- Louis Farrakhan

“Noble Futility: Actor Richard Dreyfuss and the Gallant New Struggle for ‘Civility’”

A brief history of warfare; lamenting the proliferation of nuclear weapons; genuinely warm comments on the splendor and uniqueness of America; decrying our current tempo in political rhetoric and warnings of how unwise it is to remain so “heated” while possessing nuclear weapons, followed by bashing Ivy League elites…

     Such were the moments of actor Richard Dreyfuss’ conference on civics and education at the National

 Press Club Tuesday.    For the past two years Dreyfuss, along with big shots in the press, politics, law and business, have been crusading to increase education in civics, urging schools to add more courses in government and American history.  An interest in political discourse will inevitably breed more civility in political discourse, claim Dreyfuss and his website, The Dreyfuss Initiative.    And now here he was, touting his newest cause in the flesh.

    Dreyfuss certainly meant well, and his idealism is part of a long history of activism, born like that of so many baby boomers in the mayhem of the 1960s.   But like fellow aging boomers, Dreyfuss appeared to suffer from two ailments: (1.) believing that “civility,” as he defined it (more like relentlessly inferred it), can only be achieved through people becoming more liberal, thus disagreeing less, and so leaving little room for the dreaded (gasp!) incivility, and (2.) being generally unhappy in a world that has changed so much since his youth.   In effect, strides in technology (particularly communications) have smitten the 63-year-old Jaws star with a simple case of, plainly stated, Grumpy Old Fartism.   And the fact that conservatives have seized these great strides in communication technology and used them to overturn decades of dominance of left-leaning “establishment” media has driven poor Richard Dreyfuss to a crescendo of rampant bewilderment.

     Dreyfuss’ speech also dealt with how technology is moving faster than  humanity can keep up, creating young Americans who are clueless to politics and government, lamenting how kids today are more apt to “think about Britney Spears before the Tucson shooting.”    Peppering these points with examples of how dangerous and bloody the 21^st Century is shaping to be, Dreyfuss whimsically juggled a myriad of woes while straining to link them to America’s alleged political incivility, repeatedly citing the Tea Party (big shock), but strangely excluding instances of “incivility” from the Left or popular media.

     You could almost hear Dreyfuss’ brain spraining like a cantankerous piece of wood, laboring desperately to take his massive, bulky angst of old age and give it purpose by forcing it into socio-political contexts. It wasn’t the worst display of Grumpy Old Fartism masquerading as earnest social crusading I have seen, but was still a palpable one.

      However, I’ve never heard such a rapid, choppy, constipated tirade delivered with such calm (for “calmness” is what Dreyfuss is largely crusading). Dreyfuss’ melodic diatribe would have been flat-out incoherent had it not been that each of his loosely-related points were themselves clear and poignant, despite being incongruous to the whole point of the conference. The Oscar-winner showered the Press Club crowd with his current torments, hitting on every negative aspect about the state of the world and America (our foreign policies, consumerism, political discourse, and our trashy, Jersey Shore-era culture —the part of his speech I enjoyed most).

     I felt sorry for Dreyfuss.  I wanted to give him a hug, followed by a nice 10-oz vodka-valium martini and reunite him with a long-lost childhood teddy bear.   I was also frighteningly empathetic, as it was clear anyone with above average intelligence and inquisitive nature could easily slide into the torturous Chinese finger puzzle of inexplicable frustration growing old can bring; of believing that each of us just happened –out of thousands of generations before us– to be born in the best of times, yet slowly witness their deterioration into the worst of times (strangely in tandem with the deterioration of our own bodies —go figure!). Dear God, will I and my fellow Gen X-ers suffer the same fate; living fairly pointlessly most of our days only to be bitten by the “social causes bug” as we find ourselves living in a world far different than that of our youth, and as more and more greeting cards from the Grim Reaper appear on our doorstep with increasingly regularity?!

     Thus Dreyfuss now finds himself in the worst of times; the aging baby boomer succumbing to the frustrations of confusing new technology, a chic new lexicon to decipher, a post-post-modern humor that is acutely snarky and offensive, many times only for the sake of being so, and a moment-by-moment mindset like that of an amoeba with heart disease. Indeed, his generation’s “live for the moment” creed has mutated into a Frankenstein’s monster in regards to culture, as the daily strides in gadgets and communications makes “living for the moment” now a twisted technological necessity –a lifestyle Generation Dreyfuss never had in mind and one that is scarcely a choice.

     Now added to Generation Dreyfuss’ natural angst is the decried rise of a new brand of conservativism, using the very technology they do not comprehend to promote messages they absolutely detest. Perhaps Mr. Dreyfuss (who I found interesting and amiable, personally) would feel more comfortable debating Michelle Bachmann in 1980, on one of only three major networks’ episodes of Phil Donahue , instead of the new frontier of the Internet and innumerable cable and radio shows, each capturing specific segments of America that always existed but never thrived in their own sphere of mass media. Sorry, Mr. Dreyfuss, but welcome to America 2011 (it gets on my nerves, too, sometimes…just to let you know, sir).

     Dreyfuss’ crusade for civility, now a renewed cause célèbre in the wake of Tucson, does have a modicum of authenticity. But hopelessly caked around that modicum is a sad truth: insufferable to Dreyfuss is that within this new and strange media ten Keith Olbermanns cannot outweigh the presence of just one Bill O’Reilly, so long as O’Reilly exists in the same realm as Olbermann. O’Reilly’s very presence on the same plane as Olbermann is enraging to him. And then to have O’Reilly’s ratings consistently beat Olbermann’s is beyond enraging –it’s intolerable and incomprehensible! Having conservative voices now on the same playing field as liberals presents an awful, fundamental shift in political dialogue, setting the stage for an eventual breakdown in our so-called civility. Thus acts of total A-political lunacy like Jared Laughner’s can serve as an excuse for decrying the entire “stage” the new equilibrium in the marketplace of ideas has created. It's a reaction as desperate as it is predictable.

     I asked Dreyfuss if his complaints about the Internet were not similar to those against television during the Vietnam War. Public support for Vietnam eroded when TV brought its brutality into America’s living rooms, showing war in a way it previously could not be seen. Is not the Internet, too, I asked, just exposing the vitriol that has always existed in politics? Americans are no more cynical or hateful today than they were 20, 50, or 100 years ago. It’s only that now everyone can see what each other thinks in this new anonymous electronic exhibitionism –the Internet.

     But Dreyfuss didn’t exactly agree that the Internet has done for politics what TV did for war, replying, "Actually, I think of the Internet as a mutant wildcard in history, and I think it’s too soon to tell whether it is a value or a curse. I do believe however that nobody ever expected that there actually could be all knowledge at your fingertips."

     I understand Dreyfuss’ irritation. But he, like so many lofty liberals and aging, idealistic baby boomers fail to see that technology simply lept beyond their capacity to adapt (as it will my generation, too), allowing every citizen to have their opinion, no matter how fleeting or repugnant, heard at a level well beyond their comfort. We are exposed to nothing now except what we already were.

    I wish Dreyfuss well in his battle to reeducate America’s kids in history and politics.  God knows they need it. But never confuse political conformity with civility, which may be tempting in a post-Tucson USA, and is something Dreyfuss and his ilk are undoubtedly trying to equate. Nor should we shirk from the inevitable hostility that arises when people disagree, particularly with the Left.

     I will not be surprised to find myself in Richard Dreyfuss’ shoes one day, wailing against a whirling, synthetic, crass world I somehow find myself in at age 63.   But none of us make the rules to the worlds we inherit or leave.  I just hope there is someone there at the end of my tirade to hand me my 10-oz martini and my childhood…. Actually, forget the damn teddy bear, just hand me another martini.

—Nick Taxia,

    Duh Progressive.com

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