In the last decade on several occasions subscribers to Seattle Opera, of which I was the General Director, commented to me that they enjoyed opera, wanted others to experience it, but that it would be so much more popular if I would make it considerably shorter. The suggested time was somewhere less than two hours, including a generous intermission. And the operas that were mentioned to be trimmed were neither Götterdämmerung nor Die Meistersinger, but the far shorter La bohème and Carmen. To each of these comments I of course explained that doing so would be rather like cutting off the Mona Lisa below the face, or exhibiting only the head of Michelangelo’s David, and that was that.
I was reminded of this by reading what I think is a brilliant article published in the Portland Oregonian on March 16 entitled by Richard Speer. I have never had any contact Mr. Speer. Here is the article:
DONALD TRUMP IS THE PRODUCT OF OUR DEBASED CULTURE
By Richard Speer
It should shock no one that Donald J. Trump stands poised to become one of two people vying for leadership of the free world.
His troubling ascent is no aberration, but rather the culmination of our long cultural descent from respectful discourse and decorum into a morass of shallowness and incivility.
When good manners died, Trump’s hope was born. He embodies and amplifies our predilection for mean-spirited reality shows and “torture-porn” horror; our shrinking attention spans and the sloppy thinking they produce; the anonymous cruelty of online flaming; and the vapid narcissism of social media.
While Trump has become the standard-bearer for this ugly new world, none of us gets off the hook. Everyone, Democrats included, is complicit. As a culture and as individuals, we picked our poison, and we got it.
Donald Trump is the nominee — and if it comes to it, the president — we deserve.
What forces brought us to this closing of the American mind? In his 1987 book of that title, philosopher Allan Bloom blamed the academy for supplanting the classical education with deconstruction and relativism, spawning generations of students incapable of critical thought, ill-fit to govern or be governed.
My own theory is simpler and a little old-fashioned. I think we took our first steps toward Trump when we stopped dressing up for the theater; when we started cursing in front of the kids; wearing earbuds to avoid talking to coworkers; and hooking up for sex via Tinder and Grindr instead of going on real dates. In the speeded-up, dumbed-down world we have built, vulgarians and megalomaniacs thrive.
A hundred years ago, we still had attention spans capable of appreciating symphonies, concertos and operas. Fifty years ago we were down to rock-and-roll albums. Today, the unit of musical consumption has shrunk to the digitally downloaded song.
We once read novels, thought about them, discussed them with friends. Then CliffsNotes came along. Now we skim the plot summary on Wikipedia and call it good.
Not inconsequentially, the language of Shakespeare has devolved into 140-character tweets and chat acronyms.
Farewell, “To be or not to be.” Hello, “LMAO!”
In such an era, is it any wonder so many are flocking to a man who addresses supporters on a third-grade reading level; speaks in repetitive, monosyllabic cadences; and, more dangerously, espouses policy grounded in that insidious moral shorthand, xenophobia?
The fault, dear populus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. We the people buoyed Trump to these heights. Many among us don’t seem to want a presidential candidate who’s prudent and reflective. “Ready, aim, fire!” has given way to “Ready, fire, aim!” The dinosaurs who once appreciated judiciousness and patrician reserve have all but died off, replaced by those of us who grew up on Howard Stern, “South Park,” and “Duck Dynasty” — and, lest we forget, “The Apprentice.”
We showered Trump with our Nielsen points; why not do the same with our votes?
In this national catastrophe, which rises to Dr. Strangelove levels of apocalyptic absurdity, we each share the blame. We make a choice for mediocrity every night we opt for Xbox over Charlie Rose; Seth Rogen over Terrence Malick. We choose meanness when we honk at other drivers, then flip them off for good measure. We choose superficiality when we phone a friend rather than visit them; email them rather than phone; text rather than email; or just blow them off altogether and download some fresh apps instead.
Perhaps never have the oft-misquoted words of H.L. Mencken rung more true: “No one in this world, so far as I know … has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
Elitist? Sure — but ominously prescient of our hour, when tens of millions have thrown their allegiance behind a man who has never held public office, yet stands to rest his itchy, easily-offended finger on the proverbial red button.
If that happens, don’t say we didn’t ask for it.
We didn’t just get stuck with Donald Trump. We earned him.
•
Richard Speer, of Portland, is an art critic and author.
The requests to me to make operas time-friendly may not in themselves be important, but I think they were indicative of Mr. Speer’s thesis. Rather than say that we are in a hopeless situation, I think we should take steps through improvements in education to remedy the attitude of many of our citizens.
When called upon to do the impossible or the very difficult, Americans have always risen to the challenge. It seems to me that this nominating contest tells us that the time to act is now.
That’s an interesting analysis. I think though that it leaves out the commercial side of the dumbing-down process. What consumers (and that’s everybody) are encouraged to do is — anything that will get them buying more and more. Of whatever is being sold. As fast as possible. Moreover, in the realm of entertainment, people need to be consuming more and more and more of whatever costs less and less and less to produce. It is the couch potato that is the ideal customer. I don’t think this has anything at all to do with dressing up for the opera! I think it has to do with the deceptive and cynical persuasion from commercial entities that behaviours that benefit the companies raking in the dough are giving people a means of expressing themselves. As though endless selfies express something profound. In my opinion, the commercial realm of modern culture has cynically and knowingly hoodwinked the consumer into becoming a mindless robot. How to reverse that is the major challenge. There must be some way to do it.
A perfect article. I have expressed the same opinions frequently and have long been annoyed about the lack of respect exhibited by the way people dress at performances. There’s respect for one’s self, respect for the artists and the art form and respect for the SENSE OF OCCASION. All this seems to be trivialized or ignored.
Education is a long process. So is nurturing civility, re-establishing common sense and a sense of decency. Unfortunately, we cannot achieve these important goals before this year’s presidential election. All we can hope for is that the DUMP TRUMP effort succeeds and either Harry Truman or Teddy Roosevelt are elected President!
Excellent article ! Nothing to add just to applaud !
It all boils down to education, education AND exposure to the arts! It should start with art in kindergarten and on through ones life. Unfortunately the arts in school are often the first to ne cut !
Trump????? One can only hope that this beautiful country will wake up in time !
I wish this were true, because it would be nice to see a connection between my passion for opera (uncut) and my distaste for Mr. Trump. And it’s a good argument against that type of politics. There might be a little to it. But basically it seems exaggerated as a description of reality.
If it were true that Trump is a function of new media and habits, then we should see young people flock to him. But his support is disproportionately older. We should see great man politics and right wing reaction emerge as new phenomena. But they are not. Goldwater and Wallace ploughed much of the same ground; Fascism had many similarities. Educated and urban people today tend to be on the left (controlled for wealth) but this has grown stronger over time, and does not seem to me plausible that rural people used not to vote for populists because they were listening to Meistersinger or Carmen uncut. Finally, political scientists tell us that the mass public was never patient or sophisticated in voting choices.