The Facts of Life Series: Media and the Arts
Our modern world is awash in media. It is everywhere. And it’s in everything. Not only is it in the familiar venues of the news media, television, the movies and the internet. Now, it is in our pockets and cars at the press of button. And, it has expanded our methods for communicating, shopping, doing business and meeting, even visiting and educating.
But, no one in their right mind doesn’t have some reservations about this. Doesn’t feel some degree of loss as a result of media’s ubiquity. No reasonable reflective person isn’t at least slightly uneasy about how it infiltrates and alters our daily lives and thinking. And, its omnipresence and immediacy almost preclude thoughtful deliberation and critical reflection.
For one thing, media makes maintaining boundaries difficult, regardless of our interests, responsibilities and relationships. Boundaries between our public lives and our private lives. Boundaries between work and home. Boundaries between the greater culture and the culture of our families. Boundaries between the dominant cultural philosophies and moralities and our more religious personal beliefs and morals. And, this invasive and relentless ubiquity requires many of us to be equally relentless in understanding and evaluating these influences and protecting our personal lives from these influential and insidious incursions.
For in our modern media moment, we are beset by a cultural assault on almost every level and in almost every facet of our lives. Probably the most important assault is on the very idea of truth and how we can know and prove such truth. Truth that is knowable and provable. Objective truth. Factual truth. Truth in the old-fashioned sense. The actual and factual, provable metaphysical and moral truths of our faith. The truths of our faith and our Western cultural heritage. This is why we must monitor and limit our personal exposure and resist and restrict much of the content we encounter through our personal use of such media.
For media’s inherent nature and its frequent use in our lives makes us vulnerable to worldly and wayward influences. And, these ideas and influences are not typically edifying and enlightening. Rarely do they offer information and ideas in harmony with reason and our Catholic orthodoxy and morality. Often, they promote faulty ideas antithetical to our truths or they distort words, concepts and ideas in subtle ways that contradict the rules of reason and the substance of our faith.
Because of this daily explicit and implicit assault, our reason and our commonsense, as well as our Catholic truths, are threatened in almost every venue, in almost every way, almost all the time. If you are skeptical about this, think long and hard about the basic truths of Catholicism and their grounding in reason, revelation and science. For the more thoroughly you understand the sum and substance of orthodox Catholicism’s first principles, its primary ideas and the rigor and rationality of its method, the clearer you will see the cultural camouflage concealing these aggressive assaults and their many egregious effects.
For the fundamental truths of Catholic orthodoxy are not too obscure or terribly complicated. But, they do require a degree of deliberate thought and clear, logical thinking, both of which our modern media deny, prevent or confuse. And, many of these deleterious effects are not deliberately so.
For the inherent nature of the media form and format for presenting and conveying the particular ideas of a given program’s content, whether it is straight news, a documentary or some form of entertainment, is image based and rapidly experienced without any personal control. Simply by the means through which ideas are conveyed, critical analysis is often precluded.
For our fear of missing the full range of the news or any given talk show causes us to miss the point of the deep ideas underlying most news programming and their media outlets. The sheer pace of images, the brevity of the content that is presented, the illusion of factual news and truth rife with the implicit bias of our modern culture and the explicit political and socio-cultural bent of most major media outlets, all color the content they communicate and the meaning they imply.
Contrast that rapidity to the process of reading books or longer articles, where the ideas and content are dealt with in detail and in depth. Here, the pacing of your exposure is under your complete control. Pausing for reflective analysis or to reread some expository content allows for greater comprehension of the information and ideas, as well as a critical conceptual review of its rational and political, its metaphysical and moral legitimacy. Nowadays, with all our media exposure, the old proverb about “you can’t be too careful about what you read” becomes all the more prescient.
Not only is the pacing of such programming a problem in and of itself, it also often conveys what appears to be settled truths or objective facts, when all that is really present is a theory or an opinion with a mere morsel of actual, substantive data wrapped in the guise of factual certainty. As a direct effect, now media outlets are generally categorized by their interpretive inclinations and bias and are situated along some continuum from liberal to conservative. Again, this proves the inherent problems and predispositions of media.
Now, regardless of the objective truths and factual certainties of any given story or event, the primary truth of media is that truth is a partisan product, not a matter of fact. Perception is the modern standard now, for now truth is first, last and always a matter of personal perception. And, when perception is primary, debate and discussion, criticism and correction are all but precluded. For truth is a matter of perception, not a matter of fact.
Not only is this true of news and talk shows, documentaries and discussion formats and programming, it is also true in fictional stories, movies, even television series. For there is always a lesson or an issue explored in these more dramatic media formats. It is inherent in the dramatic action of such programs. This is what the media business refers to as the “take away”—the lesson examined, explored, learned through the dramatic process of the story and through the nature of the given genre.
For some character, institution, even idea must be the hero, the protagonist, the truth, just as there must be a villain, an antagonist, a fallacy. For there is always a deliberate “take away,” even if it is “the truth that there is no truth.” The truth that “one opinion is as good as another.” The truth that “judgement is wrong.” That “tolerance is “the only one, true virtue.”
For this innate aspect of media, be it fictional or factual, means not only should we be “careful” about what we expose ourselves to, but we should be even more circumspect about what media we expose our young and adolescent children to, as well. For they are more vulnerable by virtue of their naivete and innocence, their impressionability and their nascent rationality to critically evaluate the ideas and the takeaway of their media experiences. We must be wise and err on the side of caution, rather than presume the absence of contradictory content to our Catholic worldview.
Such media inevitably convey ideas despite their appeal to our senses and their latent or direct appeal to our minds. Just think of popular music. Music stimulates our senses and conveys an attitude, an emotion, even a drama. And, the use of right thinking and reason’s role in our Catholic faith will help you be more discerning in your media activities and more sophisticated in your discernment of the lyrical content. For lyrics are often a more explicit appeal to faulty and flawed ideas and morals than the musical mood does on its own.
Catchy musical hooks and resonant choruses of such pop compositions often frame or set up the message of the lyrics. And, popular music since the Fifties has had a strong element of modern ideas of revolt, revolution and rejection of the status quo, tradition and truth. Again, you can’t be too careful what you listen to and so should your children.
So, limiting engagement with media is important whether you are young or old. Spending time developing your sophistication with the rudiments of the rational basis of our faith and its metaphysical and moral aspects is a requisite reality. Until you expand your facility with the rational and revelatory basis of Catholic orthodoxy and its concomitant truths, you should be a cautious consumer of secular media of all types and decidedly protective of the children in your charge.
Failing to be cautious and prudent, you may be accidentally undermining your own efforts to raise your children in full accord with our Catholic truth. And, you may inadvertently compromise your own understanding of the fullness of the Catholic worldview and your growth and maturity as a disciple.
So, be cautious. Spend the time in study and reflection. Read rigorously and regularly the Church’s teaching and sound Catholic commentators. For edification in media, the arts and your reading are crucial to your growth. For nowadays, you cannot be too careful about what you read or what you watch or what you hear.
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This article is part of an extended series on the “The Facts of Life” by F. X. Cronin. You can start with part one by clicking here and see previous entries by clicking here.
We also recommend Mr. Cronin’s latest book, The World According to God: The Whole Truth About Life and Living. It is available from your favorite bookstore and through Sophia Institute Press.
