Community Is An Endangered Species And Superman Is A Hipster

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Today there are fewer and fewer communal associations.  You’re told not to be part of what anyone else is doing, go toot your own horn, march to your own drummer.  You need to be an individual first.  You’re not a member of anything.  No, we’re all Facebooking, Twittering, and pursuing our individualism, our radical autonomy all as individual little atoms totally free from any attachment whatsoever to the rest of humanity, other than the fact that we’re human.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Debbie Schlussel: I just wanted to point out one last thing.  Man of Steel is coming out soon, the new Superman movie.  Mid-June it’s coming out, June 16^th, I believe.  If you notice, the trailers for it are very, very dark.  What I didn’t like is, the uniform of Superman, it’s not even red and white.  This is kind of like the last Superman —

Mike:  It’s maroon and indigo.

Debbie:  Exactly.  This one is not even indigo.  It’s almost a black and a rusty maroon, even darker.  I’m sorry, but Superman had the colors of the American flag.  Maybe the blue was a little brighter and more comic book blue than American flag blue, but it had a patriotic uniform, the original Superman.  Now we’ve morphed into this dark, nationless, non-American Superman.  It kind of bothers me and I don’t like it.

Mike:  He was a strange visitor from another planet.

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Debbie:  But when Kal-El comes to America, he becomes Clark Kent and he’s Superman for America.  He’s not just dark, muddy, black/blue — it just bothers me.

Mike:  But Deb, we are dark and muddy and dark blue these days.  They’re just making a character that is representative of the hipsters that are going to go to the theater and watch the film.

Debbie:  By the way, hipsters are Obama supporters big time.  They are Obamabots.  They are very, very liberal, as most gentry are.

Mike:  They’ve been socialized that way.  That’s the way they’re brought up.  I have to tell you, when we talk about all these hipsters and the hats and uniforms and get-ups and all that stuff, when I watch the antics when CNN will roll video in the morning and show the antics of Justin Bieber on stage or whoever was glamming up for the cameras.  It is all so . . . the narcissism, the self-absorption – there’s only one person that exists on earth at any point in time, and that is the person that’s got the bling.  That’s the person that’s got the hat or the microphone or the latest tats on his forearms.  No one else need apply.  There’s no community.  I don’t even think there’s any civilization anymore.

Robert Nisbet wrote a book in the 1950s.  This is before even the Beatles, probably at the time Elvis Presley is debuting.  The book is called The Quest for Community.  There’s a new issue of it out.  Ross Douthat wrote the introduction for it.  It’s a really good book.  It’s well worth anyone that’s listening to read.  I’ve only read half of it.  Nisbet’s basic point is that all throughout the history of man, man has sought association or community.  He says: What do you think Elks lodges were?  What do you think the Knights of Columbus were?  Even abolition societies back in the 1800s and what have you, these were all communal associations.

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Today there are fewer and fewer communal associations.  You’re told not to be part of what anyone else is doing, go toot your own horn, march to your own drummer.  You need to be an individual first.  You’re not a member of anything.  You’re not a member of a congregation of a church, not a member of a group of workers that goes out and does the Lord’s charity work or anything like that.  You’re not a member of a group or club or organization that has specific activities unless you just happen to be on a sporting team.  No, we’re all Facebooking, Twittering, and pursuing our individualism, our radical autonomy all as individual little atoms totally free from any attachment whatsoever to the rest of humanity, other than the fact that we’re human.

What you’re describing to me is just the logical result of that.  I don’t know how to cure that.  I don’t know that there is a cure for that, other than for societal collapse and anarchy to take over, for people to maybe become apprised that maybe this isn’t so smart.  Maybe we should stop with all this: You can be whatever you want to be and you must be your own self and your own individual.  No, maybe it’s actually a good thing to be part of, I don’t want to say a collective, but to be a part of a community, a group of people known for doing good things.  It just doesn’t seem like, when you talk about these things and people that are in these movies, it seems to me that they’re just living out and the previous 50 years was all set up for this. Hell, maybe the previous 70 years was all a setup for this.  Welcome to 2013.  I don’t think anything is going to change anytime soon.

Debbie:  Sadly, Mike, you’re right.  I agree with you 100 percent.  We don’t even have common experiences at all anymore.  When I was a kid — I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have all these choices; choices are great.  When I was a kid, there were three channels on TV.  Everybody in the morning would say: Did you see Happy Days?  Not that that was a great collective experience, but we all saw the same shows.

Mike:  [mocking The Fonz] “Ehh!”

Debbie:  That’s right, Mike Fonzerelli Church.  You’re cool like that.  The thing was, people all saw the same shows, learned the same things, the same patriotism.  Now they’re not learning that in schools, they’re not seeing the same things.  We don’t have shared common values.  Plus, we have a lot of interlopers coming from other countries that we don’t force to absorb into American culture.

Mike:  What culture?  What culture would you have them adapt?  Name it.  Show it to me.  Where is it?

Debbie:  You’re right.

Mike:  Even if you’re a resident of a state, you’re told: Fly the American flag over the state flag because it’s a law.  And union for what purpose, so I can pay taxes?  So I can have an army go invade people in strange lands that I can’t even point to on a map?  Debbie, I’ve got to go, but thank you very much for the thrilling conversation.  It’s the best one I’ve had all day, thank you.

Debbie:  Thank you, Mike, have a great weekend.

Mike:  You, too, my dear, you, too.

End Mike Church Show Transcript