Watching TV to keep up with the news is like going to a party. Sex, religion and politics, in any order. Those are the topics of choice. We hear about "twerking," and are confronted with all manner of exhibitionism in local news. Should women be wearing yoga pants in non-yoga areas. The office, the workplace, school, church...and that's just the teachers!
Religion encroaches in all the right places. Christian Mingle, the online dating service pops up on the screen during the grisliest of crime shows, the politician's speeches and the sit-coms so full of sexual innuendo that every second of canned laughter barely hides the grins, the gasps, the outcries, or the mindless guffaws.
So what's the message? Are we a society and culture in decline or just rapidly changing? Probably both. I recall a student once coming to school with a most offensive tee shirt. Offensive in that the cartoon image on the front made it impossible for him to be taken seriously at any point during the day. It was simply a line drawing of a man with his head jammed up his bare rear end. You might even have seen this image. Appropriate? Probably for somewhere, but hardly school. I don't blame the student. He probably never gave the matter a thought. But what kind of parent sees their child leave for school wearing that shirt? What goes through the mind of mom or dad when they drop their child off, or send them out the door? Guess you have to see them in the morning first. That probably never happened...I'd like to think. If it did happen, what does that indicate?
So our politicians want to wage war because a government is waging war against its own people using morally deficient methods. Isn't killing other human beings morally deficient under all circumstances?
We are outraged at Syria for killing it's own people so we decide to kill some of them ourselves to show that it's morally wrong to kill people.
Ouch! The truth hurts.
But war today, just like sexuality or spirituality, isn't what it once was. Most Americans don't think too far beyond their next day. As they cut the language down to 40 word responses, 10 second sound bytes, and unknowingly do the bidding of the 1% who own and control about 90% of everything else, they'll do it with the purist form of titillating rhetoric...sex...religion...politics.
Religion encroaches in all the right places. Christian Mingle, the online dating service pops up on the screen during the grisliest of crime shows, the politician's speeches and the sit-coms so full of sexual innuendo that every second of canned laughter barely hides the grins, the gasps, the outcries, or the mindless guffaws.
So what's the message? Are we a society and culture in decline or just rapidly changing? Probably both. I recall a student once coming to school with a most offensive tee shirt. Offensive in that the cartoon image on the front made it impossible for him to be taken seriously at any point during the day. It was simply a line drawing of a man with his head jammed up his bare rear end. You might even have seen this image. Appropriate? Probably for somewhere, but hardly school. I don't blame the student. He probably never gave the matter a thought. But what kind of parent sees their child leave for school wearing that shirt? What goes through the mind of mom or dad when they drop their child off, or send them out the door? Guess you have to see them in the morning first. That probably never happened...I'd like to think. If it did happen, what does that indicate?
So our politicians want to wage war because a government is waging war against its own people using morally deficient methods. Isn't killing other human beings morally deficient under all circumstances?
We are outraged at Syria for killing it's own people so we decide to kill some of them ourselves to show that it's morally wrong to kill people.
Ouch! The truth hurts.
But war today, just like sexuality or spirituality, isn't what it once was. Most Americans don't think too far beyond their next day. As they cut the language down to 40 word responses, 10 second sound bytes, and unknowingly do the bidding of the 1% who own and control about 90% of everything else, they'll do it with the purist form of titillating rhetoric...sex...religion...politics.
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