Catholic and Enjoying It!
Trivial TV shows, Barack Obama and global warming dominate the media
I was talking to a friend this weekend. Conservative guy. Does public policy stuff here in Washington. Could have had some sort of appointment in Olympia if Rossi had won if he’d wanted it. He remarked to me that he’s always been a support of the free market etc., confident that if you just let the market work it will take care of itself, etc. So we let it work and it drove itself into the ground. Turns out original sin affects economics too. So he’s grappling with John Adams remarks about the nature of the American experiment:
We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.
I think the fascination with “reality” TV, (which is one of the great lies foisted on us by a medium that excels in lies) and similar degrading trivia is more or less what you expect of a culture that is exhibiting many signs that it greatly fears the consequences of its choices, but is not yet driven to regret the choices themselves. We are distracting ourselves from our growing sense that Judgment awaits us with a) trivial crap to distract us from our fears and b) ephemeral hopes that some dimestore Messiah will get us out of the jam we are making for ourselves by waving a magic wand. Ours is a secular culture where we are no longer allowed to think in terms of “sin” or “redemption”, so we transmogrify our debased Christian worldview into an alternate religion in which “the planet” is the goddess against whom we sin and our prophets urge us to return to right worship of her through big sacrifices (of other people’s children), small sacrifices (recycle), eating the correct ritual foods, keeping kosher with our clothes and a host of other purchasing choices, and even buying indulgences called “carbon offsets” which will take away your sins and transgressions against Your Mother.
All this leaves you harried and exhausted, of course, because there is no forgivenesss of sins in this system. Just the continual awareness of that you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of Gaia. So we zone out and watch Balloon Boy vomit and congratulate ourselves saying, “I thank God I’m not like other men, or even like those skanky Heene people.” A welcome distraction from the fact that none of this is remotely like what we ever wanted or hoped life would be like. We wanted something more like… well, more like the real thing. More like what Jesus talked about. But we aren’t allowed to talk about that in public. That would be fundamentalist and ignorant and stupid and oppressive and unscientific and Eurocentric and superstitious and hateful toward women and wrong and bad and icky and tacky. So we keep talking about how our great nation will renew itself as we all pull together and, by our own inner greatness, go shopping and watch more TV and manifest Our Bestest Selves that Oprah and Obama assure us we have way down deep inside while steadfastly ignoring all that downer junk about “Repent! And believe the Good News!”
Memo to America and Britain: How’s that working for you?
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