Given the chaos that passes for culture these days, it’s hard to find a metaphor that even comes close to summing up everything—or even a lot.

Here’s one for you. How about the 17th hole on the Stadium Course at Sawgrass course in Ponte Vedra, Florida?

A golf hole as metaphor for American, nay, world culture? Yep.

The idea goes like this (bear with me—it’s going to take a while to get to the punchline).

The 17th at Sawgrass is unique in all golf. It’s a short par 3, about 130 yards. The problem is, the only thing between tee and green is water, and the green is an island, a very small island, maybe 15 by 25 yards.

There’s more. The little island is built up maybe three feet above the surrounding lake by bulkheads.

So. You hit a high shot, the idea being that it’ll come down straight and not roll or take a crazy bounce. That’s the plan. The execution of course is another thing entirely.

Hit a bad shot and before you can say "Ben Hogan" your ball's in the water, to the delight of the throng.

Once a year the best 52 golfers in the world come to Sawgrass for what is called The Tournament Players’ Championship. A field like that draws big crowds, 40,000 or more a day for four days.

The real cognoscenti in those crowds don’t waste their time walking hither and yon to catch a glimpse of Tiger or whoever. Instead, they plop themselves down early around the lake at the 17th, and there they stay.

The result is golf as theater, and gallery as Greek chorus.

This deadly island green, surrounded by water, surrounded by people who, the longer they’re there, become more and more expert on how to play—and not to play—the 17th. They become not only expert but highly vocal in rendering their judgment.

You won’t find many duffers among the 52 best players in the world. But even the best players are subject to nerves. Add in a deadly little par 3 like the 17th and an expert mob that’s there to be ENTERTAINED and what you have is a marvelous little micro-pressure-cooker.

By the afternoon of the fourth day, the mob at the 17th has seen everything. They’re jaded, a little hot, a little tired, but still watching, still judging.

Late on Sunday afternoon here come the last groups of players, presumably the leaders, several of whom have their nervous eye on the $1.6 million first-place money.

What happens on the 17th, with only one more hole to play, can have a big effect on who gets the pot of gold, which of course re-arouses the interest of our jaded Greek chorus.

Whoops, shouts, hollers—it gets pretty rowdy.

But like all good actors, the chorus responds to its cues and falls silent when the course referee raises his arms for quiet as each player prepares to hit toward the tiny little island-green.

As soon as the ball is struck, the chorus starts rendering its opinion and you immediately know how good the shot is because THEY know. Remember, they’ve seen it all.

The roars of either exultation and approval or of derision and scorn follow the ball on its destined path either to safety on the tiny green or to the bottom of the lake.

And so it goes shot after shot on the 17th until the last group has moved on and silence returns to the little island of infamy.

What, you ask, does this have to do with American, nay, world culture?

A lot, when you think about it.

There the mob sits, eager, waiting for the next performers to come on stage. And of course these guys are, to anyone who follows golf at all, celebrities, each with his own shtick: Tiger exuding aplomb, Phil with his deer-in-the-headlights expression, Vijay whose mind seems 10,000 miles away in the Fijis, Davis you imagine might rather be in an ad for mint juleps, and so on.

One by one they traipse onto the stage at the 17th, each having in his own way bonded with the groundlings around the lake. They traipse, they ponder, they pose, they strike, they watch, they react.

Entertained mightily, the crowd moans or rejoices with them, first on the tee, and then on the green.

Then these, the famous, trudge onward, out of sight to the next stage, out of sight at the 18th. The crowd, forgetting quickly in the manner of crowds, turns its attention and its instant judgment to the next celeb.

Instant judgment, immediate-gratification without end, over and over, at least until everybody’s played out and has to go home and rest up for the next time.

I don’t know about you, but this sounds a lot like me and my remote control and my 200 channels. Click, watch, react, judge, click, react, judge. Yawn. Time for bed.

Next day: click, react, judge.

Or me and my mouse nibbling through the countless terabytes of information on the Internet. Click, react, judge, click, react, judge.

Neo-puritans bemoan this state of cultural affairs. We’re wasting away, they keep telling us. We’re destroying our children. What’s happened to education, to Real Culture? What will come of an alleged democracy in which everybody’s so busy being entertained they don’t have time to think? Turn off the TV, the neo-puritans yell. Get involved! Save a tree! Go to church!

Pause, now, and think again of the 17th at Sawgrass. What does the mob do at the end of the day? They get in their car and go home. Yes, the car they get in may well be an SUV. Yes, they may well turn on the TV or log on to the Internet as soon as they get home. And yes, their lives often consist of large chunks of time when they are, well, having fun.

You have to remember that fun is something puritans—whether old or new—have a lot of trouble with. In this dark, dark world, they’ve been saying—yelling—for a long time, fun is possible only if you’re not paying attention.

Well. The Greek chorus around the 17th pays really close attention. Sure, what they’re paying attention to is, in the larger scheme of things, trivial, but it is also a whole lot of fun.

They pay attention. And then they go home. They’ve got stories to tell, but beyond that? Do they think the guys they were watching are anything more than really good athletes who’ve develop one small skill to a high degree?

Sure, a few think that, but for most of the chorus, no, the players were just entertainers.

So too with the troubled comity of this American democracy.

Most of the time, most of the chorus is only paying half-attention, assuming that the politicians are mostly jerks who, out of self-interest, will do a half-way decent job.

But now and then, here comes history with a really challenging 17th hole, and everybody pays more attention.

The chorus gets rowdy, watching closely and judging like crazy. Suddenly the game, which the politicians had sort of been lazing along in, becomes important because the citizenry is aroused.

And to everybody’s surprise, what the elected guys do on the 17th TURNS OUT TO MATTER. The chorus watches, waits for the strike of the ball, and reacts.

Bigtime.

Woe unto the celeb who doesn’t realize that, aroused, the chorus can—and will—make or break him.

Hoots and hollers on the course. Yeas and nays at the ballot box.

Those 17th holes—which life does present us with now and then—get everybody’s attention, but only as long as the hole is in play. Once the outcome is decided, it’s back to life its own self.

What the puritans and the pessimists and the would-be tyrants forget is that the chorus is always, always there offstage, ready to re-assemble at a moment’s notice when the next island green comes in sight.

No doubt many of the smarty-pants in the Bush administration are more than a little puzzled at the growing resistance to their guy and their rah-rah policies. Having come to power in a dubious election, they coasted to victory in the mid-term contest as the voters/gallery/Greek chorus mostly yawned and sat on their hands.

Now they arrive at this 17th hole called "Iraq." Soon the gallery, which, remember, has seen some real scalliwags and scoundrels play through, will get to pass judgment on this bunch of non pareil trick-short artists. They’ve got our attention, that’s for sure. The only question is, are we still sitting on our hands?