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REYNOLDS |
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Just The News Fit To Print?
by John Mark Reynolds [author,
academic] 9/10/07
Bottom Line: We would die for their right to say it, but aren’t we all exhausted and disgusted with what they are saying?
Yesterday I took a lunch break with my children and while we were
driving I turned on talk radio. Every station, and I mean every station
where I heard a human voice, was engaged in discussing details of a
steamy political situation.
Fortunately the one classical radio station left in culturally
embattled Los Angeles was not talking and there we found a safe haven
from the idle gossip on the air.
Make no mistake. Sometimes bad news must be told. Sometimes we have
to speak truth to power, but I heard none of that as I passed through
the stations.
Contributor
John Mark Reynolds
John
Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of
the Torrey Honors Institute and Associate Professor
of Philosophy at Biola University.His
personal website can be found at www.johnmarkreynolds.com and
his blog can be found at http://scriptoriumdaily.com.
[go to Reynolds index] |
There was no note of righteous sorrow or of merciful judgment. There
was instead a scarcely repressed delight that here at last was
something fun about which to talk.
A once great paper printed “all the news fit to print.” We seem
determined to print all the news whether it is fit to print or not.
Of course, the ready rejoinder is, “Who will decided what is fit to print?”
For a free society, I believe this should be left up to the
individual, but (to paraphrase Aristotle and quote Spiderman I) with
“great power comes great responsibility.” On the Internet, we now can
all print or say what we see fit, but that places all the greater
burden on us not to act to debase our culture.
The fact that I can say a thing does not mean it would be good for
everyone to hear it. The fact that some tantalizing piece of gossip
would attract large numbers of people (because they too have low and
fallen desires) does not mean I should speak it.
Anyone publishing ideas for public consumption has a duty to
consider the moral implications of what he writes or says. That is true
of this blog as well as radio and television.
Broader public power brings with it the need for greater care. The
“joke” between friends that might be mildly inappropriate, the subject
for small sorrows, becomes debasing to culture when broadcast to three
million souls.
I am glad all of us have the right to say what we are saying. I am
sorry we are saying it. Why? It is trivial, debasing, and uncharitable.
It demeans good men who lower themselves to do it.
First, it was unworthy of the time and attention being paid to it.
We are in a global War on Terror, at the start of a presidential
race, and facing economic troubles. I understand the public interest,
but at some point merely catering to public interest is failing a
public trust.
Putting something into print, even here on the Internet, is a
position of power. Of course, some of us have more power than others
(having more readers) and so have a duty to those readers not to appeal
to what is base in them, but to what is noble.
Second, the details were debasing to culture. I now know useless
things no sane man wants to know. Because they were shouted at me on
the radio, before I could even get to the controls (not always easy to
do when driving), some of this “knowledge” was gained involuntarily.
My need to know was not being served, but my prurient interest.
It is good to know that men’s restrooms can be gross and dangerous
places. I do not need to know every detail of how these inappropriate
things are done.
It is hard enough to avoid bitterness and cynicism as one matures,
but to have the worst of human life constantly thrust at one is bad for
us. Bad news sells. I know stories of brave legislators are harder to
tell in an interesting way. I know stories of good, brave, and upright
behavior are harder to sell . . . but we live in a culture sorely in
need of them.
We certainly do not need to wallow in the mire.
If you disagree, then that is your right, but first you must explain
to me what public interest is served. No good person disagrees you have
the right, now tell us what you have done with those precious rights?
Are brave soldiers really dying around the world for your freedom of speech so that you can use that precious liberty to tell potty jokes?
Is the course of justice and mercy really aided by telling me (and my children) every sordid detail of a sorry senator’s crime?
I know enough to make an informed judgment when I know that the
senator was arrested and pleaded guilty to a crime with a brief legal
description of the crime to which he pleaded guilty.
If I feel that I need to know more to make an informed judgment,
than perhaps those details could be make available to me in printed
form on the Internet. But to have them shoved at me just by turning on
the radio, when I can make no immediate decision about what I will hear
is wrong.
Again, one can see the need to puncture the hypocrite, wielding the
wit of Shakespeare to puncture the pretensions of the mighty, but wit
does not need to debase itself in order to make its point.
One need not be cruel in order to make a telling point. Sardonic
laughter is a good tool (our Lord used it), but a little goes a long
way.
Finally it is uncharitable to express glee in the fall of men. If
Bin Laden himself were to die tomorrow, then a Christian would be glad
for an end to his evil actions, but sorry for the almost certain
damnation of his soul.
What is served in taking public pleasure out of wicked deeds?
Why must we take joy in the sorrowful fall of any man? What purpose
is served in our (apparent) relish over the details after the initial
point has been made?
The man has grandchildren and I can only imagine what it must be
like to be the parents of those poor children today. The man has
children and I can guess what it is to be the child of disgraced great
man.
It is hard to pity the man himself, since he has yet to repent
(assuming his guilt), but even then one wishes to avert the gaze and be
charitable. Sadly, the voices of our culture, including some
Christians, will not let us do so.
What should we do?
Call on the senator to resign, if he were a gentleman he would have
done so already, and put effective pressure on him to do the right
thing. Because he denied his misdeed in public the senator asked for
the information dump that occurred, but the public should also be given
the chance not to know more than wishes if it has already formed a
judgment.
Most of all judge with the judgment with which you would wish to be
judged. Those in authority will have to execute justice, but for the
rest of us, tempted to become vigilantes on the Internet, those of us
without sin should cast the first blogging stone.ExileStreet
copyright
2007 John Mark Reynolds
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