Thinking Christian

(This post is rated PG for descriptions of televised violence.)

I don’t often to do this, but I was sick this week, and for the first time in years I watched most of an episode of prime-time TV. The show was Knight Rider, which I recall rather enjoying in its earlier run 25 years or so ago. It kept me somewhat numbingly entertained for most of an hour. Later, though, I had time to reflect on the truly chilling implications of what I had just seen.

There are two chief characters in Knight Rider. One is an incredibly advanced artificial-intelligence computer. Though the show is set in today’s timeframe, this AI character, utterly unique in all of the world, was the product of a small team of (what did you expect?) attractive youngish people. Believability is strained from the start.

This computer is truly astonishing. It’s capable of fully human symbolic reasoning and communication. It knows virtually everything: in this episode, it read a downtown Los Angeles bank’s database, determined who had safety deposit boxes there, and sorted out which one was held by the worst bad guy (a lawyer for drug runners)—all in about five seconds. He wasn’t the real bad guy in this show, though. When the real bad guys escaped from the bank through a tunnel, this computer guessed correctly that they were heading to the coast, to pick up a fast boat into international waters. More than that, it was able to predict which manhole (out of hundreds or thousands) they would use to exit the tunnel systems. I’d like a computer like that, wouldn’t you?

This incredible AI phenomenon is housed in (of all things) a fancy sports car. To be quite frank about it, the show’s whole premise is nothing different from a Saturday morning cartoon.

The car’s name is KITT, and KITT’s best friend, the head of his team of creators, is Michael Knight, who often sits behind the driver’s wheel. He could as easily sit in the back seat, though he wouldn’t be near as cool there; for KITT can take care of his own driving, thank you very much. While Michael was chasing the bad guys through the tunnel, KITT was driving himself to meet them at the prodigiously predicted manhole. KITT, the computer-in-a-car, is very much a personality of his own. That’s why Michael is more his friend than just his operator, and why KITT is a “he,” not an “it.”

KITT is, of course, bulletproof and preternaturally fast on the road. He’s a superhero on wheels. What is this, then, but juvenile drama, fit for boys in about the 8 to 12 year-old range?

But this episode of Knight Rider was riddled with casual, remorseless, cold, cruel violence. There were vicious beatings. One hostage was shot in the back, in full view of the city, expressly so the bad guys could show they didn’t mind doing it, and wouldn’t mind doing it again if they felt like it. Another hostage was shot point blank, merely as an example to the drug lawyer, who had previously been captured and brought inside the bank. They threatened to shoot off the lawyer’s “family jewels” if he refused to give them codes to his clients’ Swiss bank accounts.

We’re not talking about something fit for 8 to 12 year-old boys now, are we? The plot premise was strictly juvenile; the violence was anything but that.

Last week I read that the average 14 year-old has seen 11,000 murders in the media. Does this have an effect on our society? Here’s what some media representatives have said (pdf source):

One common industry response to the conclusions of such literature reviews is to deny the findings. For example, Jim Burke of Rysher Entertainment said, “I don’t think there is any correlation between violence on TV and violence in society” (Stem, 1995, p. 28). Another is to claim that the effects of media violence on aggression are so small or that they affect so few people that the risks to society are negligible and can and should be ignored. For example, a Time magazine writer concluded, “While the bulk of published research has indeed found some correlation between watching fictitious violence and behavingaggressively, the correlation is statistically quite modest” (K. Anderson, 1993, p. 66).

The “Free Expression Policy Project” opines that all the studies showing a link between media violence and real-life behavior are flawed:

It’s therefore regrettable that – without inviting any skeptical voices – the conference organizers embraced two false premises – first, that numerous studies have shown a causal link between sexual or violent media and adverse effects; and second, that filtering and rating systems are an acceptable response to public concerns about dubious media content.

I am not qualified to know whether filtering and rating systems are effective or helpful. What I will say, though, is that all this posturing about “no effect on society” can hardly be anything other than the entertainment industry’s protecting its wallet. They know media influences behavior. Commercial television’s only revenue—billions upon billions of dollars for decade upon decade—has been based on media influencing behavior. What do they think a commercial advertisement is?

I think of all the mysteriously-motivated, cold-blooded shootings in schools, post offices, and city streets, and I wonder, “Are these shooters not just doing what they’ve been shown is normal?”

What can the entertainment industry’s position on this be about other than greed? If it’s about artistic expression, let me remind you that this Knight Rider episode was juvenile drama. I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with juvenile drama, for juveniles, but I can’t be sympathetic to those who say it’s “all about the art.” If it was about the art, they could have done it without the cold-bloodedness.

By the way, KITT and Michael Knight caught the bad guys in the end, but even that had a cold feeling to it. Their victory had no obvious moral impact; it was more neutral than that, like a sports competition (with some scripted heroism thrown in, of course, but nothing like genuine, real-life sports heroism–Mateen Cleaves in the 2000 NCAA final, for example). The effect was: Our team won. Their team lost. Yay for our team. (The drug lawyer and his clients got to keep their money. Yay.)

There was one brief moment of moral reflection there, though. One of the bank robbers was a woman (young and beautiful; what did you expect?) who tried to seduce Michael Knight to let them go and even to come along with them. She said there would be billions of dollars for him. He said, “there’s more to life than money.” If producers gave any thought to how their shows might encourage real life crime and violence, and just why they keep doing producing them anyway, they might notice just a wee bit of irony in that.

I encounter these kinds of things about once every ten or fifteen years; that’s how much I watch prime-time TV. (People ask me how I find time for blogging: there’s a large part of your answer.) It hits harder when you’re not seeing it all the time.

Which reminds of a talk I once heard by an admiral (I’ve forgotten his name) who missed most of the 1960s in America—he had been one of the longest-held POWs in Hanoi. Soon after his release, the Navy briefed him on what had been going on in America and the world. Through this briefing he experienced all of the 1960s at once: and he went out and vomited. He had not been desensitized to the rampant sex, drugs, and violence of the decade, as those of us living through it had been. Thus he was able to see it more clearly, for what it really was.

If you think media violence such as in Knight Rideris just ordinary stuff, my advice to you is to take some time to reflect on it, and then go do as the admiral did— metaphorically, at least. Then turn off prime-time TV for the next decade or two. Use some of the time to pray for the entertainment industry instead.

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Hollywood Trivia:

1. What’s the one occupation an actress a female actor can portray on screen that’s most likely to earn her an Oscar?
2. What proportion of women in the world consider this a healthy role model?
3. What is it that really drives Hollywood?
4. Is it doing the rest of the world a bit of good?

You can look up the answer to the first (Hat Tip: The Point). The rest is up to you to figure out. You lose points if your answer to 3 has anything to do with eliminating sexism or promoting dignity and respect between the sexes. You lose more points if you think the fourth question makes much difference there—although some celebrities are thinking of trying to catch up.

Finally, if you believe the second through fourth questions were actually trivia, you’re disqualified for the entire round.

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I send my thanks to ID Arts for publishing my story, “Only Natural.”

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Tritone Life: “Christ in the dissonance of my culture, mind, and senses,” it says.

What in the world is a tritone? It’s the musical interval between (for example) a B natural and an F natural, a dissonance that begs for resolution when the two notes are sounded together (example–courtesy of Wikipedia). It has been called the “Devil’s Interval,” not because of any evil connections, but because it’s devilishly difficult to sing two notes a tritone apart and get them both right on pitch. There is something about it, though… listen to this diminished seventh chord, four notes in interlaced tritones, and you’ll recognize it as the standard (clichéd, actually) “something-awful-is-about-to-happen-in-a-horror-movie” sound.

Enough music theory. What I like about Tritone Life is that one author is a poet, the other is a musician, they employ art generously on their site, and they both recognize the dissonance of life and that Christ is there in it with us.

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Great words from the great poet:

Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?

…

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

[Link: Happy 400th Birthday to John Milton: A blogging ancestor - Maggie's Farm]

My favorite from Milton is On His Blindness:

When I consider how my light is spent
    Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
    And that one talent which is death to hide
    Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
    My true account, lest he returning chide,
    “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
    I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
    Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
    Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
    And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
    They also serve who only stand and wait.”

– John Milton

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Sadness. My favorite mystery writer has passed away.

In the world of mystery fiction, Mr. Hillerman was that rare figure: a best-selling author who was adored by fans, admired by fellow authors and respected by critics. Though the themes of his books were not overtly political, he wrote with an avowed purpose: to instill in his readers a respect for Native American culture.

Great characters, great imagery, fascinating plots, and definitely also an appreciation for Navajo and Ute culture.

[Link: Tony Hillerman, Novelist, Dies at 83 - NYTimes.com]

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In an article on Milton’s Paradise Lost in the current Touchstone, Donald T. Williams writes,

If God is the source of all goodness, all other beings are related to each other through him. Their common pursuit of a common good leading back to God is the source of community, of a common unity in the enjoyment of a shared good, which is the basis of love.

This is the life of Heaven, which the faithful angels enjoy and into which Adam and Eve are invited. But if the mind is its own place [if each person chooses his or her own definition of reality, and of right and wrong] it must reject all this and validate for itself any “good” it chooses.

And it must do so alone. For every other individual is in the same position, and even if two of them agree on the same good and seek it together, their community has no basis other than their own self-referential and arbitrary choices. How far can one trust another ego that is as committed to its own sovereignty, its own divinity, as one’s own is?

I wish the entire article were available online. It would supply you with more context than I can provide here for “arbitrary,” a word which has provoked much controversy in discussions here lately. Williams has been re-telling the story of Satan as Milton imagined it: the being who first declared that he could re-make his own reality to suit his own needs:

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, or a Hell of Heav’n

This is how Satan handles his ejection from glory into desolation: he decides he can decide what is or is not real. Williams comments,

We can now see why I said that Satan’s metaphysics and his ethics are generated by his epistemology. He does not say, “This is the nature of reality; therefore, this is what we can know about it. He says, “This is how I choose to know the world, therefore, this is what the world is like.”

It is amazingly prescient of postmodernism. Later in the poem Satan advises his minions:

…seek
Our own good from ourselves, and from our own
Live to ourselves

and eventually,

Evil be thou my good.

All of this comes from within the person; all of it is up to the individual’s choice. Whether it is fully arbitrary or not, each ego that rejects God’s kingship is “as committed to its own sovereignty, its own divinity,” as any other; each seeks its own good from itself; each lives to itself, and to that fragile band of other egos whose chosen goods line up with its own.

To serve a transcendent King may seem (to some) binding and degrading. To sever oneself from that King, however, is to sever oneself from true community and true relationship–which, by the way, is a theme of another current Touchstone article that actually is available online. Take special note of the passage under the heading So Many Lydias.

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