A Stamp of Disapproval

The United States Postal Service is shattering a 164-year tradition by announcing that it will soon feature living people on its postage stamps, and it's even asking customers to suggest their top five choices for who among living Americans could appear on new stamps in the coming months.  This has absolutely got to be the worst idea the U.S. stamp program has had since putting cartoon characters on stamps.

So why the change? I'll let Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe explain it:

"These remarkable individuals — through their transformative achievements in their respective fields — have made enduring contributions to the United States of America," Donahoe said of living people. "Honoring living individuals expands the interest in stamp topics and keeps our program timely, relevant and contemporary."

Donahoe also added that the change "will enable us to pay tribute to individuals for their achievements while they are still alive to enjoy the honor."  That's exactly why I think it's such a bad idea.  If we put living individuals on stamps, the subjects honored will be aggrandized in life by the official postal currency of a government agency, and the "honor" is going to give them pretty big egos to boot.  Eric Cantor on a stamp? Imagine what that'll do to his already swelled head!

The tradition of not honoring living people on stamps is derived from the same custom as pertains to coinage.  When the first U.S. coins were minted in 1793, a portrait of President George Washington was considered for the front, or obverse, of the coin, but Washington refused the honor.  Washington had fought the Revolution in part to rid America of the indignity of monarchical worship, and putting himself on a coin would have certainly made him seem like a king.

There's another reason why we have never honored living people on coins and stamps before. Living people are a always a work in progress; they have not lived full lives, and so it's impossible to give them any fair or full scrutiny before honoring them with a stamp, currency piece, statue or building.  Case in point: What if you were to honor a living politician with a stamp, only to have a scandal come along later and ruin his reputation? What if, had this policy change taken effect twenty years earlier, the Postal Service had honored living football players with a set of stamps in 1991 featuring O.J. Simpson - before the 1994 twin murders virtually everyone knows he committed?  And, even if we honored a reputable living statesman emeritus with a fairly solid record, like former President Bill Clinton, that would generate a lot of controversy, for while many people still like him, many others still can't stand him . . . for reasons having nothing to do with Monica Lewinsky.  You can't really judge someone who hasn't led a full life. As Sophocles once said, "One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been." Timeliness, present-day relevance, and contemporary values get in the way of letting history be the final judge of people.

Who are we going to honor among the living first? Rihanna or Britney Spears in a series honoring women in the performing arts?  Jon Cryer in a series honoring contemporary television actors? Maybe living painters and scientists, but with the public being asked to suggest living people for postage stamp commemoration, they're not likely to think of such people.  I completely distrust the public on choosing stamp subjects.  When the Postal Service asked Americans to vote on subjects for their Celebrate the Century stamps at the end of the twentieth century, the Barbie doll outpolled a stamp for John and Robert Kennedy for the 1960s pane, and sport utility vehicles outpolled a stamp for women in sports for the 1990s issue. That's right, a feminist breakthrough lost out to manly gas-guzzling wagons!

Let me re-iterate: this is a spectacularly bad idea.  Pretty soon we're going to see all sorts of stamps honoring worthless celebrities like the kind that get issued by tiny West Indian island countries . . . like St. Vincent.  Yes, I know Great Britain and Canada feature Queen Elizabeth II on their stamps, and Canada Post has honored living Canadian scientists as well as living Canadian popular singers like Paul Anka (now there's a great argument against the U.S. Postal Service's policy change!), but the last time I checked, we're not the Brits, and we're not the Canadians.  We have a different way of doing things.  While that argument is groundless in opposing universal health care, it is certainly relevant and sound in this case.