Webb: Culture shock and effect

Let’s take a break from tax policy, health-care reform, DACA, border security, foreign policy and the matrix of issues that face the country. 

Many Americans have partial conversations about culture and where we are going as a country now and what the future looks like, especially when it comes to our younger generation. Even this article is only a partial conversation, however, I’d like to frame a number of issues and hope that by connecting these dots you begin to take a deeper look and a more contextual assessment of one of the great dangers to our society.

You have these conversations with your family, your friends, your neighbors and even with yourself in your thoughts or maybe out loud while driving down the road. But how often do we actively engage in addressing and working to fix some of these issues wherever they arise?

{mosads}This is not to say we should ignore politics, which is often what I write about, but in fact politics is a part of this because at some point a politician or political party will play into or with these issues in some form to achieve the goal of having more voters for their perspective.

The late Andrew Breitbart was known for stating that politics is downstream from pop culture. In many ways, he was absolutely correct.

Lets examine some cultural failures and cultural norms for what they really are. 

GOP lawmaker Tim Murphy to resign

A Republican lawmakers who is a member of the pro-life caucus had to resign because he told a woman with whom he was alleged to have an affair to have an abortion. The abortion request in this story is secondary to the primary failure of someone who claims moral high ground. The foundation of the story is that he violated his marital oath. 

Another high-profile sexual predator 

Harvey Weinstein, an alleged sexual predator, has been attacking women in some form, and maybe even questionably to some degree, until you listen to the undercover audio captured by NYPD in 2015 of him with Filipina-Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez.

Hollywood-based feminism unravels for some in the A-list crowd and it’s doing the same for the politicians. In this case, it’s happening in the Democratic Party. Aren’t they the great defenders of women’s rights? 

Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), the former Democratic vice presidential nominee, when asked about returning the money Weinstein gave to the campaign says the campaign is over and the money is spent. In fact, they have $1 million left in their campaign bank account. 

Former Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, now on a book tour, didn’t denounce or divorce her husband for his known activities so why expect her to denounce Weinstein and return the money he donated. 

Designer Donna Karan defends Weinstein, stating essentially that the women may have asked for it. And where are these great feminists and actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jules Lee and Ashley Gerard and some lesser known who were alleged victims and knew for years what he was doing?

Cultural myth versus genesis 

How North Face became a part of the hood and an origin in the drug sales arena. What happened in part is that drug dealers sold to rich white kids, many who pay with their jackets. Poor people selling drugs didn’t suddenly have the money to buy expensive jackets that cost hundreds of dollars. Some rap artists and the culture propagate this further and we accept an origin in drug sales. 

Saggy pants and the jail cell. My law enforcement friends simply call them easy to catch. When processed into a jail cell at any level the police remove your belts and anything else that can be used to harm the prisoner or someone else. This exits the jail cell, enters the community, becomes popularized in music and imagery and now across all who are left in the cities it is common place. 

Butt implants are the norm for many in the Kardashian culture but it really started with fast food and a song. As a result of poor diet options and practices, obesity and the growing derrière that comes with it became a problem in the music video era. The song “Baby got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot glorifies this and fast forward to the implants of today. Aren’t we really celebrating obesity and creating a potential problem from this growing cottage industry down the road? 

So what do we do?

Too many in America and around the world have assigned a greater social value to performers in the entertainment industry who are not held to the standard that matches their given social stature. How many more times do they have to let society down before accountability is demanded?

It’s often asked why you can’t fix stupid and why the culture war is bigger and more important than is often talked about. 

If we don’t understand the roots of cultural norms and practices, then it’s easy for negative imagery with an often negative real world effect to permeate through our society. 

If members of our society — sometimes dominant percentages of certain groups — continue to glorify what they do not understand or choose to not investigate, we will see the continued degradation of our culture to the detriment of our nation.

Webb is host of “The David Webb Show” on SiriusXM Patriot ’25, a Fox News contributor and a frequent television commentator. His column appears twice a month in The Hill.