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The Trouble With Society
 by John R. Haws

    
  
  
The trouble with society is difficult to describe.  Society tends to be irrational in matters of logic but not necessarily logical in matters of an emotional nature.  How can I best explain this?  Television persuades and influences our behavior far more than anyone knows or is willing to admit.  Very few people know the real power and influence of this form of mass communication.  Our will is not our own.  Our desires and appetites are influenced and controlled by every commercial we see and hear on TV.  Most of us watch too much television as it is.  Small wonder that our collective behavior is what it is.  We have been psychologically conditioned exactly like Pavlov's laboratory dogs to saliva at the colorful sights and familiar sounds of a pizza commercial.
    
   With this much power, television can and does teach us that a lie is truth and that truth is a lie.  The advertisements by political candidates for national offices certainly demonstrate this fact.  Now, (more than ever in the entire history of mankind) the aware individual needs to question everything.  Nothing on the Internet is sacred.  Nothing on TV can be assumed.  Nothing you see or hear should be accepted simply because someone in authority says so.  Almost every thing on TV is make-believe, fantasy or pretend.  This includes TV commercials.  They, too, defy reality.  Television gives us very little of our world as it really exists.  We spend most of our free time watching a window filled with lies.  To compound the problem, the sheer volume of knowledge and disinformation is growing at an exponential rate.

Therefore, the aware individual has to be highly selective about what he or she listens to and observes.  He or she must wade through the all the spam and junk mail and close his or her ears to all of the thundering, background noise.  She or he must carefully pick and deliberately choose those beliefs and those ideas that make sense.  This requires time to evaluate the logic of the ideas presented.  This requires time to review the evidence and check the sources.  This requires time for reflection on what one has read or observed.  One's urge to jump to a speedy conclusion must be kept in check.
 
The aware individual must avoid belief in any idea, or product, or finding without first checking several sources and other opinions concerning that idea, or product, or finding.  It is not enough to rely on trite phrases likes " informed sources said ", or " studies show ", or " proven effective ".  Who are the "informed sources"?  Where did they get their information?  Who did the "studies"?  Where is the evidence to back up the claim of the "studies"?  "Proven" by whom?  "Proven" on whom?  And what constitutes something as being "effective"?  Web surfers and TV viewers are rarely (if ever) given the answers to these kinds of questions.  Don't believe for an instance everything that you see or hear on television or the Internet.  Even the evening news can be filled with flawed reporting, errors, and sins of omission.
 
Libraries, both public and college, are still, in my opinion, the best sources of complete information on almost any subject.  These institutions tend to be unbiased and without prejudice on most subjects.  History is still history.  What changes are mainly authors' inclusions or exclusions.  Art is still art.  Books filled with the paintings of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso and others all show the brilliant beauty of their art.  It is forever fixed.  Classical music is still classical music.  The music of Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, Tchaikowsky, Copland and others remains forever as it was published.  Conductors' interpretations may come and go, but the majesty of the music remains.  The works of the great writers are also found in libraries.  The writings of Shakespeare, Tolsoy, Frost, Steinbeck, and Asminov can all be found in the same place - the book stacks of a good library.
 
   For me, books are far more reliable sources of authority than other forms of communication, especially television and the Internet.  There is an ancient Chinese Proverb that says, " Faded ink is a thousand times better than a good memory. "  The point is, written text is far more reliable than a vague memory in someone's mind.  The Bible, for example, has come through time exactly as it was originally written - in Hebrew for the Old Testament and in Greek for the New Testament.  The modern day King James Version was translated into English during the 17th century.  And yet, even today, this single piece of literature gives more relief than two Tylenol tablets.  It yields greater benefits than the Discover Card and has far more grace and power than a Honda Accord.  Yet, today's average person (more likely than not) believes just the opposite.  This is so sad.  The earth's culture seems to be eroding at about the same rate as the earth's atmosphere.  Granted, it is eroding slowly, but the cumulative effect is beginning to show.  All this despite - or maybe because of - the exponential growth of knowledge.  "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:"   Sigh...  Therein lies the crux of the matter.
     
   August 2000
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