Tag Archives: culture

Jesus? Jesus, Anyone?

You already know I’m not a huge fan or religion. I’m particularly disdained, however, at the fact that religion can now be confused with pedophilia.

Friday, prosecutors in the Warren Jeffs polygamy case urged jury members to uphold the sanctity of the purity of a girl who, at age 14, was allegedly forced, against her better judgment, to marry her cousin and submit to his sexual advances.

I can’t even describe to you how disgusting that is. First of all, she was 14. Modern psychology tells us that, as a rule, individuals of that age are not prepared for the emotional ramifications resulting from an act of sexual intercourse…even assuming that they are physically ready, which I find myself doubting. Secondly, to compound the issue further, she was his cousin! West Virginia jokes aside, I was under the understanding that both incest and pedophilia were illegal. Those are some of those comforting laws that come with living in a civilized culture.

Last night, however, on Anderson Cooper 360, attorneys could be viewed arguing (you can catch it on the podcast) that Jeffs was protected from legal charges in encouraging this unholy union by stating that this fell under his freedom of religion, and that it is his faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) that is under attack here, not him.

I nearly screamed in pain.

If there’s anything I disagree with less than religion, its the legal system (I think Shakespeare may have a had a point). But when our perverted system can actually formulate a response to protect someone who’s religion and status as a “prophet” have resulted, even if indirectly, in the incestuous rape of a little girl, and God knows what other sexual atrocities? Like I said: disgusting.

This is what happens, however, when not only the system goes horribly awry, but so does religion. Religion has replaced true spirituality in our culture. Anyone can claim that they are a a descendant of Jesus, like Jeffs has, and proceed to build a church (I use the word loosely) that will adhere to their every opinionated and twisted demand.

All that is required by anyone interested in spiritual pursuits is a cursory examination of the Scriptural accounts of Jesus’ life to discover that He finds these things abhorrent. You’ll also find, if you read a bit further, that He wasn’t a huge fan of religion as typically practiced, and it is that religion that has led us to this. At some point, the postmodern relativism of our twisted view of the Christ (and those who claim to be His prophets while obviously speaking out of sync with Him) must fall under scrutiny, and be held up against a standard of truth.

So what is that truth?

If you questioned Elissa Wall, the girl in question in the Jeffs case, I bet that she might say something to the effect of how she shouldn’t have been subjected to sex by her cousin when she was 14 years old. The epistemology may be subject to debate, but I imagine she would hold that fact to be truth.

It only becomes distorted when we do what the legal system does, and analyze it too far.

 

 

Oops, I Did It Again…

As much as I’m opposed to sensationalist media, I’ve found myself scanning the stories of Britney Spears’ apparently horrendous performance at the VMA’s a few days ago. Typically, I don’t even pause when I see this particular individual’s name in the headlines. But, she has grabbed my attention in the recent past, so…blame it on that, or on well-written headlines by CNN, but I can’t help but shake my head today.

Not, however, for the same reason that you might immediately think.

Yesterday’s somewhat more merciful attack to the criticism about Britney’s body was the one that really drew me into reading. Apparently, the entertainment industry seems to think she was too fat to wear the little black…thing…that she performed in at the VMA’s. Their comments about her physical condition strike me, as they struck this commentator, as unmerited. Honestly, I’ve never heard quality music associated with Spears, so the allegations that her performance sucked didn’t surprise me. But slamming someone’s weight?

I guess what struck me when I read this this morning was a feeling of pity. I already feel pity for Spears, because I can see past the goddess-of-entertainment status that she holds and see that she is a human being underneath all of that. If one of my friends had been through a divorce, was having a crisis with children that she suddenly realized she wasn’t ready to raise, and had to enter substance abuse treatment, I would be doing anything I could to help her. Instead of having pity on Spears, however, we enjoy watching her twitch under the microscope of popular entertainment culture, assuming that we, as spectators to her life, have the right to critique her as though she were a character from a novel.

When I looked at the photos from the VMA performance, I wasn’t drawn by the paunch that she was accused of displaying. Instead, I felt as though I was privy to her broken-ness. My heart breaks at the fact that she feels as though she must place her body, once promised to her husband, on display in order to gain affirmation and applause from those who worship her.

Artists were never meant to be placed on pedestals as though they are deities. Our entertainment culture is one of idolization that doesn’t reward the artistry: it rapes the life of the artist. Every singer, writer, or painter dreams of success in the sense that they want their work to be seen, read, or heard. Instead, we’ve turned it into something corporate. Instead, gifted artists must also place their bodies on display in racy photo shoots or risque performances in order to achieve blockbuster success.

Spears has made her choices, many of which were negative choices, and she must live with those. However, she is, in some sense, a victim as well, because she has been taken advantage of by the machine we put in place to idolize artists and athletes, all because we want to fill our need to have something to worship.

So, we worshipped Spears, and then cast her aside into entertainment hell, because that is the way “the industry” works. Then, her once loyal “fans” sit back in judgment because they feel justified, as though they are given that right by this despicable little culture that we’ve created.

I didn’t laugh at Britney Spears.

In fact, I almost cried, instead.

 

 

Losing Proposition

America’s work culture is a source of unending amusement to me.

I guess because it is never in the best interest of the person working. Our work weeks are longer than many other countries. Our workers are less healthy than in many other countries. The American thought process is a constant push to identify yourself with what you do, pressuring workers for constantly improved performance and dedication to their career, resulting in less time with family, not to mention less time to contemplate God, existence, purpose…you know, important things like that.

It occurred to me as I discussed with some friends this weekend the origin of Labor Day. It originated as a holiday for the blue collar worker. However, this weekend, I saw all kind of white collar workers taking a long weekend to shop at outlet stores and eat at nice restaurants, all of which were staffed by blue collar workers who had to work on their holiday.

Does that seem backward to anyone else?

I was hesitant to go anywhere to shop or eat today. It seemed profane somehow. All of those workers should have been with family and friends, and being paid for it. Certainly, they get too few holidays as it is.

Of course, the argument would be that this would damage our precious economy, and, since America is driven by the all-powerful dollar, I don’t suppose that justice will ever happen there. We will continue to lose time to ourselves, time with our loved ones, continue to blow through life at a breakneck pace as we forget (or, in many cases, never discover) the emotional and spiritual benefits of a meditation time, or the relational benefits of more time in conversation with your significant other. We’ll just keep losing precious time, in order to keep from losing dollars that are only precious in perception.

Losing. Hmmm…that seems like an adequate word, doesn’t it?

 

 

Fashionably Late

Apparently, there’s a change afoot in fashion trends.

According to this ABC News article, teen girls are moving to become less trashy while retaining their fashion sense. The movement is even being catered to by clothing labels specializing in fashionable clothing that covers more.

Its been a long time coming. I’ve been in a state of perpetual concern for the past few years as to the state of revelation of the clothing choices of our culture, particularaly distraught over the fact that it targets 16-year-olds, and fearfully anticipating future psychological studies that will reveal the damaged psyche and self-esteem that these trends have produced.

Perhaps it is age that makes one less conscious of cutting edge fashion. If so, then my appreciation for the visual asthetic places me caught in between, because I appreciate good fashion. My faith, however, wars with my eyes when I walk through the mall and see girls passing by in a far more thorough way than I really ever should.

I’m in hopes that this trend proves enduring.

On a side note (and I mean this with no intention of a sarcastic stab, but out of sincere curiosity), I wonder how Paris Hilton feels about being named in this article (as a negative example) now that she’s “found God?”

 

Life on Video

I’m an enormous fan of video. While I’m not a YouTube poster and I don’t upload images of my life onto Flickr, I do find myself occasionally drawn to those sites, and I wonder if it isn’t a matter of time. Statistically, as I understand it, this is a mark of the emergent generation more so than of my own GenX age, but I find myself crossing over from one generation to another in my interests, not as much because of my age but because of I have a huge dose of the geek gene when it comes to technology.

I’ve talked a few times here about the art-imitating-life-or-life-imitating-art debate, and I found this article through a Newsvine link today that I thought was interesting enough to bring it up again. There are very interesting results here: generally, most Americans think the media leads our society into a needlessly “liberal” (their word, not mine) and overly permissive worldview toward sexuality, God, and other subjects of importance. While I approach these types of studies with caution (I once had a psychology professor say that statistics are evil…you can make them say whatever you want), I do find it believable and interesting (if even in a prooftexting way) that Americans are dissatisfied with media coverage (“only 11 percent believe it has a positive impact,” according to the article). I bookmarked an interesting article today on my delicious page (on the sidebar) from BBC that provides an interesting glimpse into how we are perceived by other countries..it’s honestly frightening to me. As a news junkie a occasional journalist, I find it difficult at best to find impartial reporting out there…everything is slanted in one direction or the other.

That tangent aside, do we really think that television media is causing societal woes, or merely reflecting them?

Karen and I made the recent decision to ditch cable television. Initially, it was a financial decision, because we were paying a ridiculous amount of money to be locked into their schedule when we only actually watched 4-5 programs regularly, all of of which are available on iTunes significantly cheaper and a la carte. Since we went through with the decision, though, it has become a spiritual improvement in our lives: all of the time we ended up zoning in front of “white noise” television then has now turned to reading more books and engaging in the lost art of conversation. Either way, we come out of it smarter than three hours of meaningless channel surfing.

Television is certainly a valid medium of artistic expression, the same as film. However, there is a significant amount of crap on the airwaves as well. I can understand this study’s opinion that consistent intake of the crap leads to an overall degradation of one’s moral structure.

So, do I want to say that life imitates art here? No, because, if we’re honest, the garbage that is being aired isn’t art…it’s a gratuitous use of technology to indulge our voyeuristic tendencies. At some level, YouTube and Flickr and other platforms, including MySpace and Facebook, indulge the same tendencies. I’m just as guilty of liking to watch someone else’s life as you are, but, after a few glimpses at that type of content (unless it’s one of my friends), I’m either bored or disgusted, and “change the channel.”

The artistic content of television reflects our culture, and comments on it in extremely truthful ways.

The other content?

Well, I guess we just like to watch…

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