I will confess that I’ve been toying with this post for quite a while. And then over the weekend, when Jennifer Lopez and Shakira put on their symbolic temple dance….
The post became inevitable.
Over the years, while subjected to the vast intellectual and cultural wasteland known as cable television, every now and then a thought would cross my mind…this is like watching one of the seven deadly sins in action. I will say that the concept was most apparent with a reality show about 600 Pound Lives that a member of the household insists on watching, but the more I think about it….
The cultural marxists in control of entertainment these days seem to be exploiting, and glorifying the seven deadly sins, and what’s worse, people who have never heard of them are lapping up the passive messaging as if this is supposed to be the norm for civilization.
It is not. In fact, these are the very vices that need to be suppressed on an individual level in order to live with other people in any set of circumstances.
Just for review, the seven deadly sins are:
- Pride
- Envy
- Lust
- Anger
- Gluttony
- Greed
- Sloth
Each of these dispositions, interestingly enough, works to tear against the fabric of social order in its own way. And each has a counteracting virtue that is supposed to correct or at least counter balance the worst of the disposition’s destructive tendencies. And in today’s world, those virtues (humility, thankfulness, chastity, patience, temperance, generosity, and diligence) can be in very short supply.
But still…the people not aware of what they are seeing and consuming in any and all media vehicles are being swayed to accept that which will eventually cause a society to fall.
It has happened. Multiple times in the history of the world on every continent and among every society. Eventually, the weight of no social order becomes chaos and the society falls.
So, that begs the question, why are we bombarded with “experts” who like to hear themselves talk, trying to impress the world with who and what they know that goes beyond self-promotion and into the realm of conceit.
There is also programming of all sorts that has a “keeping up with the Joneses” theme. These programs can be about just about anything, but home improvement, self improvement, and more can give way to wanting what someone else has.
Why is it now acceptable for women to wear what reveals so much skin that nothing is left to the imagination. And why do fairy tales now include bedroom scenes almost compulsively. Frankly, there are no more secrets, Victoria. And networks where modesty is written into the story lines are slammed as being culturally marxist for refusing to sink to the low of using straight up sex to sell.
Why is anger nurtured when it leads to darkness, or in George Lucas lore, the dark side. (At least in the world of George Lucas anger, hatred and the dark side were features of the bad guys, and the good guys defeated it.) This leads to the need for revenge, which is natural, but the channels to achieve it can be harnessed to something that is not violent or destructive to property.
And when it comes to gluttony, I have to ask: What is appealing about eating so many hot dogs, the person doing the mouth stuffing can’t hold it down. And since when are people entertained by humans who eat so much they are bed ridden? Watching a woman go through the drive thru at McDonald’s on a mobility scooter is more sad than it is entertaining, and yet it is out in the open as what is more modest fare than half of what the Disney Channel offers.
Accumulation of wealth has always been a part of life, but how much money and stuff that we just sit on do we all really need? And then to objectify hoarding, and storage lockers that the owners can’t be bothered to empty is just strange. Half of that stuff ends up in landfills.
Sloth in this context is more about spiritual laziness, and just exactly how much of what is consumed as entertainment has any kind of spiritual aspect to it unless the subject is being ridiculed? And what is it with the characters written into a lot of scripts for the last three decades being slackers? Even in communes those who don’t work get kicked out.
For those who no longer consume this programming, it’s a bit out of sight, out of mind. But for those of us who are subjected to it….
It made the halftime show at the Superbowl less than shocking, let’s just say that.
Still, the question remains, why the exultation of the seven deadly sins from the overlords of entertainment? What are they trying to get the American people to become?
Here at the Q Tree, we know the answer. Unfortunately, those being programmed don’t.