Good Morning Foolish America

Every morning millions of people wake up, start the pot of coffee and flick on a mind numbing morning “news” channel to keep them mildly entertained (a state where their brain is actually less active than it was thirty minutes prior while they slept) before they head off to work. These shows offer nothing but snip-its of information that take advantage of the brainwashed Americans materialistic needs. The latest fashions, diets, foods and self help books are all apart of regularly scheduled programming. Programming of their audience that is. The weather will also be thrown in for good measure, that’s all they’re really tuning in for. Something they tell themselves to justify the programming choice. If only they stopped to wonder if the weather was going to have any bearing on what they would spend their day doing. Let’s be honest, if it’s a beautiful day they’re not going to walk to work, they’ll still drive. And it’s not because they’re lazy, oh no they’d walk if they had the time but unfortunately they stayed up late watching a meaningless latenight talk show that they probably can't even remember the details of.

To keep the American from noticing their pathetic morning ritual and continual worship of the glowing box these morning shows will always throw in a heart warming tale that will fool them into thinking the human race is actually getting better as we progress. A story about one person heroically rescuing someone else or a poor person who had nothing and was miserable but through their own will and determination was able to beat the odds and is now happy and wealthy. Oh what a glorious lie! But they believe it. And in doing so believe that the beggar they pass on the street on their lunch break could achieve what the man on the television that morning achieved if only he would pick himself up by his own bootstraps and get a job. This will suffice as a good enough reason for them to keep their change in their pocket. These feel good stories also leave them believing that given the opportunity they too would be a hero. In fact, they practically are a hero, they just need the opportunity. The fact that they couldn’t run fifty meters without having a heart attack or that they’ve spent half their waking life in front of a glowing box wouldn’t stop them, they just lack an opportunity.

The reason I write this blog was not to belittle these pathetic waste of time shows (despite having begun with a bit of a rant). Rather it was to pick on a specific self help book I saw advertised during a programming segment this morning. I realize that having just confessed to have been watching the type of show I loath so much is a bit like the guy who walks into the strip club with disgust and remarks how pathetic a particular gentlemen is by saying, “that guy’s here every week”! Nevertheless I maintain I was watching this show merely to confirm my disgust, whether that’s any consolation I’m not sure. Anyway, the book was about twelve steps to happiness. This caught my attention as I’m always interested in learning how the western world is classifying happiness these days. I expected to hear about money making and spirituality and feeling good about who you are. I was caught off guard however at the two steps revealed during the commerical masquerading as an interview. They sounded nothing at all like what I was expecting. They were Kindness and Forgiveness. Was this the Sermon on the Mount written for a secular audience? For about half a second I actually wanted to praise this book for bringing this wisdom to light. But can these things really be the key to happiness when they have been ripped from a context of obedience to God and put into a context of pragmatism where we do them in order to then receive a reward of happiness? If we forgive and are kind to our enemy surely we are not going to be happy automatically. Forgiving the pedophile down the street is not going to bring you happiness. It’s not cause and effect. Forgiveness does not equal happiness. And in context of forgiving in obedience to God we are still not guaranteed happiness. We are offered joy in our obedience as it brings us one step closer to becoming who we are in relation to the one who created us. And so my pleasure quickly turned to sadness at this cheap counterfeit of Christian principles. I pictured all the gullible buyers of this book following the advice of their morning show anchor who would soon feel just as empty after having forgiven their neighbor as they felt before reading the book. Their change in moral lifestyle would not bring them any closer to finding out who they were. Of course this is assuming they even read the book. Not to say they won’t buy it. Of that I’m sure they’ll do. But every night as it sits on the coffee table they will reach just to the right of it to pick up the television remote control thinking to themselves that they can read it tomorrow or that they’ll just see if there’s something good on first.

I suppose that by not reading the book they are just playing the odds anyway because according to the book we can only control 40% of our happiness. That means that 60% is out of our control. So we could be damned to fail even if we could get a full 12 out of 12 steps right. Why even bother, hand me the remote.

There is no doubt the television is shaping us all. As you read this blog you probably never exchanged the word “they” for “you”. But you probably should. I realize there is plenty of decent programming out there, but I’m sure it’s not on in the morning. So stop wasting your time. Find a book written by an academic and not a salesmen and read a couple pages every morning. You may not feel like a hero, but you'll be a lot closer to becoming one.