Where Has All the Decorum Gone?

Tonight I went to an award ceremony for the top 100 professionals in a given field.  Who and what doesn't matter. My point is the reactions of the audience.  I should have gotten my first clue when the passed out cowbells and clackers on the way into the auditorium. I have witnessed a trend for years of the loss of decorum and reverence at graduations and similar services. Tonight however crossed a line that made me very uncomfortable.

 From the time the first name was announced there were the aforementioned cowbells, clackers, air horns, police sirens and a couple of screeching loud noises I didn't recognize.  My head hurt and my ears rang the entire ceremony. There were signs and flashes and neon eyeglasses. Pity the poor person bothered by such stimuli. The air horns blasted by the family in the row behind us left us with wet heads and necks. It was particularly distressing to me that a father instructed his children to blow loud and hard. The behavior was way beyond rude. It was troubling that so many people weren't bothered at all. In fact, it was a contest to see who could be the loudest.

Sometimes I am left wondering where this will all end.  I am stunned by such irreverence, lack of professionalism and outright silly and rude behavior.  I was proud of my loved one for her achievements. The ceremony left me wondering just what has become of not only North Texas but America as well. Have we lost our collective conscience?  Dr. MacArthur wrote a book entitled "The Vanishing Conscience." It is one of my favorites of his. I have to agree with his statement :"We live in a culture that has elevated pride to the status of a virtue." We are living in a time when moral judgment and rightness have taken a back seat to doing whatever seems right in our own eyes.  The results of such an attitude are tragic. I fear we have gone too far way too far.