I read The New York Times and The New York Post every day despite having major misgivings about their integrity. I will never forgive the Times for being an unflinching apologist for former President Bill Clinton, since he committed adultery with a girl his daughter’s age in the Oval Office. With regard to the Post, the newspaper with the best coverage on earth of my beloved New York Yankees, my pique stems from their chronic glorification of tawdry and vulgar elements of our society. While they refer to Paris Hilton as a “professional airhead,” they nevertheless cover her every move like a blanket. Worse yet, since Eliot Spitzer’s life was left in a shambles after his dalliances with prostitute Ashley “Kristen” Dupre were discovered, the Post routinely devotes multi-page coverage to Dupre’s escapades, in effect, exalting them. Recently, after exposing Dupre’s affair with a married New Jersey businessman, The Post trumpeted the fact that Ms. Dupre was offered $1 million to star on a reality TV show.
Most people simply say “Big Whoop” to what The Post puts on Page 6 and leave it at that. I get steamed. Maybe it’s because I know that material success has had a “bad name” since Biblical times. Recall what Matthew (19:24) opined: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” For my money, the news coverage given to Paris Hilton, better known for a poor-quality porno movie than anything else, and Ashley Dupre, a hooker, plain and simple, is giving material success a worse name than being “filthy rich” ever could. I base this contention on the consequences of The Pygmalion Effect, a very sophisticated analysis of how expectations guide behavior.
The Pygmalion Effect is a term that was coined by Dr. Robert Rosenthal, an emeritus professor from Harvard University (now at UC Riverside). Rosenthal cleverly used a Greek myth as a hook to promote his brilliant research on self-fulfilling prophecies, and enlightened a nation. According to the ancient Greeks, Pygmalion was a sculptor who despaired ever finding a good woman (in his eyes) to marry. Thus, he made a statue of a beautiful maiden that he felt was the ideal female form. Pygmalion was so enamored of the sculpture he created –Galatea— he fell in love with it. He also regularly prayed that a woman “as perfect” as his statue could be his wife. At the festival of Aphrodite, a Greek goddess, Pygmalion prayed, as usual, that he could marry his “ivory virgin.” Aphrodite was so moved by Pygmalion’s prayer, she granted his wish, gave life to Galatea, and enabled the sculptor and the now living Galatea, to marry.
The insights into human nature evoked by the story of Pygmalion struck a chord in many creative geniuses. Before Professor Rosenthal conducted his research, George Bernard Shaw turned the story of Pygmalion into a play, which, in turn, became the wildly popular Broadway musical by the wildly successful team of Lerner and Loewe, My Fair Lady. All these works of art and, most importantly, Professor Rosenthal’s study of self-fulfilling prophecies, demonstrate one thing: People will behave as we expect them to behave.
Clinical and laboratory studies of self-fulfilling prophecies show, for example, that a psychotherapist’s expectations for how a patient will respond to treatment can affect therapeutic outcomes just as readily as a researcher’s expectations can effect the findings obtained in experiments. From my experience, self-fulfilling prophecies often occur in groups or on a societal level. When arbiters of social consciousness put their idiosyncratic stamp on a definition of success, their zeitgeist will shape how those susceptible to their influence set goals and, ultimately, strive for success.
In May 2003, Jason Blair was forced to resign from his staff position at The New York Times after he was exposed as plagiarizing stories that bore his by-line. While many New York Times executives will object to my conclusion, I am certain that their editorial policy condoning Clinton’s disingenuous behavior facilitated Blair’s unethical behavior. Blair had to reason, “Hell, even the President is as dirty as gutter slime, yet the VIPs here are supporting him. I guess they assume ‘the ends justify the means’.”
My abiding fear is that when newspapers devote feature stories to people who are notorious, not noteworthy, doing so will influence the achievement-strivings of our children by creating the wrong sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: “He (she) is exhibiting what society-at-large values,” our children sense from extensive media attention; “I guess I should strive to be like him (her).”
Once, in our society, women who engaged in adulterous relationships were forced to wear the “scarlet letter A” on their bosom as a badge of shame. Today, many wear the trappings of success –e.g. expensive jewelry— on clothing that all-but-reveals their bosom in public. Does objecting to this mean that I, like the citizens of Puritanical Boston (in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel) who shunned Hester Prynne, am unnecessarily prudish? Or am I, a father of a 10-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, concerned about how my children (that I adore) will develop aspirations and orient themselves toward achieving success?
You, of course, will draw your own conclusion. But if you ask me, a culture that showers media coverage on Paris Hilton and Ashley Dupre, condones Bill Clinton’s adultery and deceit, and blithely dismisses white-collar crime as an innocuous symptom of “absolute power corrupting absolutely,” is creating self-fulfilling prophecies that cannot help but cause significant damage to generations yet to come.
