On Sentimentalism






Every day I ride past a fire station with a large flagpole outside, and more often than not, the flags are at half-staff.  What used to be reserved for heads of state and people who actually made a difference like Neil Armstrong is now used for people like Michael Jackson. A meaningless, hollow tribute with as much societal impact as the white crosses that mark the point on the road where someone died.  More and more those flags bifurcate the poles on which they fly, and I have to search my mind for a reason.



Half-Staff? Really?



“Who died?” I say to myself.

America has become a nation of weepers. We cry at the drop of a hat anytime a sad emotion rears its head. The tears well, right on cue, when the music begins to swell and the manufactured scene of the down-on-his-luck immigrant working for chump change gets a petty scholarship from his white millionaire boss to attend university. We cry for all of those who died in the massacre of the week, even though we didn’t know them.  What used to be a proud, stoic nation has become a nation of emotional, simpering buffoons.

Mourning is now a spectator sport and the period goes on longer than siting Shiva.  I first noticed this upon the death of Princess Diana. People the world over, and people I knew, were devastated at her death. It’s as if Christ had returned only to be hit by a Guiness truck. The flowers, the adoration the outward mourning for someone so completely disconnected from the everyday life of her followers… it was odd and amazing.  After that, I started to notice the candlelight vigils and the pop-up shrines for everyone from gunshot victims, shaken babies and others, many of whom died violently.  When 9/11 hit, the cult of mourning became mainstream.  For several years, it seemed that no program on NBC would go by without mentioning 9/11. The cult of mourning later morphed into a cult of Heroism and Jingoism , but that can wait until later.

We now wear all kinds of ephemera dedicated to someone or something to show our sentimentalism. The highways are littered with white crosses and  we make sure we mark the anniversary of every little sad thing (especially if it happens in New York). Like the English of the Victorian era, we have developed a new set of elaborate rituals and memento mori so that we never forget. We romanticize certain deaths and bring in the old cant of the good death. Unfortunately this clinging sentiment doesn’t serve our best interests.



Hello, I'm a fucking idjit!



Sentimentalism is about more than death. It’s about not living life. Sentimentalism chains us to a rock of sentiment and emotion we drag behind us. We no longer look to reason to solve our problems, we look at our feelings. We seek out grief counselors for the most tangential of accidents.  We call the pastor whenever we have a sad thought.  Sentimentalism supports the phantasms of modern life. It creates a world where the helpless individual manipulated by the Gods is celebrated. Sentimentalism is Forrest Gump, the celebration of heart over stupidity. (Let’s face it, the guy was as dumb as a bag of hammers, yet he was celebrated for his plain speaking wisdom.) Sentimentalism mistakes ignorance for folk wisdom and elevates it to a level of pure reason.

Sentimentalism is easy. It allows us to feel the edges of our mortal coil. It provides a weird comfort knowing that someone else is dead and not us. The whole concept is about losing control and letting go.

I’m not saying that all emotions are bad, I’m merely saying that the extreme to which this has gone is counterproductive. In my mind, the ability to compartmentalize and prioritize our emotions has been just as important to the West’s success as the Protestant Work Ethic. You can’t run a country based on emotions, and unfortunately that’s where we are headed.