From August 22, 2015
I have been dipping into R.J. Rushdoony’s The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (Ross House Books, Vallecito, CA: 1981, 2001 reprint–available from http://www.chalcedon.edu ), and it has set my mind on fire.
Culture, said Henry Van Til, “is religion externalized.” In light of that statement, one good, hard look at our culture of today should send us running madly for the exits. And one of the chief determining factors of a culture is, of course, the education provided to its members.
And here’s the thought that blows my mind:
Our consumption of “entertainment”–novels, movies, stories, television programs, etc.–is a form of self-education.
This entertainment is what we pour into our heads when we are not in a formal “educational” setting. As a society, we have more leisure time than we used to have; and much of that time is spent consuming entertainment.
The horror! The horror!
Take a good look, kimosabe, at what we’re stuffing into our minds. Is it any wonder we’re in such a mess? Given what we educate ourselves into, of course we’re going to redefine marriage, excuse all forms of lawlessness, lie and cheat six ways from Sunday, and in general behave as if there is no God.
Because so much of our entertainment, our self-education, is absolutely, positively Godless.
Think it over–long and hard and carefully. What are we learning from our entertainment?
Our elite “educators” have labored mightily to wean our nation away from Christianity. But their efforts are a drop in the bucket, compared to the weaning-away accomplished by our entertainment.
The point is so subtle as to be well-nigh invisible. We thus defend ourselves: “It’s only a movie, it’s only a novel, it’s only a TV show”–as if our steady diet of it had no effect at all.
I thank Rushdoony for this insight.
“Take every thought captive to Christ.” We like watching “Last Man Standing” because the Tim Allen character, Mike Baxter, is a conservative who exposed Obama’s lies, and now is a big Trump supporter.
For basically all of my adult life, I have concluded that much of the entertainment which is all but rammed down our throat is not particularly good for us. My major parting from broadcast television came about the time that Three’s Company hit the airwaves, a sitcom about two pretty girls who took on a male roommate, and all of the strange consequences which arose therefrom. Mostly, it was about supporting the lies they told to make the situation acceptable to their landlord. That was Suzanne Sommers’ breakout role and, while tame by today’s standards, was a definitive step away from the relatively wholesome sitcoms which had dominated the airwaves just a few years before.
I didn’t quite watching TV because of Three’s Company, by any means, but I quit watching when my TV quit working, and within two weeks, I found that I couldn’t stand to be around broadcast TV. I would watch a few shows when visiting others, such as the brilliant SCTV, which came from Canada, but for the most part, I have lived almost my entire adult life without broadcast TV and/or cable.
I did have satellite TV for a while, and with so many choices there were some things worth watching, but also more than a few things which were absolutely disgusting. I particularly remember a news program about the activities of college students in Florida, on Spring Break. You could see the pressure to break down all moral standards through social activities and the free flow of alcohol to minors, to break down their inhibitions. Even though this program was suitable for broadcast, it was still depicting moral decay.
Over time, I found myself watching infrequently and when you divided the monthly cost of Sat’ TV by hours watched, it was pretty expensive. When political ads started for the 2008 election, I decided that I didn’t want to pay several dollars per viewing hour to listen to lies, and I cancelled the Sat’ TV account.
For a while, I had Netflix over the Internet, but their documentaries pushed the boundaries, in my opinion, and bordered on the pornographic, so I cancelled that too.
Using food as an analogy, it has been an ever worsening diet of junk food, really since the ‘70s. Feed your mind on such junk, and there’s little room left for matters of substance, and the spiritual. Our culture is stuffing itself with junk food for the mind and spirit, while dying a slow death, from mental and spiritual malnutrition.
DWe gave up TV in the 80s and haven’t had it since.
It kills a lot of time.