"The Loss of Embarrassment"

In the movie "Chicago" there was a song that was left on the cutting room floor. It was titled "Class" and it was a duet by Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The song was so ironic that it should have been a smash, for in it the two women lament the lack of class in the society of their day. The irony comes because their characters are a crooked warden and a murderess.

Still many of us today could be asking whatever happened to class, or common decency, or just moderation. From Janet Jackson's breast to the common usage of profanity in movies and on television, there seems to be a great deal of class lacking anywhere. And that is not just in the media. In our everyday lives we run into instant after instant where good sense and good manners have gone into hiding.

A good example occurred the other night when my wife and I went to a local restaurant to eat. It is a restaurant where we go time after time and the food is good and the service is too. On this night there was a crowd and we had to wait for a table. We had expected this since there was a rodeo being held at the local fairgrounds and this always attracts a crowd.

We finally got seated and ended up having the misfortune of being next to a table of four guys who were in their middle to late twenties. They were also into their second or third bottle of wine. The more they drank the more profane they got and soon it wasn't just profanity but pure dirty talk.

Everyone was casting dirty looks their way and finally the waitress asked them to tone it down. They ignored her. I don't know who the manager was that night, and I don't know if she reported it to him/her but no one else came to her defense.

What I do know is that she came to our table and apologized for their behavior. She then told us there would be no charge for our meal. We insisted that we would pay, for after all it wasn't her fault that they were idiots.

When we left the drunken bunch was still there, having a great old time. They didn't care that they were being rude, crude and obnoxious. They weren't embarrassed by the stares they were getting. They were oblivious to it all.

It was a sad day, the day embarrassment died. From that point on any action was fair game. We can say and do almost anything if we have no sense of shame, and shame just doesn't come cheap any more. We can turn on our TV's or go to the movies and hear words that would have never been uttered in polite company in the past. And these words come out of the mouths of men, women and children.

When did we lose that sense of class that our parents hammered into us, and by that term I mean pride and responsibility. I don't mean it in a sense that anyone is any better than anyone else. Class means a respect for yourself and for others, and that is what has been lost.

It is sad to me that people can use the most graphic terms in everyday conversation and there is no shame. Whatever happened to class, to embarrassment, to common decency. Whatever happened to life as we knew it. And what can we do to get it back again!

 

 

 

 

 

©2004 Jackie K. Cooper

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