Me is Under Attack

By Dana Paul Robinson

Readers at first will think this short book, “Me Is Under Attack”, is the lament of a disgruntled curmudgeon convinced that the declining standards in our society portend an irreversible descent into widespread boredom and barbarism. However, as they complete their journey through the always persuasive and sometimes entertaining pages they will come to discover the author’s great hope for a better future and his suggestion on how to bring it about. His recommendation entails strengthening relationships, the sinews of society, by reengaging those same personal standards we seem to be abandoning. And, he recommends we start with that paramount standard, the standard of beauty.

It is an easy read and highly recommended for anyone discouraged by the creeping dullness that seems more and more to pervade what once was regarded as western civilization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Educational Publisher/Biblio Publishing
• Release date: Oct 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781622491490

Dana Paul Robinson

Retired from a 45-year banking career, Dana has witnessed a general decline in those personal standards which in the past have marked civilised society. This book is his appeal for their recovery, so that his grandchildren’s generation will experience more pleasant and engaging lives.

Book preview

Me is Under Attack

By Dana Paul Robinson

Published By Biblio Publishing at Smashwords

The Educational Publisher, Inc.

1313 Chesapeake Ave

Columbus, OH 43212

www.BiblioPublishing.com

Copyright © 2013 Dana Paul Robinson and The Educational Publisher, Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-62249-150-6

LCCN: 2013954135

Dedicated to

The Celestial Triumvirate

Table of Contents

Prologue

When All Else Fails

What is a Personal Standard?

Where do Personal Standards Come From?

Why are Personal Standards Important?

Why do We Allow Personal Standards to Decline?

What are the Consequences When Standards are No Longer Observed?

Boredom and Barbarism

Loss of Dignity

Diversity and Tolerance

The Threat to Diversity

Examples of Personal Standards

Manners

Surnames

Religion

Relativism

Music

Grammar

Dress

Conversation

Self Reliance

Dinner Time

Self Esteem

Service

Discipline

Autonomous Insipidity

Embrace Beauty

Beauty: Pay Her Forward

Epilogue

Prologue

Reader, as you go through this little book you will develop an opinion about me, its author, and it will be understandably critical. Were I on your side of the page I would find the man who penned these paragraphs to be an elitist and an obnoxious snob.

I submit but one request. Please withhold your opinion of me until you complete the text. If you do, its exaggerated tenor notwithstanding, I believe you will find that rather than being the complaint of an irascible Miniver Cheevy this book is an appeal from a concerned, but hopeful, human being, someone just like you, who is in search of a better world.

One reader, the first really, who has perused these pages is my daughter, Maria Rosa. Always confident in her judgment and aware of our generational differences I am grateful for her nihil obstat and acknowledge my debt to her - among many others - for her thoughtful critique.

When All Else Fails

When all else fails lower your standards.

This advice appeared on a bumper sticker I saw years ago on the back of a Mercedes-Benz.

It is one of my favorites because it suggests standards are so important that one should compromise them only as a last resort.

Today, however, I think the Mercedes-Benz owner would offer us more helpful advice were his bumper sticker to read: Raise your standards lest all else fail.

When was the last time you heard the phrase: It's just common decency!? Some of you younger readers may never have come across it. Common decency was a term that encompassed many standards which were believed to be generally shared by everybody. That the expression is less familiar to our ears today than it once was is significant.

This book addresses what I perceive to be a general and continuous decline in our personal standards, a development which bodes ill for the future of our society. Indeed, even now the concept of society may itself be obsolescent.

No formal training backs me in this endeavor. I am not a sociologist and can boast of no academic credential to support the observations presented on the pages that follow. However, as a parent and grandparent who started his journey on this earth when Harry Truman was president and have since lived in this country and abroad I feel compelled to offer some observations.

I invite you to spend a few hours with me pondering the role of personal standards in our lives. What are they? Where do they come from, and why are they important? What happens when we allow them to slide or, more provocatively, what causes them to disappear as we permit their decline? What are the consequences when these standards are no longer observed? What are examples of some standards that have diminished over recent years?

You may find the comments in these pages to be obvious. Obvious or not, they are points that need to be expressed, or – put more dramatically – alarms that need to be raised because while they may be evident to you they are ignored by many, and widespread ignorance places all of us at risk.

What will not be obvious to you is the proposition I make at the end of the book. It is a suggestion on how we can rescue ourselves from the fate that will surely ensue when, without the steady uplifting power of personal standards, we are no longer able to forestall our downward spiral into relentless boredom and probable barbarism.

What Is A Personal Standard?

My fifty year old copy of Webster's Collegiate Dictionary offers several definitions for the word standard . Here is an apt one: something established by authority, custom or general consent as a model or example.

There are, to be sure, countless standards. Obvious ones would be courtesy, hygiene, integrity, civic responsibility, decency, self-reliance, et cetera. These standards exist outside of us and do not depend on