Lighten up, America
I’m old enough to remember the hippie heydays, but I’m also too young to have participated.
For better or worse, there was a ton of material associated with the subculture to laugh at as well as with to laugh along. For example, we perceived the gentle humor of George Carlin’s Hippy Dippy Weatherman sketches, but winced at Robert Plant’s portentous live “Stairway to Heaven” interrogative: “Does anyone remember laughter?”
At least we used to laugh at it whereas nowadays Plant’s Golden Hippie God question seems totally prescient today. The mood of our country since the 1970s has turned decidedly dour.
For example, readers may remember the kerfuffle over a Wall Street Journal essay written several weeks ago by Joseph Epstein. Even I wrote about it one week later.
One of the things I forgot to mention was Epstein is not only a brilliant writer, but as well very funny. When he chose to air his opinion of non-medical professionals insisting on others referring to them as “doctor,” his tongue was firmly in cheek.
But … no. Not in this day and age. Everything must be filtered through the lens of ideological purity. You poked fun specifically at one of our tribe, so it becomes inherently necessary to cut the head off the perceived opponent.
In this instance, Epstein hyperbolically explicated his grievance against professional pretentiousness by using our new president’s wife as a case in point.
As Epstein noted in a follow-up essay in Commentary this week: “I had written the piece to get what I thought a minor pet peeve off my chest: the affectation of the president-elect’s wife in calling herself, and insisting that everyone else refer to her as, ‘Dr. Jill Biden.’ She is not a physician; rather, she was awarded a degree by a graduate school of education. What I thought was a fairly light bit of prose whose intentions were chiefly comic set off a forest fire of anger toward, abuse of, and outright hatred for its author. It proves you can be a naïf even at the age of 83.”
Most certainly this cannot be the first time anyone has heard this very same argument against the use of a medical title by someone not even remotely associated with the medical profession. Having once toiled in a field wherein a multitude of automotive engineers insisted on shouting their respective doctorates from the rooftops and wouldn’t respond to emails unless the “correct” referent was employed, I can attest. Fortunately, my academic career began and ended at a Catholic university, so most of my fellow faculty were comfortable being called Father So-and-so.
Others not of the clergy were comfortable enough in their skin to allow me to call them by their first names. Students who mistakenly addressed me as doctor would be quickly corrected as I do not officially possess a doctorate honorary or otherwise. But, even if I did, I highly doubt I’d be “that guy” who required everyone to call me Dr. Walker unless I took up my stethoscope and walked, to quote Pink Floyd.
But I stray from my point. To quote Foghorn Leghorn: “It’s a joke, son.” Anyone raised on the type of humor in which such pretentiousness is lampooned would’ve gotten it. Think of the Marx Brothers, for crying out loud. Heck, in today’s environment, Groucho and Chico would be prime candidates for cancelling.
I found out after writing reviewing the latest Frank Zappa documentary last November, you can’t disagree with one aspect of the man’s efforts without receiving scathing opprobrium. Frank would have been so proud of such anti-censorship censorship.
Forget about disremembering laughter, many of us have forgotten totally how to be open minded and thickskinned. Today’s Karens and Francis “Psycho” Soyer need Warren Oates to set them straight: “Lighten up, Francis.”
To quote Foghorn Leghorn: “It’s a joke, son.” Anyone raised on the type of humor in which such pretentiousness is lampooned would’ve gotten it.