12.28.2013 09:55 AM

A new amorality?

Not quite. The headline on Stephen Maher’s column, here, bears little relation to what I think he’s saying.

There’s no “new amorality at the heart of public life.” That’s ridiculous. Any of the politicians I know have been shocked by Rob Ford’s crack-smoking, heroin-using, drunk-driving, wife-humiliating ways. They are all, to a one, angry and appalled by Crackhead Mayor. They’re not amoral.

It’s not our political culture that is amoral; if you read what he says, Maher lays the blame elsewhere. He says “our new online media culture is amoral.” He suggests that, now that people are their own news editors, they suddenly have started clicking stories about the Kardashians, not Kafka.

I don’t think he’s quite right about that. There’s nothing new about peoples’ enthusiasm for Rob Ford’s antecedents. They’ve been lining up to see horrible people, and horrible stuff, for a long time: in the Roman coliseum, in the circus freak show, in the old black-and-white National Enquirer – and in the TV reality shows, where bearded racists and homophobes are made into stars.

And, as is well-known, they line up at NFL games to get their picture taken with Rob Ford. They do it for the same reasons they always have: they can’t tear their eyes away from freaks and failures. It’s in their, our, nature.

Rob Ford is a circus freak, just like the bearded lady and the Siamese Twins and the three-legged man were freaks. They’re not necessarily buying tickets to approve of Ford and the other freaks. They’re buying tickets to get close, and even to get the opportunity to mock him.

Is that amoral? Maybe.

Mostly, it says more about the people in the line-up – that is to say, us – than it does about Rob Ford, doesn’t it?

7 Comments

  1. BarbaraH says:

    I find you politically amoral; but that’s your political calling card….”have gun will travel”.

  2. Yes the media is what it’s always been and to me that’s why the relatively few, brave reporters over the decades make such an impact. To me one of the sadder truths is the lack of attention given to those in the media that have died reporting on conflicts.

    It’s in our nature to be attracted to the circus shows, high and low among us are not immune. We can only hope that it too will pass.

  3. doris says:

    ” Any of the politicians I know have been shocked by Rob Ford’s crack-smoking, heroin-using, drunk-driving, wife-humiliating ways. They are all, to a one, angry and appalled by Crackhead Mayor. They’re not amoral.”

    If that is the case Warren why haven’t any prominent politicians condemned him? I have only ever heard Jason Kenney call for his resignation, the others are egging him on by the complicitous silence or mildly criticising him with weasel words. In reality by lowering the bar for all politicians faced with ethical problems it is much easier to ignore lapses of judgment if the other guy did it first.

  4. Walter Ego says:

    Geez Warren, you could at least have given Maher credit for one of the better barbs from our current commentariat. He observed that McLuhan’s Global Village was now largely established thanks to the internet, and in Rob Ford the village now has its idiot.

    Now, honestly, don’t you wish you had come up with that?

    Me too.

  5. david ray says:

    can’t see what isn’t shown. can’t hear what isn’t known. can’t feel what isn’t sown. ignore and you’ll be left alone.

  6. VC says:

    The usage of ‘amoral’ seems misapplied; it suggests that there is no moral order in public life, especially in the case of Mayor McCrackhead. But, all along, much of the substance of discussions about Ford’s drug use, etc., has been underpinned by moral judgement of his behaviour. You can’t say, then, that public life is without morals, that it is ‘amoral’.

  7. Ken in Toronto says:

    First, Rob Ford isn’t amoral. He holds his beliefs fiercely, and if you go by the people who have been helped by him or his office, I’m certain they’d state that he is a more ‘moral’ politician than the rest of council. The big problem with Rob Ford is that he lacks the ‘shame’ gene. He is constitutionally incapable of feeling shame for bad behaviour. The public revelations and the circus around them are annoyances to his Worship, not something to step down over.

    His other flaws – an unsophisticated, self-indulgent boor, total lack of vision for Toronto, and completely out of his depth as mayor, but hey, who among us is perfect?

    But amorality is alive and well, in the bloodless heart of the Conservative party. It was they who put their weight and peerless election blitzkreig into action for Rob Ford, once their bean-counters determined that he was mathematically electable. This, despite Ford’s questionable behaviour already known to insiders.

    I suppose the other parties would be less concerned with character and principles too, if they could have an election juggernaut as efficient as that of the Conservatives.

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