|
Patriotic conservative celebrates people taking their citizenship oath in sweat pants
What’s wrong with this picture? Here is Peggy Noonan, in her usual sentimental mode, talking about an oath-taking ceremony for new citizens at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn: “There were hundreds of people in saris, in skullcaps, in suits made in Romania. There was a hugely pregnant woman from Nigeria, dressed in a red-and-white plaid cotton dress; there were young Eastern European women in too-tight pants from the Gap; there were young men in gym clothes. The usual mix from all over the world. They were so happy to be joining what others of us were lucky enough to be born into. They knew they were in the right place doing the right thing, and changing their lives for the better.”
I’m sorry to rain on Miss Noonan’s parade, but does the wearing of tight pants and gym clothes to their own naturalization ceremony indicate that these new Americans place a high value on American citizenship—or that they see it as no more significant than any other consumerist commodity in their lives? Yet this “patriotic conservative” celebrates them. It’s amazing how Noonan, who has contemptuously dismissed our own nationhood (apart from its abstract ideas) as nothing but “mud,” rejoices at the sight of immigrants taking their citizenship oath in sweat pants. This shows the true cultural and moral content of Noonan’s patriotism—and that of most other “conservative” elites as well.
Comments
Couldn’t agree more. But the immigrants are being consistent with the natives. Consider the way Americans dress in church on Sundays. Perhaps ten years ago, I was attending Mass in a local RC parish. A group of 20 or 30 children and adolescents, who were preparing for Confirmation, were to be introduced to the congregation, and they marched to the altar in formation. They were dressed like the worst of Noonan’s immigrants. The immigrants wish to join a nation of slobs, and they dress accordingly. WW Posted by: Wm. Wleklinski on July 3, 2002 1:28 PMAnd it’s not just young people and their parents who do this and permit or encourage it, but the Church itself. I was in St. Patrick’s Cathedral for a service a few years ago (it may have been a high solemn mass, I’m not sure, but it was a special service of some kind), and throughout the church there were young people performing some semi-official function, and they were all dressed in the same style T-shirt with pictures, their uniform. So the church officials themselves feel that t-shirts are appropriate dress for church services. Might as well be at a baseball game. Posted by: Lawrence Auster on July 3, 2002 7:42 PMWhat is it with modern society and grunge? I was especially disappointed at university, where the girls wore a kind of uniform of boots, jeans and sweatshirts. I remember reading a letter in the campus paper from a girl complaining about the slobby way the men dressed. She claimed that the girls’ efforts were superior because they hunted around in second hand shops for “fashionable” t-shirts. The only outlet for her instinct for fashion was a kind of designer grunge. Posted by: Mark Richardson on July 3, 2002 9:50 PM“What is it with modern society and grunge?” There’s nothing outside the self. Dress clothing bespeaks an order larger than the self in which the self is participating, and to which it is deferring. In today’s culture of self-esteem, such deference is experienced as an oppressive imposition. Even casual but neat clothing (say, decent trousers with an open collared shirt) is an imposition, since it places the self in a “form” external to the self. But when you’re wearing baggy pants and a t-shirt hanging out and an ugly baseball cap and all the rest of the paraphernalia, then you’re truly free of anything. From Planned Parenthood v. Casey (“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life”) to grunge, the liberal culture is all of a piece. Posted by: Lawrence Auster on July 3, 2002 10:24 PMI remember a column of Noonan’s a couple of years ago. She said, “Immigrants are conservative.” Do you think she really believes this? Posted by: David on July 4, 2002 12:07 AMThanks for the reply to my query about grunge, about which I really was curious. I find your answer very persuasive. Posted by: Mark Richardson on July 4, 2002 1:04 AMDo Noonan and other conservatives like her really believe immigrants are conservative? To answer that question, we first have to understand what the conservatism of the conservatives themselves consists of. It does not consist of a sense of membership and participation in a peoplehood and a tradition; it consists only in the devotion to the idea of the freedom of the individual—the individual under God and the individual as an economic actor pursuing his self advancement. The individual exists in two dimensions: in relation to the satisfaction of his material desires, and in relation to an abstract universal God whose primary function is as the source of individual rights. There is essentially nothing else. That’s what the conservatives themselves believe in. So, when they look at the immigrants they see individuals who in some manner, and in most cases, believe in God, and who are also seeking their own betterment. So the immigrants are “conservatives.” They are “conservative” in the same sense that the American conservatives themselves are “conservative.” Furthermore, the “conservative” immigrants, just like the “conservative” natives, are all pro-open borders and try to silence any serious discussion of current immigration policy. I discussed the philosophical reasons why conservatives support immigration in a talk I gave earlier this year, which is now published at The Social Contract: |