Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, Oct 16, 2008


By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us
in touch with the ignorance of the community.


- Oscar Wilde, author, born on this day, 1854


There is a website that has quotes from various people which I use a lot. Wilde has 205 ….. FAR more than anyone else I can think of, including Jesus, any Pope, Einstein, Muhammad, etc. Hmmmmm.

Not that I listen, but I think of Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Ralph Reed, and others of that ilk. Blasting out things over the airwaves. To …..God forgive me ….. the uneducated and the ignorant, to whom (I believe) such people pander - and this includes so-called ”educated” people living in cultural goldfish bowls. Oh, I’m not criticizing those who have not had the opportunity for an honest education - and there are many in the very restricted American concept of “education”. I’m criticizing those who use their journalistic “arts” to impose bigotry on the susceptible.

Journalism is a pandering “art”. In my experience, given a very few exceptions, journalism is not about education, or about broadening the outlook of people. It is about making money ….. like so much else in society. You make money by pandering to peoples’ smallness of mind, by sucking up to their prejudices and their narrowness. And of course this only creates self-perpetuating pockets of ignorance.

This is what the “Church” has done with the Gospel. Made it into a propagandist pandering to the small mind, promoting ignorance of the sublime meaning of the Gospel. Using it to set communities against one another by promoting a profound ignorance of the true nature and character of God. Is it any wonder that Christians are experiencing “persecution” in India by the Hindus these days? Not to me, considering the overwhelmingly negative, destructive things that Christians have done to peoples of other faiths over the centuries, including utter disrespect for other faiths. While I condone no such violence, I am not surprised in the least. And I think Christianity “deserves” it. I hope we can learn the lesson.

Brian+

No comments: