Phil Mack

Are We a Bunch of Wusses?

On December 26, 2010, the Minnesota Vikings were preparing to play the
Philadelphia eagles in a game that would decide which team would advance to the
playoffs. However, that game was not going to take place that day. A snow storm was
predicted, and rather than embrace what would have been a unique and memorable
experience, the NFL decided to postpone the game until December 28. Former
Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell was understandably upset and disappointed by the
turn of events. Later that day, on the 26
th
, he appeared on ESPN and said one of the most
memorable quotes of his career,
Yeah, I think its part of the wussification of America. Weve lost a lot of
our pioneer spirit, Weve lost a lot of our independence, we lost a lot of that
ability to think for ourselves and make decisions for ourselves and weve got to
get it back. We used to be a hardy, strong frontier people and we had that the
spirit that we could do anything we set our minds to. (qtd. In OSullivan)
The shear absurdity of the word, wussification, stuck with people at the time and it got
them thinking. America was founded by a society willing to put their own safety on the
back burner in order to pave the way for themselves and their children.
However, modern America has taken a drastic step in a different direction. Now
every dark alleyway and unregulated feature of our society holds an unseen and fearsome
danger. In his memoir, A Nation of Wusses, Ed Rendell wrote,
Today it seems like everywhere you look, you find an army of lawyers
advising us against doing things, and a flotilla of worrywarts right behind,
cheering them on, telling us we cant take that risk If we are to continue to lead
the world, economically and in other ways, we must regain that American spirit,
that boldness and courage, that willingness to take on challenges no matter how
hard or how great the risk, if the reward makes that risk worth taking. (Rendell)
The question is then raised. What has caused this drastic paradigm shift in our culture?
There are many possible culprits as this has not been an immediate shift. Perhaps it was
the passing of child labor laws in the late 1800s, or the vast influx of wealth from Europe
after the world wars, or maybe it was the hippies and their free love society. However
the root of the shift is not a specific event, but rather the gradual shift into the age of
information and technology in which we live. The emergence of technology; in the forms
of television, the internet, and other automated processes; as an integral part of
Americans day-to-day life has lead to the wussification of our society as whole.
The first television was first unveiled in September of 1927, however the
television was not made available for commercial use until the late 1930s and early
1940s. Shortly before the commercialization of the television the company RCA, which
had a controlling interest in the Radio industry of the time, poured money into the
development of television as a commercial device. During the early years of
development there where no national television stations, everything was broadcasted
locally. However, as the demand for televisions and television programming grew, the
broadcasting companies answered by developing nation wide programs. RCA started
NBC, and RCAs biggest competitor CBS developed its television channel shortly after.
Quite early on in the history of Broadcasting, both NBC and CBS began short news
casting programs that informed the public of the world around them. By 1950, there
were six available national television channels that provided around the clock
programming including entertainment and new programing. Over the next 10 years the
TV industry exploded, and by 1955 over 50% of American households had a television.
With such a large base of viewers the television programming increased in the diversity
of programing and the number of channels. Channels began to specialize in the
programming they provided for their viewers, such as cartoons for kids, or news for
adults. Eventually the new programs on television were where the majority of adult
received their information of the world around them. Today, normal cable has over 400
channels and many of those are devoted to only news programming. The development of
Television and the programming available with it was the ignition source for the
information age in which we live.
The next stage in the evolution of the information age was the creation and
commercialization of the Internet. The Internet is still a relatively young institution, and
was only first conceptualized in the late 1960s. The first system similar to modern day
internet would be ARPANET, a packet transferring system designed for DARPA, which
was launched in late 1968. This was a private system used exclusively by DARPA, and
not available for public use. Over the next 20 odd years, several other systems where
made, that differed mainly in their methods of transferring information between
computers. Up until the mid 1990s the internet as we know it today was used mostly by
corporations and the academic institutions in America. It wasnt until the mid 1990s that
the world wide web as we know it today was created for commercial use. With the birth
of the internet, and the rise in home computer use, people were suddenly exposed to an
absurd amount of information. The creation of search engines like google and bing also
facilitated the organization and discovery of the information available online. Ultimately,
the internet is the biggest component of the information era we are currently in.
Now the question is what impact does this information era have on the
wussification of America. Prior to television and the internet, the majority of news that
people where exposed to was locally based. All of the threats, and dangers that people
heard about where near by and relevant to there lives. However now, with an unlimited
amount of print space online and hours of time to fill on the news programming, news
agencies sear far and wide for stories to captivate their audiences. Now stories of kidnap,
murder, and other dangers to our lives, fill our screens that surround us for hours a day,
even though these dangers are not a relevant threat to the majority of the viewers. The
information the surrounds Americans today make us unnecessarily wary of dangers that
are not really there.
The wussification of America is a direct result of the emergence of the technology
and information age. Society is made up of individuals and their interactions, and
individuals are defined by their experiences. Therefor it stands to reason that the origin
of the wussification of our society has everything to do with the experiences and lives of
the individual citizens of America. Nothing has effected the lives of Americans in the
last 60 years like the changes in technology, and these changes are not all for the better.
The constant barrage on the internet and television of stories about the kidnap and
abductions of children has created a generation of parents who are terrified of anything
bad happening to their precious children. These stories stick with parents, despite the fact
that the likelihood of a child being abducted is minuscule. Now many parents even have
tracking devices that they use to keep and eye on their kids to prevent them from
disappearing. However ultimately this fear is unfounded and just results in a group of
kids that are dependent on their parents for everything because they never had an
opportunity to explore on their own, and learn how to solve their own problems.
The media has a tendency to capitalize on the sensationalism of crime. They
make every small crime seem like a big deal, and they take crimes happening all the way
across the country and make them seem threatening to the viewer. However the number
of violent crimes has actually dropped drastically since the early 1990s, large growth in
population. The media present the threat posed by violent crimes as a risk that has only
grown in the past years. They get good ratings, and large numbers of viewers whenever
the sensationalize some small crime, and make it seem like a risk to the public. The FBI
reports that violent crimes have dropped more than 13% in just the time period between
2006 and 2010. Americans have allowed fear to rule over them, rather that going about
life as they normally would, which has ultimately had a drastic change on the way we
interact with each other, and most importantly the way we raise our children.

(FBI)

Along the same lines, the parents who are terrified of anything bad happening to
their kids have gotten to the point that they feel they need to protect their kid from every
possible upsetting situation, or obstacle in their lives. The perfect example of parents
coddling their children is the rise of the participation trophy. When children play
intramural sports today, every one who participates gets a trophy. This glorifies children
who have accomplished nothing, and teaches them that just participating is good enough.
Rather than rewarding the best team, who worked the hardest, everyone is treated the
same. This creates an unrealistic sense of entitlement in the children which will come
back to bite them later in life when their worth is actually based on merit, rather than
something as simple as attendance.
Another place where the change in the raising of children is evident is the attitude
taken towards schooling and teachers today. As illustrated in the editorial cartoon below,
parents today have a tendency to blame the teacher for their childs failure, rather than the
child themselves.



This once again creates a incorrect understanding of how the world works for the child.
When they grow up and get a job, their parents wont be able to swoop in and tell their
boss to give them a break, or tell that boss that it is his fault their child is not doing their
job. Parents today shelter children to the point that the children have no idea how to
handle their own problems. Which leads to a generation of workers who will always go
crying to mommy and daddy rather than saddling up and addressing their problems
themselves.
Another prime example of the Wussification of America, that Ed Rendell brings
up, is the universality of lawsuits in todays world. Toady everyone wants a handout, and
every patch of ice, or unsafe building is a chance for someone to make a couple million.
Rather than working for money, people seem content to take advantage of an unfortunate
situation and sue someone for every penny that they have. This in turn leads people to
take less risks, because the possibility of being sued is to likely.
(Gagle)
In some ways America has become a nation of wusses. We coddle our children to
a point where they cant function without us. We avoid doing anything new or unique,
just because it could possibly expose us to a lawsuit. We have become arguably the most
risk averse society in the world. We will do anything to avoid putting ourselves and our
loved ones at risk, even if it means preventing them from experiencing life fully.
Ultimately, this change from the hardy, strong frontier people (qtd in OSullivan) into
the people that we are today can be traced back to the emergence of the technology and
information era. With the rise in information available to us, we became much more
fearful of the world around us, and much less likely to take risks that previously were
common. This change has effected life more than anyone could have previously realized.
Until we can combat the trend of our wussification we will continually struggle to live up
to the standards that have been set by former generations of Americans.












CITED WORKS
O'Sullivan, Jim. "The Atlantic." The Atlantic. The Atlantic, 29 Dec. 2010. Web. 03 Dec.
2013.

Stephens, Mitchell. "History of Television." Www.nyu.edu. Grolier Encylcopedia, n.d.
Web. 01 Dec. 2013.

Rendell, Ed. "Ed Rendell Still Thinks We're A Nation of Wusses | Philadelphia
Magazine." Philadelphia Magazine. N.p., 24 May 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.

Bennett, Dashiell. "Wimpy NFL Delays Vikings-Eagles Game Until Tuesday Night
Because Of Blizzard." Business Insider. N.p., 26 Dec. 2010. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.

Leiner, Barry. "Brief History Of The Internet." Brief History of the Internet. Internet
Society, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.

"Violent Crime." FBI. FBI, 25 July 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2013.

Gagle, Daryl. "Education (Then and Now)." Cartoon. www.lokwi.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 3
Dec. 2013.