Reality TV?
What do you think of it?
The Entertainment Industry is being rocked by the flood of low cost tabloid style shows that feature anything from 24/7 visits in crisis-ridden Homes, to endless tell-all glimpses into the troubled lives of the “rich and famous,” or overweight, often emotionally underdeveloped discontents, obsessed with the hope that reduced size and camera friendliness will fulfill them.
You know, I’m sure, that we don’t have this flood of “pulp” programming just to annoy us. It is, actually, the product of several decades of scholarly writing and lecturing in the Ethics Departments of Academia. It rises out of the insistence that “stories” are the only reliable realm in which answers to the question of what is “right and wrong” can be found. In the context of human living virtue is discovered and defined. Of course the more instances of this living we have to consider, the more likely we are to find truly ethical practices and the ability to ensconce them among the “Virtues.” So, how the Kardashians live becomes important because they have succeeded in life – if you accept the system of values that sees their lifestyle as successful. The more stories, the more examples, the greater the consensus.
Don’t get me wrong! There are things to gain from sharing life experiences with one another. People with weight issues have benefited from shows like “The Biggest Loser.” A Brit Nanny can train incompetent Parents. So the volume rises.
There are many “Narratives.” Some of them are greater than others – “Meta Narratives,” – because they embody multitudes of “stories.” Religions are among the “Meta Narratives,” available to those combing through these stories to assess truth and what is good and fair. Understandably so because they embody actual civilizations of people and their plethoric “stories.” Unfortunately these sources are treated with a high degree of suspicion because they are not seen as verifiable. The Judaeo/Christian “Narrative” is widely rejected in the Academy because of its alleged lack of historical substance and verifiability. It’s even more suspect among the supposed scholarly because of its claims of “Absolute Truth,” and “Exclusivity.”
Absolute “Truth” is anathema in the Modern Academy. Their interest in “stories” is simply veiled, stubborn insistence that all things ethical are “relative.” “Whatever!” is more than a “Valley-talk wave-of-the-hand.” It’s a belief. “Whatever works for ya man!” Nowhere is this more apparent than in day-to-day modern conversations. Just recently a man walked into a Beauty Salon in a Beach Community not far from Long Beach, California. He opened fire on the Patrons, one of whom was his estranged Wife. Before he was finished he’d killed her, other customers, and some employees. Brutal at best! And yet, in the aftermath, reporters and hand-wringing witnesses were asking, “What would make a man do such a thing?” He must have been “psychotic,” or “on drugs,” or “out-of-control.” In the end the popular understanding of such action does not account for the existence of “evil.” There are no categories for “evil” or “personal responsibility for one’s behavior.” We’ll need to hear his story. Then we’ll know how to treat him and how to prevent such violence in the future. Of course we’ll need lots more similar stories before we’ll really know. As for him: he’ll need to be isolated and treated by Behavioral Scientists so that he’ll no longer be a threat to Society.
“Absolute Truth,” on the other hand, says such behavior is unacceptable and those who opt for it must be held responsible. The Judaeo/Christian brand teaches this with the proviso that holding someone “responsible” is, in fact, more about correction than punishment. If the behavior requires relinquishing certain privileges so be it. But, in the process of removing someone from Society because they pose a threat to others, our belief in the worth of even the worst of us calls for a change of heart and mind which brings with it the development of “good character.” And among all the “stories” being told these days there are multitudes which tell of just such change. Why would supposedly thinking people reject such a view of life?
Well, they’re troubled by the insistence that this is the only “Way” such “character” development can be achieved. The exclusivity of “Biblical Stories” has no place in the Academy.
But are those stories “exclusive?”
A casual overview of a few of them reveals they’re not.
For example the origin of the Human Race is described in the first Bible Story as being God’s idea. Once He’s decided to create this “superlative” Creature, resembling Himself, He gives them full range to live in and enjoy the Earth and everything else He’s created. Even when this “Super Race” disappoints Him He does not abandon them. Page-after-page of the “story” shows Him working every imaginable process to bring them the highest quality of life.
He calls one man in particular and promises him, “unmatched prosperity and posterity more numerous than grains of sea sand.” But the promise is not exclusive. The God of the Bible says to this man, “in you will all the Families of the Earth be blessed.” – i.e. “enjoy a quality of well-being not unlike that of the gods.” How does a thinking person get “exclusivity” out of this? “All the Families of the Earth” will be benefiting from what is promised.
As if that weren’t enough, this man who’d been given such magnanimous promises, chose not to trust his God. His Wife, whom God said would bear the child he’d need if posterity of such numbers was to be, was too old. They both believed that. So they agreed he’d impregnate his Wife’s servant girl. When the servant’s baby was born her mistress was jealous and sent her out of the camp. But then the God of the Bible made an even more phenomenal promise.
Run-out-of-the-camp, heartbroken, with little to her name, weeping by a stream, God appeared to her. Then and there He made a promise to her. “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be numbered for multitude. … See now, you are with child and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard and paid attention to your affliction. And he, Ishmael, will be as a wild donkey among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will live to the east and on the borders of all his kinsmen.” This young woman who’d been marginalized by her Society was not excluded by the God of the Bible. And in honor of Him, the Bible’s story tells us, “she called the name of the Lord Who spoke to her, You are a God of seeing, for she said, ‘Have I not, even here in the wilderness, looked upon Him Who sees me and lived?’”
This child, Ishmael, is the Father of the Arab Nations. Isaac, the Father of Israel, was later borne by the woman thought to be too old to bear a child. Modern day Nations, known throughout the World as enemies, exist because of “promises” kept by the God of the Bible. Where’s the exclusivity in that?
From the 1st Chapters to the last, where we’re told, “the dwelling place of God’s choice is with the Human Race. He will live with them. He will be their God and they will be His people,” the message of the Bible’s Story is that He “favors” this perpetually recalcitrant Race and goes to any lengths to rescue, refine, and restore them to the original, noble resemblance of Himself. Such lengths, in fact, that His love becomes a “sacrificial love,” that gives up everything to carry out the salvage operation that will restore any and all who will agree to the “makeover.” “God,” Jesus said, “so loves the world – our Race – that He gave His only Son that WHOSOEVER believes in Him shall not die but live forever.”
This is the “Meta Narrative” we most need to hear. This God, who made us, and has “made sense of our existence” through a real, fully human “Son of Man,” will make us into noble, immortal beings who can actually make of ourselves and others the very sort of person “our stories” tell us we want so much to be.
