Pleasantville

dueler88

The news continues to roll in about the Amish school shootings. As a father of two young girls, I find it particularly disturbing. Without much surprise, I predict in the coming hours and days much punditry regarding gun control, psychology/psychiatry, the importance of valuing and supporting boys, the dangers of anti-depressants, etc. The fact is, however, we really don’t know anything other than WHAT happened at this point, and perhaps we will never know WHY. Nonetheless (you knew this was coming), I’ll offer a little bit of social commentary that might help explain the WHY.

In short, I blame the Hippies. But seriously, though – think about the cultural changes that occurred from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.

The 1950’s was the time where most U.S. citizens were acutely aware of the real possibility of threats to the nation’s survival. The threat-conscious communities of WWII and the Cold War caused communities, and especially parents and other civil authority figures (in general) to demand “acceptable” behavior from their children and their citizens, lest any non-acceptable behavior begin to dissolve and/or fracture their communities, or the nation as a whole. Communities were *mostly* idyllic; any transgressions were either immediately publicized in order to reinforce the shamefulness of the act (such as theft, vandalism, etc.), or they were secrets kept closely-guarded in order to avoid such shame (such as teen pregnancy, etc.).

With this rigidity also came the overzealousness brought on by fear, whether it be in expressions of horror regarding the evils of Rock ‘n Roll, or in racially-motivated prejudice and tyranny. But the oppressiveness, brought about by the sacrifices whose intent was to maintain societal comfort and stability, had to be confronted at some point. Free-thinking and rebellious Americans, especially teenagers, would not stand for such lack of Liberty.

So we come to the explosion of unbounded Liberty of the 60’s and 70’s, which has since been taken for granted as the natural “progression” of our society. Without a threat to its survival, America could afford to reap the fruits of liberty and forget what it had taken to sow the seeds.

Perhaps the best representation of these changes is the 1998 Reese Witherspoon/Tobey Maguire movie Pleasantville. The plot goes something like this [SPOILER ALERT]: a brother and sister, teenagers of the 1990’s, are transported back to a magical, black-and-white TV world of the 50’s. Their post-modern, post-1960’s ideas about freedom immediately bring about profound changes in the idyllic society they encounter. Some citizens of Pleasantville, as a metaphor for their freedom-inspired transformation of enlightenment, begin appearing in color to those around them. While they are elated with their liberation, they also feel guilty and ostracized because they appear differently than most everybody else in the community. Ultimately, and after a great deal of stress to the community, this notion of unbridled emotion and freedom takes over the whole town, and it becomes a kaleidoscope of color in metaphor.

IMO, the filmmakers’ lesson is that the 50’s were bad and that we should never go back. That’s all well and good, because there were things about the 50's that we shouldn't return to. But we shouldn't forget, as parents of subsequent generations, to teach our children the good values of community that were taught to those who lived before us.

But American societal values always change, so we don’t necessarily teach our children the things that were important to our parents and grandparents. We cycle from having borderline-tyrannical social norms to a live-and-let-live overload and back. What was once a cherished value of citizenship – keeping track of your neighbors, making sure that they’re okay (both that they are safe and that they are complying with the rules of society) - somehow became a violation of privacy and a repression of freedom.

Would a more rigid society have prevented the tragedy at the Amish schoolhouse? Perhaps. Perhaps “keeping an eye on each other” does really have some value. From our privacy-conscious contemporary times, it is easy to say that it would be an infringement upon this truck-driver’s civil liberties to monitor his supposed anti-social behavior. But what if we had concentrated on the more supportive side of “keeping an eye on each other?” What if there was a community in place where people actively cared about the safety of others and considered the thoughts and feelings of others in their everyday acts? Would that have helped?

Perhaps . . .