Tag Archives: television

I Scream, I Shout, Who Listens?

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14

Carson and Noah in training (my son and grandson)
Clarification:  I am not screaming or shouting at my guys!
After I wrote this post, I saw the picture and thought it was cute. 
Isn’t that a cute baby?


Television is thus not simply the dominant medium of popular culture, it is the single most significant shared reality in our entire society.  Christendom was defined as a region dominated by Christianity.  Not all citizens of Christendom were Christians, but all understood it, all were influenced by its teaching, all institutions had to contend with it.  Christianity was the one great assumption of Christendom.  I can think of no entity today capable of such a culturally unifying role except television.  In television, we live and move and have our being.

…television, serve[s] in our culture a role once reserved for God: the role of defining reality.

There is a price today for the ease of images over words.

Entertainment is the one constant in our lives.

…the addiction to diversion…

Ours is the cult of the electronic fragment.

Excerpts taken from Chapter 10, “Popular Culture’s Medium” in All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, by Kenneth A. Myers, 1989.

When I talked on children’s literature recently, I argued that reading with your child on your lap is altogether different from watching a DVD with a child on your lap.  My primary argument was the power, the beauty, and the glory of words, and the joy of experiencing them with a child.

Words are powerful!  Words are the way we communicate, the necessary components for a conversation. Reading a book is like opening a present: the gift is words to season our speech, words to nurture our spirits.  Words are fascinating and fun.  Words can unlock emotions, bring understanding.  How often have you experienced something that you felt incapable of expressing, only to read a book and exclaim, That is exactly what I meant to say, but didn’t have the words for it.  Words nurture us.  Books will give you words, ideas and stories.

If we used the analogy of food, what would consuming weeks of day-in/day-out television be?

I’d say boxed cereal or K-rations. Albert Marrin writes, “One never felt full after a K-ration meal.  Soldier food was dull and tasteless.”  When did you feel full after watching a show?  Often there is no response at all; the show just covered a void.  Sometimes you feel slimed.  The most recent episode of The Bachelor drew a lot of irritated comments from bloggers.  Why would anyone watch it in the first place?  Do we really want to “nourish” our soul and spirit with that essence of tubercular spittle?

See, I knew it. 
I knew I would get the “screamin’ meemies.” 
My kids know this voice. 
[deep, cleansing breaths]

It is too easy for me to crusade about television because that is the medium “under control” at my house.  I’m very interested in how this translates to the internet (a medium I cannot say is completely under control).  They can both be addictive, time-consuming and there are issues with each medium regardless of content. 

I would love to see a second edition of this book after twenty years.  How do we move from thoughtless consumption of contemporary culture to thoughtful engagement in the age of TIVO, wifi and text messaging? 

I’m flirting with the idea of subscribing to Mars Hill Audio (see link above) to get more thought-provoking commentary.  From their website:

We believe that fulfilling the commands to love God and neighbor requires that we pay careful attention to the neighborhood: that is, every sphere of human life where God is either glorified or despised, where neighbors are either edified or undermined. Therefore, living as disciples of Christ pertains not just to prayer, evangelism, and Bible study, but also our enjoyment of literature and music, our use of tools and machines, our eating and drinking, our views on government and economics, and so on.

A gulp of All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes on Google Reader.