Who's Telling You What to Think?
article by Jerold Aust
Some people accept the news they read in newspapers and watch on television as the gospel truth. Is such trust in our mass media justified? Do you really know who's telling you what to think-and why?
Consider for a moment what might happen if someone you knew who died in the 1950s or '60s, perhaps your mother or grandmother, suddenly came to life and sat down with you to watch some of today's evening television shows. What would she see? What would she think?
Imagine letting her take your favorite chair and handle the remote control. Since you probably receive TV programming from a cable or satellite company, listen to her shocked disbelief as she hears the profanity and crudity spew forth. Notice her face as she hears the actors and actresses blurt out vulgarities with an ease and indifference the likes of which she would have never heard only a few decades earlier.
You might well find yourself on the defensive, trying to explain why modern television programming so openly promotes casual sexual encounters, gratuitous violence and foul language. She might question why you would voluntarily allow such crudeness to enter the sanctity of your home. She might ask why you feel no sense of alarm at the filth and vulgarity you allow into your children's minds. She might urge you to "turn that trash off"-and she'd be right on the mark.
Spiral to depravity
Steve Allen, the longtime actor, comedian and songwriter who died in 2000, wrote thoughtfully and perceptively about the depraved vortex of television programming in his book Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio .
"There has always been a market for vulgarity and licentiousness," he observed, "but at present it is undeniable that motion pictures, theater, television, radio, the recording industry, and, to a lesser degree, journalism are enthusiastic participants in the general collapse of standards and behavior.
"Some people may find it hard to believe that television was a morally admirable medium as recently as the 1950s. With a few exceptions it was largely administered by gentlemen and ladies, and although it was, from the first, apparent that inferior cultural merchandise was likely to become quite popular, given the notorious imperfections of human nature itself, television programming in general at least consisted of fare that could be watched by the entire family . . . It is clear that the medium has changed . . . Corporate America, granting exceptions, has not only largely given up its former admirable participation in the maintenance of society's general sanity but has joined those who would undermine it . . ." (2001, pp. 32-34, emphasis added).
For those who believe in character and high moral standards, some obvious questions come to mind: Where have we gone wrong? Why have we gone wrong? What, if anything, can be done about our self-initiated spiral into media-induced depravity?
What messages are those who spoon-feed us through the media presuming to tell us? What do they want us to think?
Today's mass media-radio, television, movies, audio and video recordings, books, magazines, newspapers, the Internet-shape our perception of reality. But how accurate is that perception? Is it true? Sometimes media moguls would like us to believe that our perception-a perception they carefully craft and provide- is reality.
But it's important for us to differentiate between viewpoints that arise from standards that are healthy for us and based on a moral foundation and those that are rooted in amoral thinking. As the Bible cautions us in Proverbs 4:23Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
See All...: "Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts" (Today's English Version).
Posts
