Howard’s End?

PEOPLE who hate Howard Stern come from all parts of the ideological spectrum. They include some of my best friends. I myself find him hilarious only about half the time. His fart jokes in particular leave me cold. But you can tell a lot about a man by his enemies. A Stern character was presented in a highly unflattering light on Murphy Brown, and young reporters at the New York Times would like to sentence him to years of sensitivity training. But even the first time I heard his show, in a Philadelphia taxicab, I realized that, on the whole, Howard Stern is a Good Thing. Arriving at my destination I told a law-school colleague about the strange radio personality I had discovered that morning. This man happened to be our class’s gauleiter of political correctness, and he immediately launched into a hysterical rant about Stern, one that Pve heard many times since and which included adjectives like “disgusting,” “racist,” and “repulsive.”

It is true that Howard Stern could flourish only in a culture as debased and shameless as our own. Yet his success 1s a sign that many things that seemed lost are still with us. Because, for someone whose sense of humor is awash in adolescent crudeness, Stern is, in his own way, an avatar of wholesome, all-American values.

JF

About the Author

Jonathan Foreman

Mr. Foreman, a writer at large for Standpoint magazine, is based in London and New Delhi.

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PEOPLE who hate Howard Stern come from all parts of the ideological spectrum. They include some of my best friends. I myself find him hilarious only about half the time. His fart jokes in particular leave me cold. But you can tell a lot about a man by his enemies. A Stern character was presented in a highly unflattering light on Murphy Brown, and young reporters at the New York Times would like to sentence him to years of sensitivity training. But even the first time I heard his show, in a Philadelphia taxicab, I realized that, on the whole, Howard Stern is a Good Thing. Arriving at my destination I told a law-school colleague about the strange radio personality I had discovered that morning. This man happened to be our class’s gauleiter of political correctness, and he immediately launched into a hysterical rant about Stern, one that Pve heard many times since and which included adjectives like “disgusting,” “racist,” and “repulsive.”

It is true that Howard Stern could flourish only in a culture as debased and shameless as our own. Yet his success 1s a sign that many things that seemed lost are still with us. Because, for someone whose sense of humor is awash in adolescent crudeness, Stern is, in his own way, an avatar of wholesome, all-American values.