Ed Rendell and American Wussification
30 December 2010
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has been making headlines. The NFL’s decision on Monday to postpone the Eagles-Vikings game because of snow
stood for, well, everything that ails us.
“We’ve become a nation of wusses,” Rendell declared. “The Chinese are kicking
our butt in everything. If this was in China do you think they would have
called off the game? People would have walked down to the stadium doing calculus on the way.”
His throw-away line made it to NBC and BBC news, and created quite a stir.
Pre-wussification, the theory goes, we were an economic powerhouse. Then we decided to sheathe our
little princes and princesses in bubble wrap. Now we give them graduation ceremonies
for getting through nursery school, and a trophy just for showing up at soccer.
We’ve removed play from the playground to keep them from scraping a knee. If
anything goes wrong we call the lawyers and sue for millions.
The Chinese economy has long been kicking our butt, now their school kids are
wearing boots too. Just this month, U.S. education officials were surprised by
an OECD report showing students in China outperforming American kids by a wide
margin in reading, math and science.
A wuss, they say, is half wimp, half puss. It's not just the five minute
attention span, it's the inability to put down the mirror and think about
something other than oneself. American kids used to grow up like
Martin Luther and laugh at the Marie Antoinette French. Now we've gone Britney
Spears and China's laughing.
So
Rendell's comments have ignited debate. One journalist asked an audience if the
nanny state has gone too far. Everyone said yes. Give us something more manly
they cried. Obama on steroids? You can't turn a tabby cat into a tiger they
laughed.
An Asian member of the audience suggested suspending democracy and imposing some disciplined Chinese paternal authoritarianism. There was a
deafening silence, then it dawned on them - we're screwed.