Kid Rock and the Price of Cultural Debasement

Far and away the best argument for allowing Kid Rock to play at inauguration-related events is, as expressed in an email that I received this morning, "he's good enough to play for US armed forces on his USO tour; so he's good enough to play for the President of the United States."

Our troops certainly deserve our support and admiration, and anybody who offers that support in tangible ways deserves acknowledgment. Still, I don't believe that the acknowledgment originally extended to Kid Rock is as simple a decision as many have suggested. And it's made all the more difficult by the fact that conservatives and Republicans don't exactly have expansive representation among household-name entertainers.

The bottom line is that there has to be a cost for debasing our culture as Kid Rock and his ilk have done. It's unfortunate, in my view, that the marketplace does not exact that price, but outside of a certain range of Republicans, the marketplace is not invested with inerrancy. The cost for preying upon and thereby encouraging the rebellious immaturity of the young (and some among the older) has got to be — at the least — a loss of respectability.

In the case of entertaining our troops, exceptions must be made for the reason that the focus is on them, not the performer. Considering the sacrifices that they are making and the work that they are doing for the benefit of us all, much more weight should be given to the principle that what they want is what they get.

But when it comes to celebrations of the President's reelection, respectability — and the statement that each facet of the celebration makes about the President's principles — has to be considered. Moreover, we must foster the sort of culture in which those who've made the choice to trade respectability for lucre understand that to have been a real and actual choice.