dless commercials. The evil in these commercials is twofold.
- They appeal to baser instincts. Many flaunt sexually provocative images, because these catch the eye. Many feature personalities who are rough and mean, because these are presumed to reflect the self-image of today's viewer. Many show people in drunken revelry, or seeking a good time in ways that are reckless and juvenile. Many tout the message, stated or implied, "You only go around once in life, so seek all the gusto you can."
- They teach an uncritical materialism. According to television, happiness requires the latest and finest of every kind of luxury. Young people hooked on this philosophy soon find themselves slaves to our consumer economy. Once they become saddled with debt and unfulfilled wants, they have no choice but to sell their souls to their careers. But careers today may cheat people out of rewarding lives—lives which keep fulfilling jobs in balance with time for faith and family.
11. Generation of Discontent and Escapism
A happy life according to television is life in the fast lane—a life shared with fashionable people, cradled in wealth, and devoted to self-indulgence. We no doubt can agree that this is not really the good life. But is it even possible? How many people live like most of the characters they see on television? Very few. Most people who watch television must be somewhat discontent with their lot.
Most women looking across the room at their husbands, and most men looking across the room at their wives, can see that life has not given them a partner with the glamour and charm of a media star. Perhaps here we have one reason the institution of marriage is crumbling.
The average viewer comparing himself with the television characters he admires will judge himself inferior in many other ways as well. He is poorer, less popular and influential, less witty and bold, and so on. The result? Fantasy becomes more satisfying than real life. It is far more pleasant to sit back in a lounge chair and pretend that Mr. Nobody (oneself) is Mr. Star (the figure on the screen) than to turn off the television and reckon with the truth that Mr. Nobody is nobody else.
Increasingly, people are distancing themselves from reality and gravitating into the world of entertainment, where imagination is truth. That is why people today are finding it harder to grapple in a sustained and effective way with problems, whether in their own lives or in the larger world. That is why it is becoming harder to convince students that it is important to know physics
and Shakespeare. That is why people are becoming extremely indifferent to spiritual matters, even to the eternal destiny of their immortal souls.