A Nation of Sheep

The Warwick student who attempted to complete a mural in which a boy grows to manhood, marries a woman, and has children was beseiged by a minority who objected to his depiction of a mainstream lifestyle. After 9/11, there was a magnificent photograph — the greatest since the one of the flag raising on Mt. Suribachi during World War II — showing four heroic, male, white firefighters raising a flag amidst the ruins. Yet interest groups in New York wanted the photo and subsequent artistic renderings redone to depict a woman, black, and Hispanic in deference to diversity.

I call people who make such demands "wowsers." Wowsers are those who feel they have a heightened sense of morality and propriety and can dictate to everyone else how to act and behave. (There is an old definition of Puritanism: The dread fear that someone, somewhere, is enjoying himself.)

At one point, the Oakland, Calif., school system tried to implement something called "ebonics," which was an attempt to legitimize black slang as a cultural variant and acceptable as proper English (e.g., "aks" instead of "ask" or "she be" instead of "she is"). As Bill Cosby pointed out, when was the last investment banker job filled by a candidate asking, "Whassup?"

John Stuart Mill (and others) have noted that "your freedom ends at my nose." I think a pluralistic society must welcome varying lifestyles and absorb diverse cultures, changing as we do so. But when the political correctness of wowsers demands that we drain the blood out of reality and tell an artist what to create, we have tyranny of the minority — and a nation of sheep, afraid to trod on political correctness, unable to walk upright.

But then again, this is a state where a minority-elected governor can buy a State House Christmas Tree from a designated Christmas Tree Farm, belonging to the Rhode Island Christmas Tree Growers Association, and call it a Holiday Tree in fear of some who demand that every manifestation of religion be removed from the public square. So far as I can see, the Easter Bunny escaped the sobriquet of Holiday Hare, but it's clearly only a matter of time.

Your freedom stops at my nose, and that includes when your wowser, self-proclaimed, superior view of what's proper begins to create an unpleasant smell.