Embarrassing the Angels

I like Peggy Noonan as a writer and as a social commentator. This article describes the loss of personal dignity in our society:

I experience [a violation of my dignity as a person] when I see blaring television ads for birth-control devices, feminine-hygiene products, erectile-dysfunction medicines. I experience it when I'm almost strip-searched at airports. I experience it when I listen to popular music, if that's what we call it. I experience it when political figures are asked the most intimate questions about their families and pressed for personal views on sexual questions that someone somewhere decided have to be Topic A on the national agenda in America right now. ...I think, we are embarrassing the angels.

Part of the solution, she says in so many words, is for women to embrace their roles as ladies:

According to American Heritage, a lady is a well-mannered and considerate woman with high standards of proper behavior.... I would add that a lady need not be stuffy, scolding, stiff. A lady brings regard for others into the room with her; that regard is part of the dignity she carries and seeks to spread. A lady is a woman who projects the stature of life.

Her resolve (for Lent, incidentally) is to assert her right as a lady and say "You are embarrassing the angels," instead of just thinking it.

Personally, I suspect that one reason our societal and personal sense of dignity has been so reduced is that, at some point, too many women stopped being ladies.

I'm not all about trying to change the culture, but in our circles of influence, especially our families...let's be ladies!