The Predators

It has been a long time since we received television in our household. Now, at no point was there any ideological decision to throw out television. No, what happened is that life became so rich in other ways, that most of what was offered on television had less and less importance.

In saying this, I do not want to be censorious of folk who watch TV. Though television has few riches for **me** – I can well imagine it has for others. (For example, sports never had meaning for myself, but I know they do for many).

Thus no criticism is intended here. Though I do want to encourage all of us to **consciously** fill our leisure-time with **whatever** is personally most nourishing and rich. I would go so far as to call such conscious choice of genuine nourishment as a spiritual discipline.

And for me personally, the interior life, the life of the Sacraments, the life of study and family was more rich than anything on television and so it fell away …

And a life of greater simplicity naturally evolved, as the interior life became ever more rich. And I do believe that now, more than ever, our world needs to find simplicity. Not through strict prohibitions – but through the attraction of inner **joys**.

And here a Church devoted to rich and sacramental Mystery, rather than often inane efforts at 'entertainment', could play a great role (as she once did in Ireland).

Now my abstinence from media has led to certain experiences, that I suspect are not common. For example, how clearly I recall taking my young daughter once to the cinema.

Where an experience of horror greeted me.

Horror which was put in relief and made visible, I think, because I had so long abstained from television. Without this abstinence, I doubt I would have **registered** this horror. For it would have seemed all-too-commonplace.

What is the horror of which I speak?

I speak of watching cinema advertising. Commercials, as they are called in America.

Before the film was a barrage of advertising – incredibly sophisticated, powerful, deceitful - all aimed at the child’s soul. My soul screamed: 'Why are they LYING to my child? Why are they trying to **manipulate** my child?'

Of course, the answer to these questions is all too obvious: Greed and hunger for power and control.

What is going on here, is nothing less than **predatory**.

Certain groups seek to gain control of children for their own ends.

What is less obvious are the answers to the following questions:

Why are they allowed to do this? Why are they allowed to prey on the young especially, with an incredibly blatant and manipulative agenda?

Why do so few people seem to notice?

And why when people apparently care about the imposition of ‘offenses’ against political correctness (e.g. a ‘Christmas tree’ instead of a ‘holiday tree’) do they not care about such MASSIVE attempts to impose, as that undertaken by the global advertising industry?

Yes, the so-called imposition of religion i.e. that of matters contrary to the underlying ideology of secularism, causes the greatest consternation in certain circles.

But the flagrant attempt to instill a consumerist ethos raises hardly an eyebrow.

A consumerist ethos which of course, not only does not contradict secularism, but actually DEPENDS on it. As I have tried to say here often - one way or another, however adequately or inadequately.

This is again, a very personal approach to these issues. But it is these kinds of questions of global import, that this weblog is trying to explore, in joining in the Hermetic aspiration to guard the Soul of the World ...