Return of the Grownup

As they say, “Big, if true.” 

Coming of age in South Carolina, I noticed the different ways people pronounced “adult.” It was a tight spectrum. On one end were the people who pronounced it “AH-dult,” with an almost Bostonian nasality to the stressed short “a” sound. The effect was similar to hearing something hit the floor hard on one edge, then falling over with a soft thud. People who talked like this tended to be varying degrees of smug, pretentious and condescending, as opposed to those who sounded the word as “uh-DULT” or like the word “addled” with a hard “t” in place of the final “d.” 

This came to mind as I listened to a young man tell me about a writer and public speaker whose line “clean your room” is often mocked in the media. The words “adult” or “grownup” never came up, but this is precisely what it’s about. We’re going on two generations of children who haven’t had to do anything in the line of chores, or even basic self-maintenance. After all this time, they finally hear a reason for why they’re supposed to make up their beds, for why they must pick up after themselves, other than, “Because I said so/ I will have your father inflict physical violence upon you if you don’t.” 

Order begets order. “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” It’s a shame that adults of the past felt the need to assert their authority  over explaining to their children why we did all those chores in the first place. I see a lot of blame for the destruction of the “family unit,” but take it from someone who grew up on the bubble of working class/ extreme lower-middle class in 1970s South Carolina: most of the families I knew, and mine especially, weren’t models of anything we wanted to emulate. 

It never fails to appall this former believer when I reflect how many times I heard 1 Corinthians 13  read aloud—and it seemed not one damned believer understood what was said. However you translate that key word, there was very little done for charity or love. It was all done because someone else made you do it,  and told you to like it.

Many of us upon growing up didn’t have the heart to treat our children thus, myself included. Most of us on the bubble of the working-class, lower middle-class in South Carolina didn’t remember our parents and grandparents as happy people. It made no sense to want to live like them, doing things because I done tole you to, that’s why.

Mom and Dad may have lived together but it was clear they barely tolerated each other. Cultural influences surely didn’t help, but in many regards the family unit did a fine job of destroying itself.  

Main Street Monte Vista by stormlight. I love the apocalyptic vibe here, but don’t miss the rainbow over the Dairy Queen at left.

I follow several traditional art pages on Facebook, and while I share the admins’ disgust with the debased aesthetics of art and architecture post-World War I, I would add that there were good reasons the public was so willing to throw over beauty and skill for style and attitude. Namely, there were no reasons to keep it.

The great cathedrals weren’t built for peasants like them or myself. Those lovely, imposing edifices were no more than lovely, imposing reminders that we were ruled. Most of my fellow peasants understood this at a most basic level, even if they didn’t think in those precise terms. All these nice paintings and buildings and whatnot were for the consumption of the Good People. Those very same people working us long hours for low wages and even less respect.

I would clarify that it was not contempt with which traditional aesthetics were cast off. It was indifference. Most people reject the tangles of metal that pass for modern sculpture as ugly and pointless, but they seem strangely apropos in front of the glass-paneled skyscrapers where they’re generally found. Who is that guy on the horse in the park to them?

Yes, it’s a shame they’re taking all the representational art down, erasing history, and so on. But no one feels so connected to that history that they’re willing to fight for it. Why should they? I repeat: Who is that guy on the horse in the park to them? What do they owe him?

From left to right, the respective flags of fast food franchises, CGI-infused Hollywood extravaganzas, etc.; and yuppie mountaineers, deluxe snow skiing, legal marijuana. For most people, that is. Your mileage may vary.

A case could be made for the practicality of our contemporaries. Yes, we miss the good old days when painters could paint realistically and with an unabashed bias for beauty, when even the working class houses had a certain charm, certainly more than the haze-gray, slat-sided boxes with no windows on one side, but what are you going to do? Choosing the practical attitude over one informed by sentimental longing is a definitively adult position. “Reals before feels,” as some might put it.

I’ll call it right here, then: what we’re suffering from is a perverse form of “adulthood” as framed by lazy people. Most people are, in case you haven’t noticed.

This big, charmless block of concrete with slits for windows is a medical clinic. We know this because someone was kind enough to have MEDICAL CLINIC installed in big, raised steel letters on the side. As a practical matter from the perspective of a functioning elder adult, they have a fine staff (they diagnosed my cancer) and I’m grateful they’re there.

Back to my original point of curiosity, that some young men are expressing interest in motivational speakers who encourage them to bring order to their rooms, and by extension, their lives....well, let’s hope a lot more young men catch on to the message. Of particular note is these men boast of their accomplishments online, from new personal bests in physical training to books read, while “hiding their power levels” among the “normies.” On one hand, one is led to wonder how many of these posters on the chan boards are telling the truth versus plumping their curricula vitae. On the other, many may simply be exaggerating while still doing better than most, while the great majority lurks—and lift weights, reads, and meditates to set themselves apart from common herd-animal humanity.

They’re keeping their talk within their peer groups. No one need suspect anything...unless someone takes notice someone is healthier, fitter, and far more focused. Which could happen. These days, the most obvious rebels are the ones who aren’t fat and out of shape, who don’t have tattoos, piercings, or grotesque ear gauges, who dress neatly and carry themselves well. In short, as young men were expected to be 60 years ago.

We have indeed come to a point in which everything old is new again. Again, I don’t know how widespread this general trend is, or whether it will go beyond chan board/ underground status. It’s a piece of good news, though, so I’ll take it.

All photographs Copyright © 2019 Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved.