Originally Posted by
English
The other part of the problem is the eroding notion of the public good and the glorification of low culture. As a working class child, the Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation, and their forebears made sure that if I wanted to have a world-class education, there were institutions accessible to me. There were grand libraries, museums, and arts organizations so that I could aspire to something beyond myself.
Today, we denigrate the sublime and elevate the disgusting. Many people think achieving something in society means being a Real Housewife of Gaudy Location, a "guido" on the Jersey Shore, or a Bachelor/Bachelorette. Who wants to listen to Bach or Beethoven, or Marian Anderson, if you can be Snooki, NeNe, or Flavor Flav? Given what we've learned from documentaries like "Born Rich," today's heirs and heiresses have more in common with Paris Hilton than Ford's children and grandchildren, let alone the Kennedys, Carnegies, and Rockefellers.
And they are just emblematic of a society that is concerned with me and mine, self and selfishness, instead of what kind of legacy their children and grandchildren will inherit. Today's attitudes transcend races, ethnicities, classes, and religions, and I can't help but think that this is being encouraged on purpose. If you promote the worst in people, then they won't look beyond the real conditions of their existence and begin to question why things are the way they are... and they certainly couldn't care less about how their actions, preferences, and tastes influence the kind of life their offspring will have...
...but then again, from working in city and suburban schools, I know that there are significant numbers of today's parents who don't care a whit about their children and teens *today*, let alone whether they have any kind of future. How disgusting it is to squander the inheritance of our parents and grandparents, and to leave our children and grandchildren destitute! Future generations should -- and will -- condemn us.
I'm disgusted not just that this may be the year that the DSO dies, but as bailey says, that few in metro Detroit really care. This is the kind of "benign" neglect that killed so many of our other lost institutions. Anyone who isn't disturbed isn't much of a humanist, let alone a Detroitist.