“E” for Effort

By Cindy Gomez
Editor

Confrontation is a lost art. By that I mean public, face-to-face, heated and passionate disagreement. The take-them-to-task type of confrontation needed to expose lies, right injustices, and hold people accountable, has gone missing from our society, and needs to be resurrected. Our ridiculously PC society has taught us to live in fear of “offending” under the guise of making us “nicer” to each other. But what are the larger ramifications of this laissez-faire attitude?

I can pinpoint the beginning of this change in society to the time when schools started handing out “E’s” for effort instead of “F’s” for fail. We all agreed to give someone “a pass” whether or not they earned it. That is when I believe we started trading away our right to question wrongdoing by public officials and each other.

Recognition just for showing up and breathing became commonplace in our society. We saw it in sports, trophies for all players regardless of achievement; music, where cookie-cutter talentless bands were rolled off the assembly line and marketed to the masses as real music. The mentality that we should make everyone feel included, noble as that concept is, is bastardized when it is used to give merit to the meritless.

Giving people undue merit creates resentment, injustice, and teaches us to celebrate mediocrity. Or worse, we begin to believe crap is quality and corrupt is good. Yet we teach people that recognition without merit is good, lulling ourselves into a numb state of acceptance. Ugly confrontations are easy to deal with in email, the web, or even on the phone. But we’ve all seen what happens in public, out in the open. People who have wronged each other will smile and wave if they see each other at the mall, then promptly scheme and plan a way to stab each other in the back. If someone isn’t doing a good job, there is an initial rush of subdued and orderly public outrage that eventually gives way to a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt attitude and a pat on the back for effort.

The virtual community creates an illusion of closeness to others while still giving us complete anonymity. The anonymity of the web allows us to be as vocal as we want, saying whatever pops into our head: critique, rant, philosophy, ideal, whimper, or attack. But we never have to confront a soul. No one looks us in the eye as we post an emotional retort to some cutting statement on a friend’s Myspace page. We can simply throw the rock, and hide our hand. We no longer have to hold each other accountable in any tangible way. We can resort to quick flashes of virtual emotion in the virtual world. Then, when we see each other in the street, we can flash a big fake smile and keep on walking. Dumbing down our emotions can have catastrophic effects.

Why should we ignore wrongs in our society, simply to keep from having uncomfortable confrontations on the issues? The recent wars, stock-market crash, mortgage meltdown, buy-outs, and outrageous congressional behaviors, would have had people shouting in the streets just a quarter of a decade ago. But now, any major news network can just do a tight shot of 50 angry people in some nondescript location and we’ll all believe “our voices” have been heard and we can just stick to posting a link on Facebook to show our support. During the healthcare debate, we saw media frenzies over town-hall meetings where people were all yelling at each other and at congressional leaders. People were so shocked at the types of controversial debates people were having that they forgot to notice they were shocked. We run the risk of becoming more concerned that people are being “loud”, “passionate”, or “controversial” than in fixing the problems that lead to the dispute.

We are headed in this direction of “non-confrontation” at an alarming rate. We’re saturated with images of war, death, murder, chaos, and human tragedy to the point of abhorring any real depiction of these images. Although most of us never experience these events personally, or on any regular basis, we are bombarded by media that show us this imagery constantly. The illusion of repeated experience makes us victims of a faux-post-traumatic-stress disorder which keeps us from engaging in real-life tragedy and confrontation. And that is the real tragedy, because when we no longer have the skills or practice to talk to someone face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and have a debate with them, we have lost our ability to participate in democracy and society.

One More Thing: Best Bets 2010 Finalists

Here’s another battle you can’t afford to miss. Come ringside for the fight to the finish of the four top finalists in our Best Bets 2010. We will be launching Round II of the Best Bets 2010 contest May 20, a week later than hoped. We had a huge response to Round I nominations, a great problem to have. Well over 1,500 HPR readers voted for up to 80 categories. Next week, you’ll see the four top contenders in each category.

Here is a teaser of the bouts to come:

Best Original Band will be one of the following: The Fillers, Sovereign Sect, Johnson Family Band, or Ghost Hand Punch.

Best Cover Band finalists are: Betty Does, At The Emporium, Fancy That, or Kamilla.

We get excited just thinking about it.

Best Solo Musician finalists are Eden Parker, Michael Pink, Blind Joe, and Brenda Weiler.

The four finalists in the Community Activist Category are Prairie Rose, Josh Boschee, John Strand, and Duke Schempp.

Local Celebrity: the contenders are Just ‘N Tyme, John Lamb, Jack Sunday, and Modern Man.

Who will win the brawl for Best Bar? Choices include Dempsey’s, Duffy’s, Empire Tavern and Hotel Donaldson. Best male and female bartenders, well, we’re going to leave that a secret for now. Same with best emerging and established artists, best media personalities and celebrities, best nightlife, entertainment and shopping.

So get ready! Make sure to pick up next week’s HPR. Then cast your ballot for the best of the best. Voting will run one month online at hpr1.com and through HPR’s Facebook page. When the final bell rings, HPR will publish a commemorative issue highlighting winners and truly reflecting the color, richness and diversity of our community. Good luck to the finalists!

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