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The Dirtiest Word ...

Note: The following is another in a series of columns on subjects of a philosophical or ethical nature by a Schuyler County resident who prefers to go by the nom de plume of A. Moralis -- a reference to what the writer sees as the lack of a moral compass in this country during this rapidly changing Age of the Internet.

By A. Moralis

Tiger Woods has dominated television gossip shows, newspapers, radio and the evening news for a couple of weeks now. And as annoying as it all is, it has served a purpose: distracted us from the daily reminders that our taxes will increase, that there is a war in Afghanistan that goes on and on, and that national health-care reform sits before the Senate.

So for that I guess we can say "Thanks, Tiger."

But that's about the only positive that can be gleaned from that mess -- a perfect storm of wealth and stupidity and entitlement and the voracious nature of the Internet with its constantly glaring spotlight seeking out the next victim foolish enough to take a misstep.

It's enough to send me looking for the antacids. Heartburn, you know.

Which prompts this idle observation: Heartburn immediately follows heartbreak in Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language. And the Tiger saga -- at least to me -- is all of that: heartbreaking.

Not for him, in particular. And not just for his wife and kids. And not just for the PGA Golf Tour.

But really for all of us.

Heroism is in short supply, and role models are difficult to keep on a pedestal in this fast-paced age of Internet intrusion -- of instant news and gotcha videos and the absolutely gleeful way in which the TV and radio talking heads chew into the carcass of any poor soul who slips on the extremely narrow moral walkway we insist our celebrities travel.

So ... given the propensity we have to judge and judge and judge some more, we really are finding the hero well drying up. What with steroids in sports muddying perceptions, the Internet imposing instant verdicts on those we don't know personally but would love to be (which seems to increase our need to tear them down), and the intense competition in cable TV demanding we feed more and more of our would-be heroes to the figurative dogs, it seems we have to go back decades to find anyone worth embracing at all.

Think Babe Ruth. Or Lou Gehrig. Or Joe DiMaggio. Or Mickey Mantle. Yankees all, and all held in high esteem in the minds and hearts of baseball purists. Flawed, true; but embraced for those flaws as much as for their achievements. I wonder how they would fare if they were performing their feats today.

I'm guessing the fact of their Yankeeness would make them larger targets now than they ever were back in the day. Think A-Rod.

I could go on ... but that mental road, that thought process, leads to this:

Why do we tolerate the smearing of someone's weakness (again, think Tiger, and pass the antacids) while we have serious, potentially heartbreaking matters of much greater import ahead of us?

Personally, when or where Tiger scores a hole-in-one is of no interest or consequence to me. However, Senate decisions can have a significant impact. With the future of health care hanging in the balance for millions of people in a period of economic uncertainty, the infidelities of any man or woman pale -- rather significantly.

But here's a nagging concern about the whole Tiger mess -- and really about any overcooked news events in this Internet age: The speed and intensity with which news stories are covered have skewed our perceptions.

We have reached a point of diminished discrimination.

By discrimination I mean the ability to recognize or perceive a difference; the ability to discern. As in "a discriminating taste."

We have, in a sense, descended to that region of muddled, even hellish, disorientation described by Guns 'N' Roses in the song Welcome to the Jungle:

Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here every day
Ya learn to live like an animal
In the jungle where we play...

Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your
sha na na na na na na na
knees, knees

We have become a morally corrupted jungle, I think -- just like in those lyrics. It is a place where we have learned to tolerate that which undermines us. Think overregulation, think the reduction of church memberships to a handful of the faithful, think the intrusiveness of the Internet. (Who said government would evolve into Big Brother? Hell, it's not government, at least not alone. It's also our next-door neighbors with their mini-cams.).

And just where, pray tell, have our virtuous leaders gone? Why are we so willing to move away from traditions -- traditions of an America steeped in religion and family and a sense of right over wrong?

We have become far too tolerant -- accepting, if not embracing, some fairly onerous practices and a growing value system that pays homage to alternate realities embodied in video games. What was wrong with the alternate reality that put its faith in a much higher power?

We are tolerant of pornography, and of killing fields created by unnecessary wars, and of politicians who too often follow the dictates of their parties instead of their consciences. We are tolerant of a media machine that not only leans toward the negative, but raises it to new heights. We are tolerant of "lifestyle choices" not even on our radar two decades ago. I suspect that if lepers formed a union, we would tolerate them in the mainstream, too -- and even empower them with a political base.

And we are tolerant of the glee with which our heroes are pulled down ... down into our increasingly hellish jungle.

The poet William Blake once wrote so eloquently the following:

Tiger, tiger burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

It's a poem that ponders not so much the tiger itself, but primarily where exactly it sprang from -- who its creator might be: God or Satan.

Our own Tiger is, I'm sure, heaven sent, but now -- thanks to his own shortcomings, magnified to the nth degree by a giddy media -- he is finding there is hell to pay.

And we tolerate it. And will continue to tolerate it.

I am, in the final analysis, in a distinct minority that finds such tolerance to be intolerable.

I find tolerance to be the dirtiest word in the English language.

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Previous A. Moralis columns:

The first one is here.
The second one is here.
The third one is here.
The fourth one is here..
The fifth one is here.