"Now...Barack Obama"

Neil Postman, writing in 1985, on the culture of TV news in America and the affect it has had on reason, context and presidential politics, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 110:

My point is that we are by now so thoroughly adjusted to the "Now...this" world of news--a world of fragments, where events stand alone, stripped of any connection to the past, or to the future, or to other events--that all assumptions of coherence have vanished. And so, perforce, has contradiction. In the context of no context, so to speak, it simply disappears. And in its absence, what possible interest could there be in a list of what the President [of the United States] says now and what he said then? It is merely a rehash of old news, and there is nothing interesting or entertaining in that. The only thing to be amused about is the bafflement of reporters at the public's indifference. There is an irony in the fact that the very group that has taken the world apart should, on trying to piece it back together again, be surprised that no one notices much, or cares.

Is this not the perfect soil in which a President like Barack Obama could gain root? Beyond the difference one might have with him on policy is the glaring way in which he can say one thing and the opposite thing in the same sentence. There is firmly held liberal ideology, but then there is crass disinformation. And, sadly, this has little to do with Obama himself (though he perhaps is the grandest exploiter yet) but with we who vote for him. And lest you think that I am harping only on Obama, as Postman makes clear, it all began with Reagan (quoting from a NYT article in 1983):

President Reagan's aides used to become visibly alarmed at suggestions that he had given mangled and perhaps misleading accounts of his policies or of current events in general. That doesn't seem to happen much anymore.

Indeed, the President continues to make debatable assertions of fact but news accounts do not deal with them as extensively as they once did. In the view of White House officials, the declining news coverage mirrors a decline in interest by the general public.

Today news organizations do have "fact checkers" who pour over speeches and press releases. Some twelve AP reporters were assigned to fact check the new Sarah Palin book. But for all the fact checking going on no one seems to care. There is no outrage, no protesting. Presidents, senators and, God help us, preachers, relay contradiction after contradiction and we the people do not bat an eye lash. Unless, of course, they lie about sex.

The Logocentric Child

Wonderful article over at Touchstone today on the education of children at the expense of their being "normal." Mark Mitchell, the author, writes:

Are we raising kids who won’t fit in? I have asked this of myself regularly over the past few years. My wife and I are educating our three boys at home. We don’t watch television (only an occasional video). We emphasize books. We read to the kids and make them memorize poetry. We pray together on our knees. In many ways, our kids are culturally ignorant. They don’t know about Disney World. The other day, my five-year-old asked, “Who is Mickey Mouse?”

So I guess the answer to the question has to be yes. But the “yes” is a qualified one, for when one considers the concept of “odd,” one should ask, “compared to what?” This moves us in a helpful direction, for if “normal” is merely what everyone else does, then what is normal changes with the times. What is odd in one time might not be odd in another. On the other hand, if “normal” refers to a proper way of being human, and if human nature is unchanging, then what is odd, in the sense of being opposed to the majority, may in fact be normal.

As we consider exactly what, in our culture, sets the odd kids apart, it seems to me that the clearest and brightest line can be drawn when we ask the following question: Will your kids be raised primarily on books or on television? To put it another way: Will your children be educated in a logocentric environment, where the written and spoken word is the primary conveyer of meaning, or will they ingest most of their information through electronically generated images?

The whole thing is worth your time and reflection.

The only caveat I would add--and I most surely do not say this with any undergirded fortitude--is that it seems there is a cost associated with education like this, and that cost is public involvement and evangelism. Perhaps this hasn't always been the case (classical education used to be the norm). But times have changed and education is drastically different (and probably deficient). So my question is, what do we value more? The education of our kids or unbelievers in public school? Or, said perhaps less inflammatorily, is there a balance we can strike between sequestering our kids for their proper education and their involvement with the public so that they may spread the good news?

I met a guy recently who is vehemently opposed to both private Christian school and home school for the simple reason that evangelism can't happen when you aren't around unbelievers. My guess is that Mitchell would say evangelism will be a natural outworking of the grounded and studious "moral imagination." I am not so sure. I have about three years before I have to decide.

Obama is Boring. But Why?

Peggy Noonan:

Mr. Obama has grown boring. And it's not Solid Boring, which is fine in a president and may be good. It's sort of Faux Eloquent Boring, especially on health care. The president likely doesn't know this, and his people won't have told him because they don't know it either, but Mr. Obama always has the same sound, approach, logic, tone, modulation. He always has the same stance. There's no humor or humility in it. News is surprise, and he never makes news.

I don't disagree with her, that Obama is b-o-r-i-n-g. It's the why I might think differently about. She explains herself of course, and you can read away her diagnosis, but I can't help but think that the answer is just that we get bored very easily. We're a people "amusing ourselves to death" Postman said, exposing the dark side of the conjoining of picture and prose in our culture. It's not that we're unintelligent, it's that we're hyperactive. Images require serious engagement, but very little serious interaction. And so we get bored quite quickly and become increasingly irascible.

What is fascinating about all of this is that Obama ran on, and was elected based on, this very premise. New is good. It is the best. And boy was he new. But not anymore. He is so old (much less than a year, if you're counting). They say that Obama has spoken some half a million words in public since entering office. Of course they would think more Obama the better. But what they've missed is that too much of anything for contemporaneous Americans just won't do.

In my perfect world, politicians would be voted for based solely on their character and beliefs; that is, their substance. And this goes even for men and women I wouldn't vote for. By engaging with truth, ideas, it seems to me that the right kind of change would happen. As it stands, who knows what we have. Do any of our politicians actually believe anything resolutely?

I have heard that Obama's approval ratings have gone up since he sequestered himself at the Vineyard. If he's smart, he'll hide until Americans forget about him. In a year or so, his reappearance will be refreshingly new.

On Taking Charge of the TV

Randy Alcorn:

1. Keep track of how much time you spend watching.

2. Decide in advance how much TV to watch per week.

3. Use a schedule to choose programs for the week.

4. Keep your television unplugged, store it in a closet, and/or put it in a remote part of the house

5. Periodically "fast" from television for a week or a month.

6. Choose programs that uplift rather than undermine biblical values.

7. Use the "off" switch freely.

8. Use the channel changer frequently.

9. Watch and discuss programs together as a family—to avoid passivity and develop active moral discernment through interaction.

10. Don't allow young children to choose their own programs—that's the parent's responsibility.

11. Don't use television as a baby sitter.

12. Spend an hour reading Scripture, a Christian book or magazine, or doing a ministry for each hour you watch TV.

13. Consider dropping cable, Showtime, HBO, or any other service that you determine is importing ungodliness or temptation into your home.

14. If you find you can't control it—or you're tired of the battle—get rid of your television.

Click here for descriptions of each.

John Piper Has a High Tolerance for Violence and Profanity on Film

But not naked ladies:

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

And on the subject he intended to write (TV):

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

Whole thing.

The Benefits of No TV

My fam has been without cable for a few months now. Though I'll withhold final judgment on this decision for a while, the experience so far has been only rewarding. To be clear, my wife and I will watch an occasional movie or TV episode via Netflix on DVD or streamed over the internet to our TV. But we no longer have the ability to flip the TV on and start surfing. Having access to TV like that seemed to lead to its misuse.

Jim and Amy Speigel, too, have lived without TV, for 11 years. They articulate well what I am just beginning to realize. On the benefits of having no TV:

1. Avoidance of commercials and the fueling of the consumer mentality — It’s all about the sponsors, as we all know. And to watch a TV show is to be bombarded with constant pitches for products one neither needs nor, properly, desires. Even the most circumspect person cannot help but be impacted by this.

2. Better stewardship of time — Amy and I spend much less time watching shows because we only view the DVDs and videos we plan ahead of time to view. We don’t end up watching shows that we didn’t want to watch (which, strange as it sounds, is a common phenomenon among viewers). Without TV, relative to my life before, I virtually have a 27-hour day, so I can get more accomplished with family time, reading, and creative projects.

3. Protection of children — Our kids are not exposed to inappropriate images, language, and lifestyle choices which even find their way into “innocent” shows (e.g. foul language, disrespectful attitudes, undermining of authority, the normalization of premarital sex and homosexuality, etc.). Of course, in our culture it is impossible to perfectly shield one’s kids from some of these influences, but without TV there is a dramatic reduction in this exposure.

4. Avoidance of narcissism, bad ethics, and poor reasoning — Whether it is sitcoms, reality TV shows, or even news programs, the me-first mentality is ubiquitous in television land. And from what I’ve seen of such shows as Friends and Survivor, the moral-decision making and logical thinking skills are rather suspect. Let’s just say that, as a Philosophy professor, I always know where to find vivid illustrations of moral vices and logical fallacies. So thank you for that much, Mr. Television.

5. Enhancement of aesthetic sense — Most television shows are just not very good from an aesthetic standpoint. A rare exception is The Simpsons, at least in previous seasons which I sometimes watch it via Netflix—so I can’t speak to how strong the show is currently. But generally speaking, constant exposure to television injures one’s aesthetic sensibility. Occasionally we hear someone recommend a show to us as “one of the best on television” (e.g. Lost, 24, Arrested Development, etc.). Invariably, when we take time to check them out, we are disappointed. To say a show is one of TV’s best is, well, damning with faint praise.

Just so I am clear, I am not saying that those who have cable are necessarily evil or ungodly. It proved for us to be too much to handle well, so we got rid of it. I have no doubt that there are some who can pay for cable and still use TV wisely.

Exit question: Are people more naturally inclined to abuse TV/cable or to use it wisely?

Dumb Kids

Erin Thompson reporting on Mark Bauerlein's book The Dumbest Generation:

Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University in Atlanta, says Generation Y, ages 16-29, has been shaped by exposure to computer technology since elementary school.

The cost, he says, outweighs the convenience. Kids are writing more than ever online or in text messages, but it's not the kind of narrative skill needed as adults, he says. "Those forms groove bad habits, so when it comes time to produce an academic paper … or when they enter the workplace, their capacity breaks down."

Social networking sites can give young users "the sense of them being the center of the universe," Bauerlein says.

That gives them a distorted understanding of how the world works, he says. "If you go into a room of strangers, you don't know how to relate. You can't replicate your IM habits," he says. "It closes people off from a wider engagement with the world."

Parents must do more to pull their teens away from technology, including being role models in developing intellectual pursuits: "Talk with your kids. Kids can't do this by themselves."

And Liz Szabo on a new study on TV's effect on kids (it's not making them smarter):

A study released Monday adds to the debate over whether television impairs children's language development.It found that parents and children virtually stop talking to each other when the TV is on, even if they're in the same room.

For every hour in front of the TV, parents spoke 770 fewer words to children, according to a study of 329 children, ages 2 months to 4 years, in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Adults usually speak about 941 words an hour.

Children vocalized less, too, says author Dimitri Christakis of the Seattle Children's Research Institute. In some cases, parents may have spoken less because they sat a child in front of a TV and left the room, he says. In others, parents simply zoned out themselves while watching TV with a child. Researchers didn't note the content of the TV shows.

Parents may not realize how little they interact with children when a TV is on, Christakis says. A mother may think she's engaged with a baby because they're both on the floor playing blocks. But if a TV is on in the background, the two of them talk much less, he says.

That may help explain earlier studies finding that babies who watch a lot of TV know fewer words, although they catch up to their peers by 16 months, Christakis says. "Babies learn language from hearing it spoken," he says.

Jon and Kate Plus "Material Things"

I am one of the few men that has admitted he has watched and enjoyed Jon and Kate Plus Eight. It is interesting and the kids are cute. But the cuteness, if you haven't heard, has left the show. I didn't see the first episode this year, but from what I have heard, it was painfully awkward. Jon and Kate, if you don't know, are struggling in their marriage (there are a multiplicity of issues at play).

What is most troubling about it all is that they have chosen to stay with the TV show despite the harmful effect it is having on their marriage (they just signed on to do 39 more episodes). Jon, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, said that they thought about quitting, but that the perks were too much to give up. "You know," he said, "the material things."

This sort of capitulation to the world flies in the face of what good, Godly male leadership should be. Men, stand up. We are called to sacrifice for all sorts of reasons. And I am pretty sure I would put saving my marriage near the top of that list.

Also read Lynn Roush on this topic.

The Weightlessness of God

David Wells, cited in John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life:

It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God’s existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers’ sweet fog of flattery and lies. That is weightlessness. It is a condition we have assigned him after having nudged him out to the periphery of our secularized life. . . . Weightlessness tells us nothing about God but everything about ourselves, about our condition, about our psychological disposition to exclude God from our reality.

Groothuis on the Delayed Apocalypse

Classic Groothuis:

Given the tremors of fear and panic gripping the nation, Congress has passed a bill extending the deadline for the conversion of all television broadcasts from analogue to cable. I am so relieved.

First, the civil government should have no say in mandating something like this. Let markets decide the matter. That saves us from all the public service announcements, confusions, and so on.

Second, it is pathetic how deeply this affects some people. It is as if their lifeline is in danger. I hear adds by bureacrats warning that if one does not make the proper call and do the proper thing, the screen will go blank (just like the minds already watching the screens). Of course, there are no publically-funded advertisements warning you that television undermines reading and critical thinking, that it wastes time and habituates people to unreality.

My dream: On the dreaded day when the analogue dies, all of television mysterious dies with it. All screens go blank and black; the roar of white noise engulfs the planet...and then we move ahead.

I Guess I Will Burn my iPhone Now

Here.

Piper Doesn't Care for TV

John Piper, in 1995:

It is not necessary for relevance. And it is a deadly place to rest the mind. Its pervasive banality, sexual innuendo, and God-ignoring values have no ennobling effects on the preacher’s soul. It kills the spirit. It drives God away. It quenches prayer. It blanks out the Bible. It cheapens the soul. It destroys spiritual power. It defiles almost everything. I have taught and preached for twenty years now and never owned a television. It is unnecessary for most of you, and it is spiritually deadly for all of you.

When I saw this quote about five years ago, my wife and I got rid of cable for six months. Perhaps I shoudl consider doing that again...

HT: AN

People Who Live Without TV

Clara Moskowitz writes today in Live Science about people who do not watch TV. Her findings, while interesting, should not be shocking. This passage was particularly striking:

"Non-viewers had a greater variety of things that they did with their free time than viewers did," Krcmar said. "It's not just that they were reading instead of watching TV. They were hiking and biking, and going to community meetings and visiting with friends. Overall, they tend to do more of everything."

My childhood was consumed with TV. Every day after school for hours. And, of course, that is habit for me now. I don't watch nearly as much as I used to, but when I do, I do so for the same reason: to escape. From hard work, from thinking too hard, from dealing with the harder things in life. Yes, for entertainment, but more deeply than that, to escape reality. And this has led to a decreased ability to concentrate, to comprehend and to work long stretches without getting distracted.

This, consequently, is now a front and center issue in our household since the baby came home. Can I properly raise her with a TV in the home? I am not sure. Boundaries can be set (e.g. only at certain times, no TV in bedrooms, etc.). But I fear even an hour a day could be detrimental. So the question I keep on coming back to is, What harm will it do by removing it from our lives completely? And more profoundly, does TV watching increase our love and affection for Christ, or does it lessen it? Listen to these words from John Piper from Pierced by the Word:

If all other variables are equal, your capacity to know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch. There are several reasons for this. One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial. And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul. You get used to it. It starts to seem normal. Silly becomes funny. And funny becomes pleasing. And pleasing becomes soul-satisfaction. And in the end, the soul that is made for God has shrunk to fit snugly around triteness. This may be unnoticed, because if all you’ve known is American culture, you can’t tell there is anything wrong. If you have only read comic books, it won’t be strange that there are no novels in your house. If you live where there are no seasons, you won’t miss the colors of fall. If you watch fifty TV ads each night, you may forget there is such a thing as wisdom. TV is mostly trivial. It seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth. God is the great absolute, all-shaping Reality. If He gets any airtime, He is treated as an opinion. There is no reverence. No trembling. God and all that He thinks about the world is missing. Cut loose from God and everything goes down.

My sense is that insofar as TV is an escape from reality, it is also an escape from those things that should make us great. When we enter into fake reality, we are escaping from the difficulties of life: suffering, hardship, grief, pain, failure. But those, the scriptures say, are the things that would have made us the wisest, the holiest, the most compassionate, the happiest. Romans 5:3-5 "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

So I suppose I could say use TV wisely. But I can't help but think the wisest move would be to throw the thing to the curb. I'll keep you posted.