This blog has offered a narrative. It is the story of how our political culture
has evolved. The story depicts a series
of changes, but overall the projection has been from what I have termed a
traditional federalist construct to a natural rights construct. The changes have affected all of our major
institutions including our politics, our economy, even our family
relationships. Life today is quite
different from what it was back in 1949.
The changes toward a natural rights view can be traced back to the time
of our independence and the writing of our current constitution. But the rate of change has gone into
overdrive since the beginning of the ‘50s.
Such a construct shift affects many of our beliefs, many of our
assumptions. The changes seep deeply
into our conscious and even our subconscious.
The old dies hard, if at all. We
can consciously believe one thing and subconsciously hold on to something
else. In no realm of life is this more
true than in our sexual beliefs and emotions – sex is a strong force; it is
what I call the “joker in the deck.”
Under
traditional federalism, the belief was that matters of personal life are
subject to external regulation, but that since this is personal, the source of
regulation should be locally controlled.
We have a “right” to be comfortable with the prevailing costumes and
mores. Blue laws were well established
in our country, as well as marriage laws (governing divorce, for example) and
other more intimate concerns. But entering
the twentieth century, technological change was to dramatically alter this
assumed domain. The movies, for example,
undermined the local province in matters of sex, family, and other moral areas.
The powers to be, seeing that a national
medium undercut parochial proclivities, set up boards and commissions to
regulate the content of movies. The
Catholic Church, for example, established the League of Decency and rated
movies. Their decisions determined what “good”
Catholics would see. Even more powerful
was the Breen Commission that governed what was allowed to be produced. All and all, the attempt was to save morally
bent people, those influenced by Puritanical standards of decency, from being
exposed to unwanted material. It also
attempted to assure that young people not be shown material that would
undermine these good people’s efforts to properly socialize their children to their
moral view. Since these standards varied
widely across the country, decisions were made in favor of the most
restrictive. This, in turn, restricted
the options of film producers.
Of
course, all of this was not accepted so willingly. Motivated by artistic aims and by making more
money, the film industry fought this system to varying degrees of stridency. The owners of studios such as Warner Brothers
and MGM were more willing to go along as long as all of the studios were
equally affected. It was more the producers,
directors, and actors who objected most since this interfered with what they
wanted to accomplish on screen. No more emblematic
to this drama was the story associated with producing A Streetcar Named Desire. In
his book, David Halberstam[1]
gives a short, insightful overview of that story. One bit of context; the story line of the film
had already been the subject of a Broadway play. As today, Broadway was mostly patronized by
more urbane audiences, not the more rural clientele with which the regulatory
boards were so concerned. Here is the
urbane people’s reaction:
A Streetcar Named Desire was not just a play – it was an
event. Its frank treatment of sophisticated
sexual themes marked it as part of a powerful new current in American society
and cultural life. Even the plot seemed
emblematic – the brutal assault on Blanche’s prim, Victorian pretensions by
Stanley’s primal sexuality. Every night
on Broadway the audience would leave the theater visibly shaken – not only in
response to Blanche’s breakdown, but also in some small way, perhaps, because
they had gotten a glimpse of the violent changes just beginning to transform
their own culture and lives.[2]
And
now the story was going national on the big screen. Of course, the plot did not make it to the
screen untouched. Halberstam gives an
interesting account of that transition.
But enough of the story survived to make it a classic and helped propel
its leading man to stardom. He, Marlon
Brando, would be one of those cultural figures who would personify what that
transformation would be.
My
take on this upheaval is that it was needed.
Traditional federalism had become over-restrictive for a world we had
created with films, radio, and now the Internet. One can view this from an absolute
sense: people should have the right to
express themselves, period. Or one can
view this in more relative terms: rights
are based on the social values that prevail in a given time. What, to me, seems timeless is our need to
conduct our affairs in social contexts and that in order to be functional, we
must take into account what can be handled at a given time. Yes, there are certain rights that transcend
any social setting. Slavery is immoral
in any setting, for example, regardless of what one might find in any holy text
or what had been accepted practice in the past.
Societies that engaged in it paid a price. But liberty is a social construct, and its
very definition has changed through the centuries. The Puritan’s view of it is vastly different
from what prevails today. The question
we, including secondary students, should ask is: does our view of liberty enhance the ability
of our society to survive and does it enhance our ability to achieve our
established goals and aims? Asking these
questions does not determine an exact definition of liberty, but they do
provide a functional approach to determining what liberty should mean.
