MISSOURI WATCH: WHITHER THE CULTURE OF AMERICA?

We have the State of the State, the State of the Nation, the state of the American Stock Exchange, the state of the economy, the state of inflation and, even, the state of the latest Hollywood films. Each is intended to send its own particular ranking as a source of information for a huge array of constituencies.

The governor of Missouri delivers a State of the State address designed to steer government in a particular direction during the next 12 months, and each president since Washington has reported on how the nation has fared in the past and where it should be directed in the future. Wall Street sends a signal five days a week on how we should feel about the economy and whether investors should buy or sell, while the weekend box office receipts alert us to the movies we want to see and those we should by all means avoid.

But despite the hundreds, yea even thousands, of indices to which we are exposed, nothing has been devised to provide us with a reading of the state of our American culture, something of little or no interest to Dow Jones or those who track consumer confidence or our export-import balance.

We're left with our own appraisal of the quality of life in our own neighborhoods, hometowns and states, and given the ever-expanding population of most of these venues, it is even possible to be living in a splendid neighborhood located in a city that has been transformed into a state of declination. During times of stress and concern in states, the nation as a whole may be experiencing an exhilarating time of peace and prosperity. Such is the state of America in the year of our Lord 1999.

Whether we give notice to our cultural state seldom comes to mind for most of us, and perhaps even more fleeting to our national leaders who seem so preoccupied with the state of their own personal popularity as to be oblivious to what is occurring in a much broader context. This despite the fact our society shares, and rests on, certain cultural values which are both moral and operational.

We paused the other day after the horrible tragedy at Littleton, shocked by the aberrant behavior it so graphically exposed, and whether we realized it or not, the incident will influence our vision of our American culture for years to come, disturbing or national conscience beyond calculable measurement. For Littleton was so at variance with what we claim to be our national culture, and yet embodied so many of the self-rebukes with which we lash ourselves from time to time, that it will stand as a cultural lonestar of the latter part of this decade.

Still another component of the state of our culture can be found in what we improperly label "the information age," illustrating our faith in labels as opposed to reality. We have concluded, after numerous claims from the purveyors of the tools of trade in our so-called information age, that we have suddenly become transformed into an enlightened society. The arguments seem valid enough, for today we are showered with floods of information, although much does not originate with traditional thought leaders. Unfortunately much of this information lacks any shared cultural values, a process that creates in its stead the excessive individualism that is perhaps the gravest threat of all to democratic societies. We seem to have become transfixed with numerous liberation movements that have sought to free individuals from the constraints of social norms and collective moral values.

We must recognize there are serious problems within a culture of unbridled individualism in which the breaking of rules becomes in a sense, the only remaining rule. This need becomes all the more urgent as we learn that moral values and social rules are not simply arbitrary constraints on individual choice but the absolute necessity for any kind of cooperative enterprise. The classroom assassin has no sense of such collective responsibility, nor does the member of any group unwilling to subvert its own aims to the larger community.

A society that becomes hostage to the constant upending of civilized rules and norms, all in the name of expanding individual freedom of choice, will soon find itself increasingly disorganized, isolated and incapable of carrying out common goals and tasks. Imagine, if you will, the disarray that would have occurred during America's first constitutional convention had a small, determined band of single-issue delegates vowed never to accede to the common goal. The pursuit of such single minded purposes would have destroyed whatever good will existed among all delegates and would have precluded any constitution that could withstand the vicissitudes of trial and upheaval.

If we are, as so many proclaim, living in an age of information, then we are obliged to ask further: what is the nature of such information? And if we have reaped the glowing benefits so boldly proclaimed, why do millions of Americans know so little about so much that is important and why are the university graduates of today less informed than the high school seniors of an earlier age? Why do today's "information age" children answer that Homer is a comic strip character and their parents believe culture rests in television shows that have no merit and computer sites that focus on scatological behavior?

God help us if we equate our culture with today's modes of commercialism, the vicious attacks of partisans and the myopic opponents of shared community values, for if we embrace these Pandoran blandishments, we will have destroyed the very fabric of American culture that has been so proudly handed down to us by our forefathers.

Our American culture began with the ideals of moral men and women and the odyssey continues only if we embrace their strength, tolerance, determination, vision and faith.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.