AP Culture War Against Honor and Courage

Plenty of other commentators tackled Hollowood's changing Superman's values from "truth, justice and the American way" to "truth, justice, and all that stuff"

It now looks like AP got the same memo. I noticed the line last week in an Associated Press story about how values are taught to American soldiers. It went out over the wire and appeared in papers nationwide. Here's the money quote "But there's another lesson they're taught, one that's rooted in philosophy and old-fashioned values like honor and courage...."

It caught my eye and I asked myself when did honor and courage become "old fashioned?" Well, old fashioned isn't necessarily bad. It could be a stand in phrase for "traditional," or try to imply "good ol' fashioned". After all, they didn't say outmoded or outdated, right?

Then comes the AP story today on Zidane. How about this line "Yet some commentators have been loath to overlook the transgression, seeing in Zidane's act the morality of the vendetta, an outdated sense of honor and sexist machismo."

It wasn't those unnamed "commentators" that the AP is referring to calling Zidane's sense of honor outdated, it's the AP reporter who says that it's outdated.

I don't know who determines what's in style when it comes to core values like honor, courage, commitment.

But if we want to consider the traditional values of honor and courage as being in or out of fashion, then I submit that they're kinda like wingtip shoes. When you were young and saw grownups wearing them, they looked old fashioned. Heavy and clumsy even. At some point though as you grow up, you try them on and find that they're quite comfortable... they are classics. They may get a few scuffs from being used. But they still polish up nicely. They're worth the effort to own. They're good to walk in. They never go out of style.


Head back to Mudville or to my main page