Death by Propriety

American education, like the nation as a whole, is choking in the death-grip of propriety. The word “appropriate” comes up a hundred times a day, always to point out something that isn’t. The result is a nation gagged.

Now, rhetorically, let’s think about that word. It is vague. I mean, it’s got questions attached to it the way a hound dog has fleas, but it never bothers to scratch. Appropriate…according to what standard? Appropriate for whom? For what? When? Who says? All these unanswered, uncertain vagaries are the word’s power. It is implied, not proved, not demonstrated, never put to a vote or laid out for review with supporting evidence…its meaning, its relevance, its value, all are merely implied, while its power hangs over every human interaction like a threat of death from above. And it is further implied that it would be inappropriate to question why anything might be inappropriate. If anything might be inappropriate, it IS inappropriate.

I first noticed the word in 1995. All of a sudden I was hearing that word fifty times a day, a word that heretofore had been no more prevalent than, say, immoderation, querulousness, or gibberish. These are all perfectly nice words, but not words that one hears very often. As of 1995 the word “inappropriate” somehow got an upgrade. And it is the “in-” version that one hears most frequently, I suppose because, being the attack conjugation of the adjective, it is more useful.

Along about that same time, I recall, I also noticed that people started saying “excuse me” at the drop of a hat. Any little thing and everybody within arm’s reach would mutter “excuse me” without even looking up to see who it was they had presumably wronged. I guess they were all desperate to avoid inappropriateness. But I was born a long time before 1995, and in all those dark decades rife with wars, assassinations, and game shows, people just went about their business with no real need to make excuses, let alone expect others to excuse them. Now, Lord help us! You can’t get near anybody without facing a flurry of excuse me’s by all parties.

I have been known to attend gun shows. Gun shows are the last holy place in American culture, the last stronghold and best remaining example of the values that built this nation. Here’s what happens at a gun show. Row after row, filling an entire warehouse or gymnasium, folding tables are lined-up, and behind each folding table sits one or two folding chairs. A blanket is spread over each table, and on the blanket rests the display. Behind the table, in the folding chairs, are two people. One is an old man wearing a yellow VFW vest and matching baseball cap, and the other is his wife, wearing jeans and holding a cup of coffee and probably talking on a cell phone to some other lady whose table is two rows away. Between these two people, resting on the floor, is an old ice chest that says “Coleman” in flaking red paint. Inside this ice chest is lunch and a few cans of soda-pop. On top of the ice chest is a donut box that once held a dozen donuts, but now contains only two and part of a third.

Spread over the table on a non-descript blanket is the couple’s collection: antique revolvers, pistols, hunting rifles, shotguns, or in some specialty cases there might be civil war bayonets, Indian trade knives, Revolutionary War muskets with complete accoutrements and original bullet molds, or rusty ancient iron pots, spoons, bullets and buttons that they dug up at some historic battlefield or other last summer. Every table is different, reflecting the interests and inclinations of the old folks behind it. Sometimes there are no old folks, because they have gone walking around to look at everybody else’s stuff.

Now, this might seem to be a moment ripe for the quick and sneaky to grab something and make off with it, an unguarded WWII helmet or a Schmeisser submachine gun or a pre-1964 Winchester. But no, that does not happen, because the entire place is full of guys with guns. Most of the folks who come to look at collections are themselves collectors. They arrive carrying some gun or other, which is checked by off-duty police at the door to assure it is not loaded. Then the guy strolls around, and he might stop and talk, or he might make a swap of a 1928 Colt Police Positive .32 in average condition, for a First World War Iron Cross dug up in the Ardennes, or he might be looking for a forearm to fit his 1955 Remington pump shotgun…he might exchange emails or phone numbers with some old dude who thinks he has one at home that would fit…

If you ever stop strolling and just raise your eyes and look around the warehouse or gymnasium, you see hundreds of men and women talking, strolling, looking, laughing, swapping, and you realize how relaxed it is. Nobody is afraid of anything. They all get along fine, and all the imaginary evil crap that happens on television and in movies, all of that is left at the door. These are real people who share an interest and a set of values, and there will not be any stealing or yelling or cheating…it just will not happen. It is not in these people either to act that way or to permit it. They know how things ought to be and that is how things will be for as long as they are together in this warehouse or gymnasium.

From about ten until three, it can get pretty crowded, like non-stop squeezing as you make your way down aisle after aisle packed with people who are all carrying carbines, muskets, rifles, shotguns, and vintage cavalry sabers. But nobody says “excuse me.” That is a phrase you just don't hear. It’s not that it would be inappropriate…it’s more like, well, like everybody there is in this together, they are all doing the same thing in the same place at the same time and just do not need to either make or give excuses for their actions.

Like I said, this is the last stronghold of American values.

I just think it is worthwhile to be aware that going through life in morbid fear of something as uncertain and vague and meaningless as the never-defined ideal of “appropriateness” or its dreaded absence is simply un-American. We the People used to charge into the wasteland bringing Civilization to the heathen, and now we are sunk to the level of saying ‘excuse me’ to strangers twice on every aisle of the grocery store, and never speaking our minds freely for fear of unwittingly stepping over some invisible line and committing the unspeakable shame of inappropriateness. It is just a sorry state of affairs.

As I indicated earlier, this is a choke hold, a throttling of society. Non-existent people on television and in movies can cuss like saints, boldly go, fight the future, murder with a license, and commit any other inappropriateness they want to, while all we real folks can do is watch, wishing we too were fictional and thus free to live our lives on our own terms.

When this crappy little low-grade state of constant fear works its way into a classroom, it chokes creativity, enthusiasm, and learning itself. Every assignment is sure to get a good grade if the student just repeats some vague, insincere, but unquestionably middle-of-the-road mantra that is itself rooted in a crappy little low-grade fear of being inappropriate or needing to be excused.

You can’t get students to write anything interesting until you first convince them that it is okay to say what they really think, in any words that will get across the idea or at least hint at what they have in mind. If you can ever persuade students that the world is not flat and proper, that they can take some risks out there on the edge of appropriateness without falling off, if you can get them to think and speak freely, your classroom can become gloriously relaxed and enjoyable. Instead of a room full of strangers who are unsure what they are supposed to say, you get real cooperation, idea-sharing, and peer reviews that actually mean something useful, instead of just squeaky little recitations of vapid politeness and barely-concealed disinterest.

This is the sort of teaching that strikes fear in the heart of politicians and old-school administrators. Their moribund imaginations see evil forces at work. They envision old episodes of Welcome Back Kotter gone horribly wrong, The Fonz facing a lawsuit, or Officer Tom Hanson out of work, homeless, on the street. All their worst nightmares haunt them at the thought of teachers openly encouraging students to risk inappropriateness without at least requiring them to say “excuse me.” But I am convinced this is the only way back to real democracy and the American Way.