Someone's Ruining America, And We're Pretty Sure It's You
Not to get all self-referential, but we couldn't help noticing an article in Sunday's Week in Review that blamed the coarsening of standards in American public life on a combination of Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Richards, O.J. Simpson, Britney's vag, and, uh, us:
Gawker.com, a gossip Web site, ran an item last week on Al Goldstein, the pornography king, who joked he owned enough Ambien to kill himself. A reader wrote in, saying he had tried to commit suicide and asking what would constitute a lethal dose? The site polled readers on how it should respond, under the title "Crossing the Line: Gawker Suicide Service."
In an e-mail message, Chris Mohney, Gawker's managing editor, explained "we were revulse-amused enough to run the letter, with some expectation of negative reaction, but we got very little." In several dozen responses, Gawker got advice on suicide instead. In a subsequent posting, the Web site told readers, "take the whole bottle."
"There's so much tolerance of boundary-breaking," said Noel Carroll, a professor of the humanities at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Is it true? Could we really be the guilty party in the crudification of the American psyche? The Times also suggests that "When the public says, "Don't take me there," that might be exactly where it wants to go," so it may actually be your fault. After the jump, we apportion blame.
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Also, we're pretty sure "revulse-amused" is not a word in any language.
