Where else would we get this?
Flag lapel pins should not be mandatory for US politicians. They should not be mandatory for anyone. They should not be the product of social pressure. They should not be understood to reflect on anyone's resolution to care more, or call upon the public to acknowledge how much more they appear to care. There is nothing wrong with a flag lapel pin, although I would not wear one regularly unless I were in the flag lapel pin manufacturing business. But we have got to make ourselves admit that the lapel pin is a tacky little thing that is only ennobled by the flag put on it, and that the more patriotic work you want the flag to do, the more the flag is actually diminished by its puny size and the cheapness of the tin it's pressed upon.On the plus side, as refreshing as it would be to see politicians actually drape themselves in jewel-bestudded sashes of red, white, and blue, in only a few moments everyone would have one, patriotism would fuse with fashion, and instead of mandatory tacky little things we would swim in a creped-up sea of tacky enormous things. The best the lapel pin can say for itself is that so far it has shown no signs of slyly getting any larger.
The real problem with flag lapel pins is that they are atrocious kitsch, but no one in the public eye is allowed to openly declare them kitsch, and to declare themselves enemies of kitsch.
Because doing so would make them elitist.
So we are all to be held prisoner to the most hideous taste, because like a clever little meme trying to maximize its survivability, the bad taste items have hidden themselves under the rock of patriotic association.
There is an entire phylla of bad taste items - yellow ribbon magnets for cars, the song "I'm proud to be an American", the last nine of ten GM ad campaigns, etc. - that are hiding under patriotic rocks.
I'll vote for anyone who comes decked out for a debate like Apollo Creed in the first "Rocky" movie.
If we make them mandatory, then we can stop talking about what they mean. It'll just be another FEC regulation. This will free up valuable time to talk about relative virility.
Well, flag-lapel-pin-wearing code is, like flag code, a social rather than a legal code. Therefore, like any social code it is extremely complex, situationally dependent, and unforgiving.
The guidelines for US flag display and treatment provide you with a safe way to non-verbally communicate to others that either you respect the flag, or that you respect another's devotion to the flag. That is, they allow you to avoid giving offense unintentionally. They do not lay out a set of rules intended to establish innocence or guilt.
That does not mean that social codes are less important than legal codes. Get caught burning a flag, and your chances of a successful political career are significantly diminished. Get caught in a misdemeanor or even felony criminal act with less of a social stigma, and you have much less to worry.
My reaction to flag lapel pins is Matthew 6:5:
"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."
Brian,
Kitsch is also situationally dependent. Different sectors of society find different things kitschy.
An interesting thing about kitsch is that for an object to be kitschy, it must have strong emotional value to some societal group. That group may even admit that the object is kitschy, while maintaining the strong emotional attachment.
AIDS awareness ribbons, US flag lapel pins, religious figurines...Are there any exceptions to this rule? Even black velvet paintings of Elvis qualify, I think.
Another observation: Is there any societal group that does not have its kitsch?
Richard,
And you can bet that if Senator Obama wants to "have his reward" (here on earth, in 2008), he would be well advised to get a flag pin on his lapel whenever he might "be seen of men".
Sweet Lou,
Although I have all sorts of aesthetic problems with the items I listed, I don't think I'm relying on an aesthetic [and thus subjective and situational] definition of kitsch.
To me an item becomes kitsch as soon as it is employed in a calculated manner to attempt to reproduce the positive feelings once associated with the image when it was deployed spontaneously.
To give you an example, the concept of the "yellow ribbon" arose when millions of Americans spontaneously tied yellow ribbons around trees in their yard as a gesture of solidarity with the US hostages in Iran. This was done as a pop culture joke referencing a top 40 song by Tony Orlando and Dawn. Because of its spontaneity, this employment of yellow ribbons was not kitsch.
The problem is that this use of yellow ribbons created the association "ribbon = support", and also "ribbon = reminds us of nice event where Americans got together in genuine good feeling", and since that time calculating persons have attempted to mine those two associations. It's the artifice that makes it kitsch. We're three decades removed from the spontaneous use of the yellow ribbon, and well into a phase where assmeblers of junk are hovering around at all times ready to sell a new yellow ribbon [now in magnet form] for a new cause. Blech.
The flag lapel pin became kitsch the moment the first person put it on while thinking, "If I don't wear this people will think I am not patriotic."
Etcetera.
I'm always reminded of "the glorious loyalty oath crusade" from Catch-22 when things like the "lapel-pin scandal" pop up.
Brian,
It appears that you are using an aesthetic -- certainly a subjective -- definition of kitsch, especially because you start the next paragraph with "To me".
kitsch, as popular defined, encompasses sentimentality. That is contradictory to your requirement that artifice be involved.
I am not trying to play gotcha or definition cop here (at least not as an end in itself). Kitsch, commonly defined, means something different from what you say it means, and that is crucial to our discussion.
Wearing a flag lapel pin is an important form of non-verbal communication for a politician. As with other forms of communication, if the receivers of that communication doubt the sincerity of the message communicated, the politician is in trouble.
Social codes and non-verbal communication are (obviously) quite interesting to me, so forgive me if I pound it into the ground.
I heard that when Bush was defending Texas from communists he got caught wearing a pledge pin on his uniform. His decider was so enraged that he made the young Bush do manual labor. His punishment involved horse feces. In retribution Bush and Cheney scared the deciders horse to death. Before that time he and Frist were only killing small things,specifically frogs and cats. Bush and Cheney then dropped hits of Mickey Mouse acid and went on a twenty year binge. That's what the flag pins are all about.
Brian, perhaps it would help to illustrate your point if you would provide some examples of non-kitschy ways currently available to show "patriotic association."
PJ,
How about a military uniform? :)
Sweet Lou:
I think the dictionary definition of kitsch - which makes it essentially just a synonym of vulgarity and sentimentality - really doesn't capture it completely. The popular usage of the word makes it mean merely "tacky", but that isn't adequate either. The reason it exists as its own word is because the concept is more involved than that.
I think the Greenberg quote in the Wikipedia article on kitsch gets closer to it:
"Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times."
I think the concept of kitsch assumes that at some point some antecedent of the kitsch produced a genuine and healthy sentiment, but subsequent mechanical and calculated attempts at reproducing that sentiment debased the impulse and turned it over to kitsch.
PJ, with regard to your question, I remember a moment on 9/11 when a large number of Congressmen got together before the cameras at the Capitol to show people that the government was still functioning, and somebody started to sing "God Bless America", and then all of them sang. I think that moment of artistic expression [singing is artistic expression too, after all] was absolutely untouched by even the least degree of kitsch. Despite the fact that it was marked by great pathos.
I also agree that military uniforms are not kitsch.
Kitsch is red state / middle American.
Fashion is blue state / coastal American.
Obama wouldn't wear the flag lapel because he doesn't want to associate himself with red state, middle america. He specifically sends out signals to blue state / coastal America that he's one of them: hip, cosmopolitan and not a rube. That's why he's loved by "whiter people" (as in the people who like all the stuff in stuffwhitepeople like).
There is a price to pay for choosing to disassociate with non-cosmopolitan America: they won't vote for you. This pattern holds pretty well. Obama beats Hillary where the votes of whiter people or black people are decisive. Hillary beats Obama where the votes of blue collar whites are decisive.
^^^ I guess that's why Obama started off by winning Iowa, which is both rural and predominantly white.
Never let the facts get in the way of one's ideological religion, I suppose...
But Obama didn't win Iowa, Beem. He won the Iowa caucuses. Not the same thing at all.
Beem,
1) It was a caucus. Caucuses are dominated by people who are more committed, have more time and are more organized. All stuff whiter people have over blue collar whites.
2) It was not a 2 person race. Look up Arrow's theorem for the problems in determining true preferences in elections with 3 or more options.
3) You're making a defense attorney's argument. "Look at this thing that doesn't seem to fit. Therefore, the other side is wrong." Are you actually denying that Obama does badly with blue-collar whites? Is his voting block not black voters and whiter people? If so, make the argument.
Brain, thank you for the link to the Wikipedia entry on Kitsch, and for the stimulating discussion.
PJ, LnGrrrR, and Steve; thank you for your contributions as well.