Be of good cheer, Episcopalians. Ideological splits in churches are not and never have been the end of the world, as close as this one is to the end. Splits are proof of growth. Traditional Episcopalians still have a home. The new gay branch will rapidly expand by a near monopoly on performing gay weddings, beginning with their bishop and his mate. With growth comes the political power to force civil recognition of gay marriage. Life is good. Everybody wins.
American life has become a carnival in which we either watch or perform. We seldom do both at once - The Carnival of Lost and Found. The found seek the lost. The lost seek each other. All entertain and the owner sells the tickets. It's hard to lose money with good entertainment - money and entertainment. That's the best marriage of all. Radio, print, television, video, computers, politics and religion; surely the difference is in the profits.
Have you heard about Ad Busters? They are making thirty second TV un-commercials. The message tells the viewer he or she is being controlled and manipulated by all the other messages on the screen. TV stations and networks refuse to air the ads. They don't want to risk offending the people who pay to control and manipulate us. Ad Busters' strategy is to pass legislation that forces the TV guardians to sell two minutes of each hour of programming for consumer de programming or what we might call public service announcements. I think there is a good chance they will obtain this legislation.
I think the ads might backfire. I don't watch much TV, but I think I'd like to see these ads. It would probably be unrealistic to expect them to have any more effect than the Surgeon General warnings on cigarette packs. Ad Busters spokesman said the idea is to shake people out of their apathy. An admirable goal to be sure, it may be like getting a sleeping man out of bed. You can get him out, but you can't keep him out.
Apathy itself is an interesting thing. How is it created? How is it overcome? Surely apathy is created by a perception or a point of view. Perhaps it comes from wanting and infrequently obtaining what is wanted. We develop a sense that our efforts achieve little positive result and we are mocked. Make no effort, get no result and there is no mockery.
Sometimes the mockery comes first. Someone tells us we must do this. This can make all the difference. We go along with them. We do what they wanted us to do. It made absolutely no difference and the truth was too obvious to deny. We've been had. Someone is having a good laugh at the joke. We've been manipulated for some stranger's unknown benefit. After a few such experiences, we don't believe those who say we can make a difference we might want to make, and we do not care if we could. Not caring not only shields us from mockery, it frees up time for activities of our choosing. My personal experience taught me that apathy might just be a predictable response to over stimulation. I'm tired of all the hype and I'm going to learn to ignore it. Apathy is just time out from The Carnival of Lost and Found.
Entertainment overcomes apathy for as long as the session lasts. We watch, we care, we stop watching, and we forget we care. Apathy tempers our interest and excitement just enough so we can get off the emotional roller coaster we love to the point of exhaustion; a building block for apathy.
Motivator Tony Robbins tells us we only have two basic motives to do anything. We act to avoid pain or receive pleasure. If apathy seems like it is not doing anything, it is avoiding pain. Perhaps being apathetic in the midst of excited, stimulated pleasure seekers also brings pleasure to the apathetic person. Maybe there is no such thing as apathy, if we mean uncaring. Maybe we all care about many things at a low enough energy level; the caring requires no action from us. If so, we don't overcome apathy, we just raise the energy level of caring to a point which leads to action. This allows us to act with enthusiasm one day, and retire to restful caring another. Now we are dealing with the law of inertia and we overcome that each time we lie down or rise up, so it is no big deal.
What Ad Busters wants to tell us is, don't be resting in front of the TV when it is on. It will control us more than we realize and we are truly over controlled already. We can strike balances.
It is not that we don't care about gay Episcopalians. We just care at a low level. If you want to raise our level of caring about any particular thing, come at us with genuine enthusiasm for your project and hope we don't need our rest at that time. Timing is not everything, but it can make a huge difference in a result.
About the Author
Freelance writer published in websites and newspapers.
edhowes@hotmail.com
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