It’s
not only love that’s been lost.
Volition
has also been usurped by the last surviving “ism”- capitalism, by using the
media, print and electronic as Trojan horses. The right to make up your own
mind, investigate reality, decide for yourself has been removed by the news.
Notable recent exception the first 24 hours of 9/11 coverage when the whole
world (including the media) was in shock.
Why
do I say this? Firstly, News broadcasts are prime time events scripted and
performed by glossy newsreaders dressed & styled by somebody or another,
just as the news they are reading has already passed through the hands of at
least three other people (if you are lucky). The reporter who filed the story,
the news compiler and the editor who decides which stories will be broadcast or
even printed. With newspapers though it can be two filters the reporter and
editor.
Next!
Advertising space or time is sold at huge prices around (sorry during) prime
time events. So the news is delivered rapid fire, with sound bites (radio) or
in the case of television, crossings to “our” reporters on the spot, experts
and the man in the street (etc. While you are sitting the numbed to the core by
this assault on your senses a commercial break finishes you off, delivers the
coup de grace by advertising a movie in which more people will be killed more
picturesquely in visually attractive slow motion somersaults than during the
news.
So
what are you going to remember more clearly? Which event has captured your
attention?
The
Trojan horse was a gift but in its belly was hidden the army that sacked the
city of Troy. The mass media may be
likened to the horse, beautiful but neutral neither good or bad, in essence a
tool (in the same way that a hammer may be used to build a house or strike another
person on the head.) The army were following orders (just imagine if the Greeks had decided to end the war and the
soldiers had leap out of the horse unarmed, garlanded in flowers yelling
SUPPRISE!
The
various media; radio and television, the press, advertising, the film,
magazines, recorded music and design are like the army who will faithfully
execute any orders given.
So
if neither the horse nor the army have volition can we ever hope to!
Yes,
as Bahá'u'lláh says in the Hidden Words when He talks about what justice is,
“By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of
others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of
thy neighbor.”
I
have purposely omitted what would seem to be the logical last step in my
analysis of the Trojan horse metaphor. Why?
(Your
answer here)
I
would like to suggest an experiment.
Don’t
watch television for one full week and avoid newspapers and magazines.
Radio (anyone remember it?) news is
permitted but dreadful phone INS are not!
Good
music books pertaining to our field of study are more than enough to fill this
now free time. After a week watch a news broadcast and analyze your response.
If nothing happens don’t watch for two-weeks then try analysis again.
Oh yes’ share your experience
From
Eddy