J.P. Moreland on Culture


"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that our entire culture is in trouble.  We are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, and we can no longer afford to act like it's loaded with blanks.  The guidance counselor at a public high school near my home confessed to a parents' group that the teenagers who have attended the school during the last ten years are the most dysfunctional, illiterate group he has witnessed in close to forty years at the same school.  Our society has replaced heroes with celebrities, the quest for a well-informed character with the search for flat abs, substance and depth with image and personality.  In the political process, the makeup man is more important than the speech writer, and we approach the voting booth, no on the basis of a well-developed philosophy of what the state should be, but with a heart full of images, emotions, and slogans all packed into thirty-second sound bites.  The mind-numbing, irrational tripe that fills TV talk shows is digested by millions of bored, lonely Americans hungry for that sort of stuff.  What is going on here?  What has happened to us?" [1]

For those of you that are interested in learning "what has happened to us," I encourage you to checkout Moreland's book Loving God with All Your Mind or listen to his lecture with the same title here.

Courage and Godspeed,
Chad

Footnote:
1. J.P. Moreland, Revised and Updated- Loving God with All Your Mind, p. 14.

Comments

Unknown said…
Well Mr. Moreland- this has been happening slowly over the last 50-60 years. Its gained tremendous steam. The lefist's of the 60's are the leaders of the 2010's. We saw it coming but gave up on the culture years ago. The schools left in the early 70's when I graduated- I learned more out of school reading and living than I ever did in an environment where those sound bites you speak of became an everyday occurence. Critical thinking has gone the way of the dodo bird. (who remembers the dodo bird?)