Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 01:50:08 EST
From:         Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Values and Popular Culture (pt. 1)

Hi all:

This is something that I wrote about three months ago, and I just
came across it again in my files.  I'd like to get some response.

HOWEVER, it is long, so I will post it in parts.  PLEASE hold
all comments until you have read the entire piece (I'm not saying
it's seamless; I just hope it moves from beginning to end and
needs to be swallowed before we attempt to digest it.)  When
I post the last part, I will identify it as such and ask for
comments.

Thanks.

Love INC,
         --Kerry

                   Values and Popular Culture (part 1)
                           (copyright 1992)


  Charles Dickens would have loved the America of the 1990s,
because it is such a complete set of profound contradictions.
This is, as he would have said of it, the best of times and the
worst of times.  Life in the United States in this era is
energizing and exhausting.  It is intoxicating and depressing. It
is a time when life and death edge up against each other with
daily, soul-killing regularity.  Nothing is denied to us, yet
nothing satisfies.
   The most technologically sophisticated nation in the world
cannot prevent the simple, brutal, skull-smashing bone-sawing
imperial force of a Jeffrey Dahmer from triumphing fifteen times
before the drama ends.  The most charitable nation in the world
cannot find it in its collective heart to end the senseless reality
of the cold and clinical murder of 4000 unborn babies every day of
the year--murders that rival those of Dahmer in the gruesomeness
of their blood, gore, and dismemberment.
   In this nation, we have every imaginable right.  What greater
license could be granted the citizenry than the Constitutional
right of the woman to murder her child, the sexual sadist to
advertise on television, the servants of demonic forces to offer
up 900 numbers through which the general public may avail itself
of their services?
  Turn on the television and see what a sewer this country is
becoming.  Go on.  I dare you.  And I don't mean during the
late-night hours, which used to be set aside as the only time
one could find the excesses of human depravity dancing across
the screen.  Late night is now primarily dominated by straightforward
attemps to separate the viewer from his or her money, via the
30-minute infomercial
   Don't look during the prime-time hours, either, unless you are
looking for sizzle without steak and tease without payoff.  Prime-
time has become an orgy of liberal political views contending for
the allegience of largely apolitical viewers.  Despite its
adolescent preoccupation with sex, it is all talk and no action.
   And don't bother with the pay channels, either.  What they offer
is far too blatant to pose much of a threat.  After all, a bottle
of poison with a skull and crossbones on the outside isn't nearly
as dangerous as one that merely says "Drink me."
   No, if you really want to see the level to which the medium of
Lucy and Rickie, Ozzie and Harriet has sunk, turn on the television
anytime between nine in the morning and noon (hours, you may note,
when preschool children are most likely to be mesmerized by the
electronic babysitter while parents or parent-substitutes
attempt to cope with the various duties required to get the
average day begun.)  What you see may surprise you.
   If you are a Christian, what you see should make you sick.
   For these are the hours given over to the morning talk shows,
and these are the topics you are most likely to hear discussed:

   * Sex.  (broken down into categories, such as sex with animals,
     sex with children, sex lives of famous people--with or without
     animals and children--sex between children, sex education in the
     schools, the rights of people who choose to have sex with people
     to whom they are not married, the rights of people who choose
     to have sex with people whose names they do not know, the rights
     of people who have sex for money, places where one can go to
     have sex with people, sex between consenting adults of the same
     gender, sex with large numbers of other people, preferred ways
     to go about obtaining sex, performing sex, writing books about
     the sex you have had with famous people, and so on...)

  *  Death.  (Again, broken down into specific topics, such as
     death with dignity, death by violence, life after death, how
     to commit suicide, how to kill another person, how to obtain
     the legal right to kill another person, how to obtain the legal
     right to commit suicide, interviews with people who have written
     books on some or all of the above, etc...)

  *  Murder.  Interestingly, murder is no longer a sub-category of
     death in the United States.  Death has become a curious kind
     of political issue, rather than a concrete experience.  Murder,
     on the other hand, is a subcategory of entertainment.  Thus, it,
     too, breaks down on the talk show circuit into various forms,
     such as child murder (not to be confused with abortion, which
     is hardly ever mentioned except in passing), children who
     commit murder, people who get paid to commit murder who are
     paid to talk about it on the talk show, various forms of
     murder involving various weapons--and on and on and on.

  *  Satanism.  No longer considered in the "silly" category
     (which still contains dating problems, fashion tips,
     and claims which are patently outrageous--usually involving
     sightings of Elvis Presley or God (see "Religion.")),
     Satanism is now taken seriously on the talk show stage.
     Fortunately, it remains in the "negative" category, that is,
     things we probably ought not to engage in (such as racism,
     sexism, and homophobia.)  However, it hovers somewhere in
     the same reality sphere as Unidentified Flying Objects and
     psychic phenomena--real only as recognized by open-minded
     people, not by closed-minded religious fanatics.  On the
     talk shows, Satanism is not bad because of anything it may
     have to do with intrinsic moral evil or with Satan himself,
     but because it sometimes leads people to behave in ways
     disrespectful of the rights of others (such as when Satanists
     demonstrate their disrespect for others who do not agree
     with them by ritually murdering them.  That is bad.)

  *  Religion.  The talk-show diet features two religious courses.
     The first is what some might call respectful explanations of
     religions with which the audience might not be familiar,
     such as those where the High Priestess must have sex with
     every member of her congregation, those where the participants
     ingest illegal drugs to get closer to God, and the gay church.
     The second is the systematic ridicule of Christ-centered
     theology or any form of monotheism.  While Donahue politely
     inquires of the High Priestess of a church in which the
     primary sacrament is ritual sex (which is purchased by the
     congregant), he ridicules the trembling Christian in the
     audience that rises to accuse the Priestess of worshipping
     demons.  Never mind the fact that she is bedecked with
     jewelry featuring serpents, claims allegience to a
     supernatural pagan god, and decries Christianity for its
     failure to recognize the inner perfection of humankind.

      (continued in part 2)