Subliminal is the one word I would use to describe chapter five of Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver. Here's the dictionary definition:
existing or operating below the threshold of consciousness; being or employing
stimuli insufficiently intense to produce a discrete sensation but often being
or designed to be intense enough to influence the mental processes or the
behavior of the individual
Weaver's greatest concern is not just the subliminal messages that come through the newspapers, radio, television, movies, and now world wide web and bombard our consciences, but he draws attention to the filtering agent or the Great Steriopticon, which he believes exercises more control than we realize over our thoughts and actions.
Noargument
here
from
me.
Weaver words communicate no lost love for journalists, public relations officers, or press agents, and movie producers. Today we all know them as spin meisters. Weaver addresses the art of writing, the skilled use of propaganda, and the unique opportunities available in the transmission of the human voice. He gives us valid examples in Plato, Thomas Jefferson, the Russians, the US Navy, and advertising (laxatives!).
However, Weaver is not just concerned about these disseminators, but more so about the harm created on the Western mind by the filtering agent. And he looks for the fundamental source:
The operators of the Steropticon by their very selection of matter make
horrifying assumptions about reality.
He believes they are overly influenced by a sick metaphysical dream. Weaver laments:
Somewhere, moreover, the metaphysicians of publicity have absorbed the idea
that the goal of life is happiness through comfort. It is a state of
complacency supposed to ensue when the physical appetities have been well
satisfied. Advertising fosters the concept, social democracy approves it,
and the acceptance is so wide that it is virtually impossible today, except
from the religious rostrum, to teach that life means discipline and
sacrifice
Thank goodness for that religious rostrum! It is our saving grace. And
our privilege to educate our own with the proper perspective to filter all this
information.
So, while Weaver acknowledges that some of us realize that we have been misled, he wonders if we (common men) have sufficient analytical powers to assess information. He sees a small ray of hope in serious writing (Saint Exupery and Hemmingway) because they have exhibited a more genuine contempt for materialistic explanations (to life). He mentions Yeats again in the chapter (Cindy likes Yeats.)
I wonder what he would think of the new movies Bella or Beowolf.
In the end, Weaver seems to toot his own horn (that of the philisopher). These blasts of information (knowledge) from all these different sources is too fragmented and discourages composition, which in turn prevents the simultaneous perception of successive events, which is the achievement of the philosopher. (pg 111)
Again, I just cant argue with his assessment.
Thus, absence of reflection keeps the individual from being aware of his former selves, and it is highly qustionable whether anyone can be a member of a metaphysical community who does not preserve such memory.
But we know there is hope because we (some) are members of a metaphysical community and we remember.
Another quote:
The man of culture finds the whole past relevant; the bourgeois and the barbarian find relevant only what has some pressing connection with their appetites. Those who remember alone have a sense of relatedness, but who has a sense of relatedness is in at least the first grade of philosophy.
Well, ladies. I guess that makes us philosphers. And I dont mind being in the first grade because all I need to know I learned in kingergarten.
So, now in the style of Edith Schaeffer, let us prepare our homes and our relations for a great tradition - gathering together and giving thanks. Here's an opportunity to remember who made you and for what purpose.
That filter will shine the proper light on the images in your path.
Oh! Here's Kelly's (Badgermum's)
cup of tea
awaiting her arrival so we can finish our discussions.
Aw, you're so sweet and your table is lovely!
ReplyDeleteAs I read that chapter I kept thinking, "Just turn the danged thing off!"
I quit subscribing to the newspaper when my oldest son was about two years old and noticed the ads for the local deparment store -- they were having a sale on *ahem* ladies foundations. And I realized for the first time how very inappropriate it was to have pictures of women in their underwear in our house! Isn't that bizarre? If it had been a magazine whose purpose was to titillate it would never have been allowed in our house, but because it was the newspaper I never thought twice about it until that moment.
And that, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg. That's merely one of those breaches of decorum that Weaver mentions being censored from the movies of his era. But realizing that I didn't have to read the newspaper in order to be an intelligent, functional member of society was something of a revelation.
We dont subscribe to any newspapers or magazines. Time, money, and bias were the factors. Nowadays I do check the obits online.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, we didnt have an TV reception for the ten main years of our children's training. A purposeful decision to control information. Now that they are all young adults, we have good discussions about movies/sitcoms/dramas etc.
One other thing I kept wanting to work into my essay was the red- colored glasses worn my muckrake journalist, Geraldo Rivera. That seem to say alot.