Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle became the talk of the Internet on both sides of the Atlantic following her surprising appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent,” when she stepped on stage with her frumpy appearance and middle-aged spread and wowed audience and judges alike with her singing voice. But what if she didn’t have talent, asks Carol Platt Liebau, a Los Angeles-based attorney, political analyst and commentator. “What would have happened if her singing had been as undistinguished – as laughable, even – as her appearance and demeanor led the “Britain’s Got Talent” audience to expect? And what should have happened?” begs Liebau.
Most likely Boyle would have been ridiculed, because such terrible behavior—“the darkness in the human heart”—still resides within us all despite the efforts of political correctness to tamp down this part of humanity. That is the problem with the “PC” crowd, Liebau insists, and its determination to shun that which is racist, sexist or homophobic without addressing the source of such ugliness.
“Using political correctness as a moral compass designed to inject some civility into a secular world may protect individual members of certain designated-victim groups,” she writes. “But in contrast to the Judeo-Christian creed, it offers little guidance about what is due each and every individual, simply because she is a human being entitled to basic dignity – yes, even when she’s not bursting with youth, beauty or riches. Especially then.”
The case of Susan Boyle reminds Liebau of a passage from Jane Austen’s Emma, where George Knightley rebukes Emma for her disrespectful treatment of a good-hearted but “rather foolish old maid,” telling her: “Her situation should secure your compassion.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Comments