Argh! The Pain Of It All!

How fareth this world in which we live? At least the little corner of the world that we inhabit in this most fortunate of countries, of continents, where most of the residents can live in peace alongside one another, never having known war within living memory, in the confines of their boundaries. Where the rule of law ensures public and personal safety. Where people generally are cognizant of the need to accept others' differences. Where egalitarianism rules.

Where a signal amount of inclusiveness indicates the order of society at large, where immigrants are welcomed, women and other-gendered citizens are as entitled as old white males, where children have available quality education, and most people are gainfully employed. Where society sees fit to help those less fortunate, and where, at least within Canada, a universal health care system is alive and well, despite our simmering below-surface discontent.

So, what do we engage with, in our society of material surfeit and consumer-fed frenzies of having it all? Quality of life, North-American style. Which is to say style as in Style. Which is to translate as fruitcake priorities and values. To gain a perspective on the Things That Matter, here is a passing glance at Q & A in the social advice columns:

Here's a question that rounds out nicely the things that matter from a writer who identified (him/her/it?)self as president of an association that signed on a guest speaker for their annual convention. He/she explained that, seated next to the guest - a female medical doctor - it was horrifying beyond description to witness the woman's disgusting table manners. Holding her bread in her hand to butter it...placing elbows on the table while eating...slurping soup and speaking with full mouth. What to do in such a situation? Answer: Report this unwholesome conduct to the speakers' bureau; optionally do not re-invite her. Such behaviour is not to be countenanced nor condoned in a civil society.

What is our world being reduced to? I'll warrant the offended writer, male or female, will never be faced with a situation where an emergency operation, skilfully executed, saves someone's life. There is obviously no honour in attending to the health needs of a community, but much shame in committing social gaffes.

Puzzling: was she buttering the bread or her hand? Was this paragon of witless discernment complaining that the elbows would have been put to better use juggling knife and fork? Did the soup-slurp cause a gag reaction? Was the complainer monopolizing the doctor's attention beyond endurance through constant personal medical queries which finally caused the doctor to protest and ask for peace, mouth full of distaste?

Another weekly column that never fails to raise one's value-hackles is one concentrating on dress styles of the in-crowd. On this occasion a young woman labeled as the CEO of "Creative Class Group" (whatever that is), photographed smilingly posed within a soulless interior wearing a large-print abstract, thigh-high dress with short sleeves and plunging neckline. The outfit is complemented with a clunky necklace and stiletto-heeled calf-tall black boots.

The dress was purchased from Saks Fifth Avenue, and it and the other elements of the poseur's "style" are all expensive labels: "I was thrilled when I found this dress...getting ready to go my brother's wedding in Laguna Beach. I needed something worthy of L.A. style. I would also feel comfortable - if I added a pair of tights - wearing this to a corporate event." Certainly not down-market, but most certainly a result of overweening pride passing as style-savvy.

Shopping at any local Salvation Army Thrift Shop would reveal any number of more suitable dress outfits, and perhaps the sales staff there would even be happy to give free advice to this fashion-challenged woman being touted as a leader of fashion. Her mother was the biggest fashion influence in her life, a woman with six children who "would get dressed up and be in full makeup - even if just to go to the grocery store".

Flawless values to pass on to one's offspring. This woman reminisced about how she and her siblings were so particular about their outfits they would each lock their clothes closets against one another's predations. Woe betide the sister who would ever be seen in public clothed in an outfit another of the sisters had earlier worn. Vapid, vacuous minds, quite beyond redemption.

(It's pointless to go into a moral tirade about starving children elsewhere on the globe, with mothers suffering the worst kind of indignities begging for the wherewithal to feed their young.) Another column speaks of red embossed toilet paper: "all the rage in nightclubs and hotels. Ordering these coloured and embossed loo rolls is the ultimate in luxury shopping...($10.40 for three rolls).

Wait! We're not done here... Here's another timely article putting some perspective on self-involvement and hedonistically mind-boggling pursuits and personal detachment. Sex toys. "The ladies are focused on physical pleasure, favouring disembodied phalloi that have all the romance of a belt sander. An increasing number of men, meanwhile, are buying realistic dolls whom they name and give tender bubble baths, then sit together on the sofa watching television."

Is this an element of society worth a second's notice?