Social Awareness

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Fasting or total abstinence are two ancient spiritual disciplines that exist throughout all faiths and centuries. Usually it involves sex, food, or other physical comforts. What's new in this century is fasting or abstaining from the media.

For our purpose, we'll restrict "media" to television, which remains western civilization's major medium, despite the world-wide-web's ascendancy. The fact that 98% of Canadians have a television set verifies this.

The people's comments up above imply that some Christians either fast or totally abstain from it for spiritual reasons. It's a tough act which is often ridiculed or ignored by others, especially the media: they had fun when the Pope once suggested a media fast as a Lenten penance and last year, when a prominent Brit advocated a total media black out for the first several days of 2000 A.D., as that nation's mega Millennium project. (My favourite is the periodic newspaper story about some local kid who dares a parent's challenge to give up television for a year, only to be rewarded with money to buy a television.)

But people still do it and come out the better for it. Even though it confounds some people; for example, two separate-school teachers who live without TVs said that their students either think they're nuts or ask, "But what do you DO in the evenings if you don't have television?" (One had a Grade 8 student who warned her not to break down, buy a TV, and get hooked.)

Granted, some Christians see all media as a means to communicate Christ in an unbelieving world. The Pope has said so; pioneers such as St. Maximilian Kolbe made inroads into media (radio) evangelization long before the mainstream Church did; and in 1987 your social awareness director attended a "media retreat" in which priests, religious, and other church workers from across the world left it, vowing to watch more TV sitcoms, newscasts, etc. "In order to know how Christ is coming into the world today".

Perhaps one must be like a serpent in order to deal with serpents. But we only need to think of how TV sound bites can trivialize serious issues, annul them by presenting "the other side" (such as the case against global warming theories or for "plastics as environmentally-sound" tools) or actually reduce discourse (see Noam Chomsky's, Neil Postman's, and Jerry Mander's writings on how television homogenizes the mind). And many Catholics complain about "how the media sensationalizes/ignores Christian teachings".

There may be times when Christianizing through the media works. One of the most brilliant homilists I've met in this diocese preached great homilies about the Borg and other Star Trek figures; he believed that he brought back a few curious "pagans" (his term for lapsed Catholics) to mass. But now that he's in another diocese, one wonders if these "pagans'" faith withered again after his homilies went with him? And one must wonder when someone recommends some New Age-ish video because "it's Christ moving in the world today", even though no specific reference to God, the Bible, social justice, etc. is made in them. (Quite unlike the social awareness videos on the chancery shelf!) How does one measure the effectiveness of using the media?

But we can reflect upon the benefits of NOT being tied to the cable television cord alongside of millions of other Canadians for xx dollars plus GST per month. (Although it means being mildly lost during coffee break chats with colleagues.)

Here is a partial list:

- reduce pressure on the Ontario Hydro grid
- expose oneself to less radiation and electromagnetic fields (like that of computer screens and other appliances)
- understand what old timers mean when they say, "The neighbourhood was much closer in the days before TV".
- have more time for reading books (perhaps Chomsky/Mander)
- more time to spend with neighbours, family, pets, nature
- more time for other delights such as gardening or cooking
- a free hour or more for taking walks in one's community
- encourage the children to be more creative (as proven by social scientists)
- definitely have time for prayer, solitude, or reflection
- greater availability to study Catholic social teachings
- NOT be an expert on something just because "I saw a documentary about it last night".

Such serendipity may explain why the couple quoted above were "more joyful" during their media fasts, or that one Waterloo mother claimed that their family life was better once they survived the withdrawal pains of their TV addiction. And it may explain why, despite the media's alleged benefits of education, Mother Theresa once said that the people most in touch with the world are those who don't watch TV.

Diane P. Baltaz, Director