Lost In Our Distractions

we love to be couch potatoes

Orwell's nightmare vision of our collective future, 1984, fortunately didn't come to pass; in part, because we were so scared it might. Yes, there are still dictatorships around the world, and some dictators have tried to make their control total (consider Pol Pot, for example), but there was a collective sigh of relief when we actually arrived in the year 1984.

However, the more accurate vision of our future appeared ten years or so before Orwell's book: Huxley's Brave New World.
Huxley argued that, rather than being controlled by our fears, we are controlled by our pleasures. The human species, he said, 'has an infinite capacity for distraction'.

Rather than get some work done, or achieve our goals, or practice self-discipline, we'd much rather be couch potatoes, be idle, and feed our pleasures.

With the rise of the Internet and mobile devices, we can now spend the whole day instagramming, facebooking, and whatsapping. Or we can spend the day wargaming, netflixing, or simply surfing.

Life is easy, life is fun, but we can oh so easily get bored. Work to do? That's boring. Goals to achieve? That's boring. Be self-disciplined? That's the most boring thing I've ever heard.

We live in an age of information and excitement at our finger tips; and we don't want to switch off. But we are already paying the price of information overload. Do you remember... 'Oh, what was his name?', 'Oh, I saw an article once...', 'There used to be a shop...'. Our devices have taught us to use our brains differently. We have already been rewired. We no longer memorise things; what we do now is remember where to find the things that we used to remember. That location is usually the Internet. But if the power goes off, what will we do?

Already, there are times when our shops or institutions can't function because they're momentarily 'offline'.

If we're not careful, humans themselves will become offline and more. That is in fact the prediction of some of our brightest thinkers: that an age of intelligent machines is coming, and once those machines become self-replicating, there will be no need for us; humans, it is suggested, will become redundant. Indeed, in an Age of Intelligent Machines, why would people be necessary or even useful? That has been a recurring idea of Science Fiction for a long time now; Asimov, for one, took the notion seriously in his fiction. Maybe it will soon progress beyond an idea.

In love with lust

In Love With Lust

[source: tastytufts]

... and escape the corruption with which lust has infected the world

2 Peter 1:5

Jesus said: He who has known the world has found the body

Gospel of Thomas 80



Although I still don't own a TV and have therefore never watched a Big Brother show in its entirety, I do read voraciously and was horrified to read one time the suggestion that one of the Big Brother Africa contestants was very unpopular mainly because she refused to shower nude on the reality-TV programme. She was then expelled from 'the house'. I was saddened when I then went on to read that the woman apparently had no qualms at all about appearing naked but that Big Brother was simply "too cheap" for a brazen view of her buttocks: she would definitely expose all to a glamour magazine for the right price.

I still have the original reviews of the original Big Brother, and I was concerned about the approach even then. To my mind there is something inherently and fundamentally wrong with voyeurism, which is what Big Brother essentially panders to. Big Brother is only one step away -- and not such a big step either -- from watching child porn on the Internet and subscribing to 'snuff' movies, videos that record in chillingly graphic detail the mutilations, depravations and ultimate killing of many of the innocents who 'disappear' from our cities every day of every year. It seems to me that many, if not most, who watch Big Brother and other programmes like it are tuning in for a quick thrill, perhaps for private pleasure or maybe for something to talk about -- voyeurism makes no distinction between means and ends. Naturally, reality TV is only the logical extension of twenty years of soaps -- why pay writers to come up with lurid scripts when the real thing is possible?

There are many problems here. One is clearly the loosening of morals. Personally, I am glad that previously taboo topics like sex, violence and death -- especially when the three come together in situations such as domestic violence -- are more openly discussed today; but I am disconcerted that this more open discussion has brought along with it an atmosphere of acceptance. Hearing four-year-olds repeating the foul mouthings of the latest degenerate rapper is disconcerting; reading that incest and rape cases are increasing is disconcerting; knowing that so many children and teens have scant respect for their parents and elders is disconcerting. It seems that the more we talk about these problems, the more they are seen as part of the normal way of things, practices so everyday that to complain about them is seen as a waste of breath at best and preaching at worst. Illustrations of this so abound in our culture that they even turn up in popular songs: Tracy Chapman's Behind the Wall from a few years back and the more recent Eminem/Rihanna collaboration Love the Way You Lie are two examples that come quickly to mind.

Unfortunately, it also appears that we are not only unshockable these days, but are actively seeking some new outrage to talk about. Our appetites quickly become jaded. Things that shocked us a few years ago don't shock anymore and we desire to move onto something stronger. This is evidently an addiction; an addiction is something we can't do without.

If a desire controls us, it is properly called a lust and my contention here is that our mass-media displays all the symptoms of a lust that has infected the world. Reality TV may indeed be one of the most lucrative media innovations of the last few years, but that is simply because it provides a potent daily fix. Billions of people daily tune into a TV station or go online to get their needed rush, to try and satiate the restless lust that now consumes and controls them. Saying that people are addicted is an understatement; but unfortunately, even when some agree that they have an addiction, you find that talking about it doesn't really help -- especially when they realise that there are millions of others who share their same desire. If one of the soapie actors or Big Brother contestants confesses a weakness for kiddie porn, will viewers be outraged or sympathetic? My suspicion is that such a confession could actually improve the person's popularity. Other problems include the creation of instant celebrities (felebs, if they're on Facebook) and people being famous for the wrong reasons. Frankly, it's a wonder that David Simelane (Swaziland's very own serial killer) hasn't already sold his macabre story to an international tabloid, and the film rights to Hollywood.

[An earlier version of this article appeared in the Times of Swaziland Sunday on July 6th, 2003.]

Obsessed With The Body

 Jesus: Wretched is a body that depends on a body

Gospel of Thomas 87

Paul: They have worshipped the creature, rather than the Creator
 

Letter to the Romans Chapter 1

Jesus: I am not your Master. Because you drank, you are drunk from the same bubbling stream that I measured out

Gospel of Thomas 13 


How is it that over 100 million people have downloaded a video of a woman obscenely shaking her butt? One hundred million. That's more downloads than some countries have people. What is the collective effect on world culture? More pertinently, what is the collective effect on the world's youth? What is this statistic revealing to us?

 Most people identify with their bodies; they consciously or unconsciously believe that what they see in their mirrors and instagram selfies is who they are. 

They spend money on hairstyles, skin creams, trips to the gym and make sure they have at least one photo-editing program on their cellphones.

Again, we can ask why? Why has the image of people become more important than people themselves?

In this 21st Century, we have seen the glamorisation of women and the breakdown of traditional roles accelerating and also the abuse of women a commonplace occurrence: trafficking, rape, domestic violence and other nasties.

Those who follow the world's scriptures will know that this is a characteristic of the Age of Kali, the end-times, when there will also be, Jesus said, "Wars and rumours of wars".

Wars, and rumours of them, is so everyday now that most people actually take little notice of them -- unless they unfortunately live where a war is taking place. Right now, as I'm writing this, the news is all about the Ukraine conflict, Israel, Syria, Baka Haram, etc... the list is extensive.

The reason for this global nastiness, Paul wrote to the Romans, is a focus on the creature, i.e., people, rather than on our Creator, our Father, the One, the Life-Force that runs through us all. And part of this mis-focus is due to our religions: as soon as you let your spiritual leader, priest, guru, whatever, tell you what to do, you're lost. As Jesus told Thomas, you must seek out that bubbling stream for yourself and drink its living waters.


© Kenneth Rowley 2014