It's Called Rude
Fausta had a post the other day on Welcome to the culture of rudeness.
Good manners have never been enforceable, but were once accepted because they underpin notions of right and wrong.
[T}he collapse of manners stands for a vast and under-acknowledged problem of social immorality. Manners are based on an ideal of empathy, of imagining the impact of one's own actions on others."
The picture above is from today’s New York Post - "This 'tis-the-season-to be-creepy display - which has drawn no small amount of community ire - can be found in the front yard of Joel Krupnik, 58, and his wife, Mildred Castellanos, 43, who said they are protesting the commercialization of the Yule season. "
"Christmas has religious origins. It's in the Bible. Santa is not in the Bible. He's not a religious symbol. Santa Claus has become a piece of Americana," Krupnik explained yesterday. Krupnik, who dabbles in real estate, said if anyone was offended, they could simply cross the street. Some children have done just that. "
Some call things like this a “war on Christmas”, some a “war on American culture” others will declare this the right of free speech. Let’s just call it what it is – rude.
Posted by Enlighten-NewJersey @ 4:25 PM
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9 Comments:
Terry,
Perhaps you could point us to the post you quote from?
Terry:
I believe the word you want is etiquette as opposed to ethics. As you can see below etiquette is the word that most closley reflects the original posting.
etiquette: The practices and forms prescribed by social convention or by authority.
Ethic: A set of principles of right conduct.
How we went from *burp* manners to *fart* ethics is beyond me.
As far as going back on campaign promises, Corzine never pledged he wouldn't raise the gas tax despite pressure from Forrester to the contrary. He always said he would make no such pledge and that type of pledge was grandstanding.
Terry, we read the post to the link you provided. You must be mistaken – we couldn’t find the quote you provided - "The Tape Is Coming Soon - I swear!! No, really!!"
What part of the email we published do you know to be false? The email we reproduced begins with the assertion reporters are after a video tape of Corzine and proceeds to describe the nature of the tape, the reaction of those that have viewed the tape, and ends with “the only question is whether we find out about this before he's governor, or after.”
Prior to publishing the email we checked with other sources and verified reporters were in fact looking for the video tape described. Further, others were able to provide more detail about the tape and these added details were consistent among sources.
The last sentence in the email does provide cover – even if the tape hasn’t surfaced yet, it may in the future. No doubt a person could make up any story and use the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence defense. One thing is clear – the emailer thought Corzine would be elected governor – “before he's governor, or after.” That prediction proved true.
You write “You had no evidence to prove any of this, yet your complete lack of ethics caused you no second thoughts about reproducing unsubstantiated rumors that would smear Corzine.”
First, how do you know how many thoughts we had prior to posting the email? You don’t.so why write such a statement? Second we did check with other sources and verified the information contained in the email. These sources have consistently provided information that has checked out. We have no reason to believe the source that sent the email or others that provided corroborative information were not telling the truth.
Third, how do you know what caused us to reproduce the email, let along it was the result of our “complex lack of ethics.” We have published 747 other posts here - can you find one that is not backed up with published reports or facts? We’d say 747 out of 748 is a pretty good record. As much as we would like to be perfect, we'll admit we could have been wrong on this one.
Finally, do you think Jon Corzine appreciates you and others keeping this tape issue alive, whether it exists or not? The tape and the purported contents have been spread more often and widely by other bloggers (curiously by Corzine supporters) than by anything ever written here.
i stand corrected wjcw.
thanks,
Enlighten, I think its more than about time you write a mea culpa on the tape issue and at the very least burn the source who has caused you so much embarassment.
however, before you do that. please address why posting a picture of santa with a bloody head in his hands reflects upon manners?
I thought pissing and shitting where you shouldn't and waving the middle finger around were about manners.
This santa stuff just seems like a Halloween decoration displayed during the wrong season.
While late to this post and the comments that seem to have gone off track, I wonder how come no one points out that Christmas is not part of the bible. It actually is a holiday co-opted from pagan events. And if the Santa display is rude or disgusting, how is it moreso than any Halloween display or the complete commercialization and non-virtuousness of how Christmas is treated in the U.S.?
STP,
The birth of Jesus is in the Bible. Christmas refers to a mass held in celebration of the birth of Christ – hence the word Christmas. There is no mention of any masses in the Bible - Easter mass, Christmas, etc.. So why the wonder no one has pointed out Christmas is not referred to in the Bible?
There are customs and traditions that have come to be associated with the celebration of the birth of Jesus – special church services, music, decorations, evergreen tress, various foods, gift giving, Santa Claus, etc. Depicting a bloody Santa Claus with a severed head of a child isn’t one of them.
To answer you questions: “And if the Santa display is rude or disgusting, how is it moreso than any Halloween display or the complete commercialization and non-virtuousness of how Christmas is treated in the U.S.?
As far as we are concerned the “display” pictured in this post would be disgusting anytime time of year, including Halloween whether or not Santa was the character holding up the severed head. Somehow we think you know why most people find it degusting, especially at this time of the year.
You lost us with “complete commercialization and non-virtuousness of how Christmas is treated in the U.S.” As compared to how Christmas is treated in other countries?
And just between us, we think you are pretending not to understand why this display is rude and disgusting for the same reason the people put up the display in the first place. It’s also the same reason for the misleading history lesson at the beginning of your comment.
OIVEY
Good thing nobody is representing a twisted up menorah or a bloody dradel.
why don't you do what you really want to do. Run over to wherever this thing is displayed and show some real manners and piss all over the thing.
I think you would feel better at the very least.
In stp's defense, he is accurate in his history. The Church wanted to celebrate Christ's birth; there was a pagan holiday falling near the same time; they seized upon it and revolved the whole thing around Jesus.
That only partially explains the origin of Christmas, and does utterly nothing to discredit it as a religious or cultural celebration. The Church is in the business of transforming lives, and that will necessarily involve transforming human institutions and customs. What they did with Christmas (and, incidentally, with Easter as well) was baptize already-existing festivals, and make them free from taint. Like the people who celebrate them, they may still fall into error and ill-repute afterward.
This tends to fall under fire from heavily-secular sources, but also from some churches, who think that, absent explicit sanction from the Bible, such celebrations are "traditions of men" and therefore forbidden. I think that's screwy, frankly, and denies the members of those sects a great deal of joy and freedom that God meant them to have. But if their conscience as well as their sect forbids it, then they do better to obey, as long as they understand that it is a matter of conscience, admitting difference of practice.
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