Sophisticated Society

Published November 4, 1990 in North Shore Sunday.

H.L. Mencken liked to call Americans of his day the booboisie, meaning these inferior beings weren't nearly as sophisticated (read cynical and elitist) as Mencken was.

But today, the American booboisie has evolved into a class of super-Menckens, a kind of shrewdoisie, a sophisticated people with a Menckenesque sense of superiority who view the world with the cool reserve of a biologist analyzing some lower life form through a microscope.  Mencken would be proud.

As a small example, most major highways in Massachusetts still have a 55 mph speed limit.  But only those people with a serious sophistication deficiency actually plod along at 55.

Sophisticates know the posted 55 mph limit really means it's ok for them to drive at 65 or 70 mph.  If the state really wanted to enforce a 55 mph limit, sophisticates say, it would post a speed limit of 45.  If you're having trouble understanding this logic, better break out your Mencken Chrestomathy (but not while you're driving – no one's that sophisticated).

One way our society likes to flaunt its sophistication is by inviting women journalists into men's locker rooms after professional sporting events.  The unsophisticated booboisie of Mencken's day would never have allowed such a scandalous breach of sexual propriety.  The slaughter of millions during the Great War they could accept as a normal consequence of life, but women catching the great Bambino in the buff?  Never.

Today, society isn't about to let mere centuries of sexual baggage get in the way of something as important as sports.  Americans are much too sophisticated to worry about whether athletes might be uncomfortable having women present in locker rooms.  Of course, polite, sophisticated observers simply don't inquire why the rules aren't the same for women's locker rooms.  You see, being sophisticated means never having to say the same thing out of both sides of your mouth.

Politics is where Americans need every bit of their sophistication.  Take George Bush (the truly sophisticated would not say 'please' here, although they might think it).  There are people who can look you straight in the eye and claim they knew he was lying when he said READ MY LIPS – NO NEW TAXES, yet they still voted for him.  If you know people like this, give thanks and cling to them.  They are sophisticates supreme and they shall inherit the earth.

And how's this for an example of sophisticated thinking?  The problem: political assassinations fell out of favor during the 70s, resulting in an executive order prohibiting them.  The solution: sophisticates decided it's ok for the government to kill someone as long as it kills a good number of other people along with the real target.  This way, it's not an assassination, it's a military operation.  (Unmoved?  Congratulations – lack of outrage is a prerequisite for entry into the sophisticates' Hall of Fame.)

There are those in the computer world who call such a sophisticated solution elegant.  But if you're the type who worries about the innocent people who are killed in the process, you are doomed to remain forever unsophisticated.

And then there is Operation Desert Shield.  President Bush draws a line in the sand without missing a stroke of his golf game, and puts over a hundred thousand troops in harm's way while whooping it up in his speedboat and burning fuel with reckless abandon.  If the scenario had been a subplot on Twin Peaks, it would have been more unbelievable than Agent Cooper's cosmic clues.

Sure, lip service was paid to protecting lawful governments and personal liberties (even though the governments involved are hardly democracies and the liberties don't include such frills as a free press or the freedom for women to drive a car), but President Bush captured the imaginations of sophisticates everywhere by coming right out and stating the real reason our forces are ready to fight: the price of oil.

As Americans learned in the 70s, the American way of life depends on cheap oil, and that is why we are on the edge of war today.  But there is a simpler, more sophisticated solution.  The problem: we sent troops to the Middle East to keep Hussein from raising the price of oil, but the oil companies raised the price anyway.  The solution: don't attack Iraq, attack the oil companies – at least, regulate them to the point where their greed can't harm our economy again.

Well, I guess there's such a thing as being too sophisticated.