A Sign of Our Times

I have been meaning to write about this handwritten sign over one of the old buildings in the Fairfax District, just before Beverly Boulevard, in Los Angeles.

This neighborhood used to be largely the haven of Orthodox Jews. It was family oriented for the most part, and when I used to live in the area, I was one of the intermixed single adults. But overall, it had the feel of the old days, a sense of tradition and moral sanity.

As the years passed, the bulk of the Jewish families moved toward the other enclave southwest of Fairfax, Pico-Robertson, and Fairfax began to be littered with youth oriented stores, some of them pop ups, some more permanent. You see lots of ill mannered youth lining up out side of stores that sell things like sneakers and skate boards and ugly clothing. This is the new craze, lining up for merchandise for everybody to wear that proves a kid is a cool outlier.  No doubt most of these kids buying 200 dollar shoes believe in socialism rather than capitalism unaware that their very act in lining up for items they don't need is capitalism personified. They drive their upscale cars recklessly on the drag. The pedestrians cross against the light daring a harried man or woman on their way home from their jobs to hit them.



Oh, yeah, the sign. The idea sounds great if you don't examine it too closely.  It says, "Nothing is forbidden until you ask for permission."  Really? Nothing? And are there not things forbidden whether or NOT one asks for permission? Apparently not, if one takes the sign on its face.

The sign reminds me of an old line from the Brothers Karamazov, "Without God, everything is permissible."  Ok, if you don't believe in God, let's try this, "Without objective standards, everything is permissible."  Or everything is permissible except that which the person or persons in power says is not. That's the rub you see. That's where we are now, in my view. For without those objective standards, the only standard is the powerful purveyor of the subjective idea du jour. Some person or group decides that something is the law of the land because they have the power to say and enforce based not on the canons of age-old philosophy, theology or plain old common sense, but on the principle of "That's what those of us in power feel." 

Do we or do we not live in a politically correct world where there are things you cannot say, that are forbidden? And is permission not irrelevant?

"No," you say.

Pick a subject, any subject, currently in vogue, abortion, immigration, gender, the American Constitution, American history, religion, the First Amendment and consider the predominating opinion in the news media, social media, your university, your friends. Say the opposite at a cocktail party. Or at your job.

People say that God was harsh. Try your fellow man. The new god of enforced relativism. Is it all right that I say "man" as in mankind?  Or is that forbidden, with or without the permission of whoever is now in charge?