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culture

When Entertainment Rules

Today in church the bishop gave a lesson on how to recognize and avoid the deception of the devil. One of the points that struck home with me (which was limited to that time when I was not chasing my son – I can’t wait for nursery) was how much of that deception comes in the form of apparently benign enticements which distract us from the truth. I made a mental connection with this comment from a liberal blogger:

The mainstream media in this country focused on the Presidential race like it was a football game. Clinton gains a first down but is called for off-sides. Obama gets called for a late hit. Ew, that’ll cost him. Oh no, Hillary fumbles the ball and turns the ball over to Obama.

That kind of thinking and effort seems to be par for the course for our so-called liberal media, which more resemble a propaganda network for the regime in power.

This reminded me of the message of Amusing Ourselves to Death. The book is over 20 years old and it’s still completely accurate. The difference between 1985 and 2008 is that we have more tools available to combat the passive ingestion of entertainment packaged as information. I don’t think that having a press that is nationalistic in its focus is inherently bad, but I fully agree with my blogging colleague that:

We have commercialized the press to the point that their reporting is gauged for viewership rather than accuracy and relevancy. This truly alarms me.

By David

David is the father of 8 children. When he's not busy with that full time occupation he works as a technology professional. He enjoys discussing big issues with informed people, cooking, gardening, vexillology (flag design), and tinkering.