What is the new - "opiate of the masses"

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Seeker1961 said:
I think this is the driver more than anything else. People are deathly uncomfortable with silence so the “rectangle” is always talking to them. Whether it’s the big rectangle in the living room, the smaller one in the bedroom, the even smaller one in their backpack or the mini version in their pocket-every moment is filled with programming from the rectangle.

Now that the rectangle can bring you programming everywhere, waiting in line at the grocery store, riding the bus, at the MD’s office…everywhere people are faced with free time-out comes the rectangle.

And you’re right-not everyone is discerning about what they watch. They’ll watch whatever is on, they’ll watch what the rectangle says all the “cool kids” are watching-and the people who make the rectangles and the programming that goes on them are laughing all the way to the bank.

I still believe, even after reading Ed’s conspiracy theory a number of times that the real driver is money. The reason we get shock is because shock sells. There was a time when wholesome sold-the Little House, Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel era-but the pendulum has shifted. One show came on that was shocking, all the “cool kids” watched it and then the copycats arrived.

And as someone who works for one of the biggest, richest entertainment companies in the world-I can tell you that OUR biggest sellers are sports and kids movies not the sitcom pushing the envelope. Yes, Modern Family makes us some money…but nowhere near what ESPN and Pixar bring in. Modern Family could go off the air tomorrow and we’d barely notice.
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So how is what I wrote a conspiracy theory at all? You’ve provided the confirmation people need - the truth. The company I work for is in contact with one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. I used to own stock in them. And we had a guest from another name Hollywood entertainment company at our office. He and I exchanged stories about both being editors for fiction. We matched up pretty well.

I think people need to meet people and have something other than a quick, easy, no strings attached relationship.

To my fellow Catholics. Get rid of the rectangles. Go to your priest and ask him how you can help real people. Gadgets don’t care - they don’t have feelings - and giant media companies have their own agendas. Real people can care for other people.

amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other/dp/0465031463

Put that silence to work for you. Relax or do things with your family. Turn off the box or throw it away. Don’t waste your time with anything that makes you less than what God intended.

Peace,
Ed
 
JRKH said:
For me - I would say that the appeal is that it is religion. We all choose to “fill time”…the question is what we choose to fill time with.

Peace
James
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Yes, I agree we ought to choose with care those things that we will spend lots of time doing. I use some things that way, as an antidote to the world. That’s why I spent a lot of time for several years trying to read spiritual books, just to create in my mind an alternative viewpoint from the one of my youth.
 
jeannetherese said:
One way of differentiating on this might be to consider the different agenda of EWTN vs that of corporate sponsored media.
EWTN is in the business of saving souls.👍
Noam Choamsky has contended that the media is in the business of selling consumers (viewers) to advertisers.
From a Catholic perspective we can pull together the arguments of KRKH, Seeker1961 and Ed West2 by pointing to an intersection between profit and concupiscence.
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What you say that Noam said, that is indeed what it seems like. And you are right, the agenda of an EWTN is quite different. 🙂 Same with CAF. But I find certain media, like CAF, can be different than going to mass or praying. I think that is what I was getting at. I think I perhaps can use CAF to cover the darkness in myself and not treat it with prayer. Only prayer, mass, sacraments, grace, etc. will treat it.

So I did wonder if various types of Catholic media can be a sort of “opiate” for some of us (not all, of course). Maybe it is a good opiate, though. I don’t know.
 
JRKH said:
I’m not clear here…Are you saying that we are falsely worshiping football or TV in general??

Peace
James
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I’m saying we falsely worship worthless things, with TV and football as examples. For the average person, their minds are occupied from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep. No time for God. Prayer, meditation, and just plain reflection are not to be found in the average person. We live is a society driven by mass trivia. Religion is the only escape!

Walk down the halls of any major university and you will see ‘professors’ with their eyes fixed on their computer. It takes daily spiritual struggle to know God better.
 
Good points, Robert.

Let me add that people used to sit together on their front porches, enjoying each other’s company, or going to a park to enjoy nature and to get a little exercise. Going to a friend’s house with a bunch of other kids to play a board game. People built model kits or flew model airplanes in the park. You can still do all that and have lots of fun.

Take your kids to the park. Tell them about birds and plants. Take them to a library.

Relaxation used to mean relaxing outside. It if it was Summer and me and my sister were in the house, watching TV, our mom would tell us to go play outside with the other kids. Someone would get a bat, ball and some gloves, and we’d go to the local playground/field and play baseball. We weren’t sports nuts. We just wanted to have fun, or we could play basketball.

In the winter, you got out the sled or toboggan and went to some hilly area and had fun.

The world is ours to enjoy in a clean and wholesome way.

Peace,
Ed
 
The new opiate of the masses? Any “feel good” religion, when “positive thinking” about salvation and happiness trumps absolutely everything else. Catholicism included, if it’s understood as such.
 
JRKH said:
I’m not clear here…Are you saying that we are falsely worshiping football or TV in general??

Peace
James
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Robert_Sock said:
I’m saying we falsely worship worthless things, with TV and football as examples. For the average person, their minds are occupied from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep. No time for God. Prayer, meditation, and just plain reflection are not to be found in the average person. We live is a society driven by mass trivia. Religion is the only escape!

Walk down the halls of any major university and you will see ‘professors’ with their eyes fixed on their computer. It takes daily spiritual struggle to know God better.
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Thanks for the clarification Robert. I agree…

You know it’s interesting that you mention in the first post above that we “unwittingly worship”…I initiated a thread a while back asking about this very thing…Can one"worship" something without knowing it. As I recall, in that thread most people seemed to think that you could not. You were one of the few that felt we could and obviously that many do.

Peace
James
 
edwest2 said:
So how is what I wrote a conspiracy theory at all? You’ve provided the confirmation people need - the truth. The company I work for is in contact with one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. I used to own stock in them. And we had a guest from another name Hollywood entertainment company at our office. He and I exchanged stories about both being editors for fiction. We matched up pretty well.

I think people need to meet people and have something other than a quick, easy, no strings attached relationship.

To my fellow Catholics. Get rid of the rectangles. Go to your priest and ask him how you can help real people. Gadgets don’t care - they don’t have feelings - and giant media companies have their own agendas. Real people can care for other people.

amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other/dp/0465031463

Put that silence to work for you. Relax or do things with your family. Turn off the box or throw it away. Don’t waste your time with anything that makes you less than what God intended.

Peace,
Ed
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From your post earlier:

"They wanted to push the envelope, break down barriers and erase taboos. In plain English, they wanted all the perversity and soft porn on TV and in the movies we have now.

They consciously chose to move in this direction - not us. Oh no. They dripped the poison into our veins a few drops at a time and as the decades passed, it consistently got worse.

Do you think powerful media executives who own TV stations, magazines and newspapers are content to just give the public what they want? No. They have power and they can tell their writers: “Write about this and do TV shows about that.” It would be fantasy to think that they just check to see how much money is coming in. They have agendas, and they believe in “issue advocacy.” That means, “I’m ridiculously wealthy and I’m going to do things my way.” And if their current crop of writers and actors don’t like it, they can leave."

I don’t buy the agenda as being anything other than making more and more money…you do.
 
Seeker1961 said:
From your post earlier:

"They wanted to push the envelope, break down barriers and erase taboos. In plain English, they wanted all the perversity and soft porn on TV and in the movies we have now.

They consciously chose to move in this direction - not us. Oh no. They dripped the poison into our veins a few drops at a time and as the decades passed, it consistently got worse.

Do you think powerful media executives who own TV stations, magazines and newspapers are content to just give the public what they want? No. They have power and they can tell their writers: “Write about this and do TV shows about that.” It would be fantasy to think that they just check to see how much money is coming in. They have agendas, and they believe in “issue advocacy.” That means, “I’m ridiculously wealthy and I’m going to do things my way.” And if their current crop of writers and actors don’t like it, they can leave."

I don’t buy the agenda as being anything other than making more and more money…you do.
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You can have a look at The Creation of the Media - Political Origins of Modern Communications, by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Paul Starr.

amazon.com/Creation-Media-Political-Origins-Communication/dp/0465081940

I encourage all Catholics and men of good will to read the following carefully.

vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061936_vigilanti-cura_en.html

Peace,
Ed
 
Based on a recent thread and some of the amazing comments it garnered … I’d say a good definition is: whatever we can’t give up for a few hours, once in awhile, in order to celebrate a special occasion with loved ones.

If something has that much of a grip on us (whatever “it” may be), then it has become our “opiate”.

.
 
If Marx was right, nothing has changed.

Religion is still the opiate of the masses, but today instead of having religion founded on truths, we have religion founded on lies. Atheism is the most deceitful of religions. It is so deceitful that the followers of it are honestly convinced that they do not belong to any religion.
 
Seeker1961 said:
My Pastor would say it is “the rectangle”. It comes in all sizes so we never have to be without it. We carry it in our pockets, we act instantly when it contacts us, we place it in every room in our homes, we look to it to tell us what to eat, what to drive, what to wear and how to think.
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I have a friend who uses the word “screens” to describe the same.
edwest2 said:
I work in the media. The media purposely glamorizes or makes us indifferent to bad behavior. Did anyone ASK for porn on cable when it first started? WAKE UP PEOPLE. THE MEDIA IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. It is the dirty, filthy, foul-mouthed, sex outside of marriage pimp for everything that is wrong.

You think those people walk into their jobs every day - writers, producers, actors - and think: I’M FORCED TO GIVE THE PUBLIC WHAT THEY WANT???

Wake up, please. The New Normal is on TV right now, or perhaps you prefer a TV show about a slightly disturbed man whose hobby is kidnapping people and cutting them up in his spare time? I hear you can pick up the last season of Dexter at Target.

Sheesh,
Ed
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Yep, “News” too. If it bleeds, it leads.
jeannetherese said:
Amen. I’d like to give a shout out as well for sports- both youth and adult, armchair and active.
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Undoubtedly. I cannot hardly sit through an entire game of whatever anymore and consider myself fortunate to not be addicted to sports.
 
Seeker1961 said:
My Pastor would say it is “the rectangle”. It comes in all sizes so we never have to be without it. We carry it in our pockets, we act instantly when it contacts us, we place it in every room in our homes, we look to it to tell us what to eat, what to drive, what to wear and how to think.
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Best answer.

What is wrong with Being Where You Are? Far too many people are more interested in what someone else is doing, or telling everyone what they did, or planning what they’re going to do next, to have their mind be in the same space and time as their body. Don’t believe me? Hold that thought the next time you’re standing in line waiting somewhere and they guy at the register is ignoring the cashier because he’s texting or talking. And everyone behind him gets to wait until he’s done…

About ten years ago I was a chaperone on a High School Confirmation retreat. All the smartphones weren’t around then, but plain old cell phones were. You should have heard the howls when the leader told everyone to turn off their phones and put them away! And when we got to the “free time” late Saturday afternoon, and they were allowed to use the phones, there were 30 teenagers deliberately ignoring each other as they each talked to someone else on their phones. It was almost comical - they spread out on the lawn just out of hearing of each other. It looked like an orchard full of teens! But it was sad that they were more interested in other distant people rather than the group they were with.

I also read an article recently where a new trend is for people to meet for dinner and stack their smartphones in the middle of the table, so no one can sneak a peek at their texts.
 
Richard320 said:
But it was sad that they were more interested in other distant people rather than the group they were with.
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I’m really starting to doubt these views. No offense but as much as I used to buy them, I’ve been on the other end. Is it really the smartphone/cellphone’s fault that the person on the other end is more interesting to talk to?

People make connections with those they find common ground with. If a person on FB or better yet, CAF makes for a better conversation about religion compared to the folks at the gym or at work, is it technology’s fault?

As I read through this thread, I can’t help but see the irony of people taking a whack at today’s tech yet do so using the very medium that tech is responsible for bringing.
 
Lost_Wanderer said:
I’m really starting to doubt these views. No offense but as much as I used to buy them, I’ve been on the other end. Is it really the smartphone/cellphone’s fault that the person on the other end is more interesting to talk to?

People make connections with those they find common ground with. If a person on FB or better yet, CAF makes for a better conversation about religion compared to the folks at the gym or at work, is it technology’s fault?

As I read through this thread, I can’t help but see the irony of people taking a whack at today’s tech yet do so using the very medium that tech is responsible for bringing.
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You can love your “rectangles” and enjoy your time with them without making them Lord of your life. I think we all know people who can’t control their addiction and others who have their priorities in order.

We have fired people at my company because they cannot control their addiction to the rectangle and use it at the wrong times. When you get to the point that you’ll choose your rectangle over your job, you’ve crossed the line.
 
I agree with previous posters that pleasure, including hedonistic pleasure, is an opiate. Materialism is intimately intertwined with this way of living. The notion that one can be “happier” by acquiring more “things,” electronic or otherwise, is a folly that is not necessarily peculiar to 2012, but it does seem much more rampant in today’s world.
 
Seeker1961 said:
You can love your “rectangles” and enjoy your time with them without making them Lord of your life. I think we all know people who can’t control their addiction and others who have their priorities in order.

We have fired people at my company because they cannot control their addiction to the rectangle and use it at the wrong times. When you get to the point that you’ll choose your rectangle over your job, you’ve crossed the line.
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👍
Precisely.

And i.m.o., when you’re choosing the rectangle over the live conversationalist in front of you, whether that is a loved one or someone you have employed as a consultant (or your parents have employed as a consultant ;)), you have also crossed the line.

To All:
Why would it not be that the live conversation in front of you has priority over The Rectangle, unless some overriding urgency in your life (hospital, family crisis, professional on-call availability) legitimately takes precedence? This is both common courtesy and common sense. Frankly, it also defies the very purpose of the supposed time-saving, labor-saving orientation of ‘devices’ to require your conversationalist to repeat himself or herself because you haven’t been paying attention. Your addiction to your phone wastes time. And the addiction is rarely to an incoming phone call, but to a text message or email. The addiction, invariably, is to “checking” it during all waking hours, at every possible moment.

I admit to sometimes having my phone “on” during my day, including at work, but the difference is, I do not answer it or even check it when I have someone in front of me, speaking to me (or I am speaking to them). Otherwise, there’s a Third Party in the conversation, rudely interrupting and intervening, and I have invited that third person without the consent of my conversationalist.

My phone is on low or silent, if it is on. If it beeps quietly because I have an incoming message, I make a smart remark about how unnecessary that is, and my conversationalist and I laugh about it and continue. Only if I know something is business-related and timely/urgent do I answer it, and I inform my conversationalist as to why I need to do so, and I keep it extremely brief, like 10-20 seconds.

There are people at the cashier, purchasing something, who cannot complete a credit card transaction because they are simply checking their phones and making everyone behind them wait. Rude! And yes, addictive!
 
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