuous billionaire who expects you to be a "role model," to see such superficiality as only skin deep.
In our highly hyped media culture we focus on the fall of others because it makes us feel better about ourselves. We're not about to learn anything from that. There's a lot of free advice in the media and available on the Internet, but the 21st century is characterized more by admiring self than learning by example. What we take from the media and off the Web is more about self-enhancement than self-perception.
Time magazine was on to something by naming "You" as its "Person of the Year," complete with a mirror on the cover. "See thyself" has replaced "Know thyself" as the adage to live by. But Time's emphasis is all wrong. Spreading the news with raw, unedited data and making image projections on YouTube.com and MySpace.com create only a public persona. It may or may not have anything to do with the who of you.
We've moved from the Age of Narcissism to the Age of Self-Importance. When Narcissus saw his face reflected in a pool of water he leaned over to kiss the reflection, and drowned. When we look at the mirror on the cover of Time we celebrate the idea behind the reflected image. Time warns against romanticizing the "You" of "You," but it romanticizes by suggesting that the collective person of the year provides "an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person."
Say what? Many of the people Time features have the self-insight of a snail. They may have done something with a political impact, such as the deed of the young man who brought down Mark Foley, the Florida congressman, by posting on a Web site the geeky amorous e-mails received from the congressman 11 years earlier. Now the older but not much wiser man is bitter that he got fired for taking advantage of his company computer to blog about it. He's miffed that no good job offers came of his "15 minutes of fame." Imagine.
One college senior who boasts of acquiring 700 "friends" with her profile posted on Facebook.com can't imagine how anything got done in college before Facebook. "Older people had handwritten letters or called each other or whatever," she says. "I mean, really, we have a much more convenient way of doing things." (Especially since we got rid of "whatever.")
There's no Luddite here. I'm writing this on my Dell desktop computer with an Athlon dual core 2X processor (whatever that is) after checking out my favorite Web sites. The Internet has its special uses and we can't any longer expect letters written with a fine and careful hand. But appreciating technology for its virtues does not require being oblivious to its vices. "You," so celebrated by Time, elevates more than a few mediocre minds and untalented men and women. "You" often fails to separate the chaff on the chip from the substantive wheat of facts that demand the scrutiny of a discriminating editor.
The popular media sets trends, but it's not a thoughtful tastemaker or a careful fact checker. Brian Williams, anchorman of the NBC Nightly News, asks an important question: "The whole notion of 'media' is now much more democratic, but what will be the effect on democracy?"
Walt Whitman was the great poet of our democracy. When he celebrated himself he celebrated everyone. He was hopeful about the ways the culture of democracy shaped the lives of children. "There was a child went forth every day,/ And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,/And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,/ Or for many years or stretching cycles of years."
That should give anyone pause, with or without tiara or even a mirror.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.
Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|