I know -- the best-selling book is a compelling read. Most fans, if not all, will tell me I’m an old goat who just doesn’t get it or that I should mind my own business. After all, even Deseret News film critic, Laura Marostica, says, “Those mature enough to see the violence in context, handle the heavy themes, and undergo a periodic shredding of their emotions are in for a captivating experience” (Film review, 3/22/12; emphasis added).
So that's the standard by which we measure acceptability? The ability to handle "violence in context"?
Let me be clear: I am not getting worked up about this simply because I have a differing opinion. This isn't about opinion. It's about being true to what the Lord expects of a Latter-day Saint: to be distancing ourselves from what the world embraces, not rushing out to join in.
Re-read the 13th Article of Faith, and then please tell me where to find the loophole allowing us to ignore this counsel from the Lord:
Re-read the 13th Article of Faith, and then please tell me where to find the loophole allowing us to ignore this counsel from the Lord:
“Do not attend, view, or participate in anything that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way” (from "For the Strength of Youth," counsel from the First Presidency, emphasis added).
There are no footnotes saying:
(1) "This only applies to the youth of the Church; adults may disregard."
(2) "Naturally, this counsel does not apply to anyone who is mature enough to handle violence in context."
Agency allows us to make our own choices. I cannot argue with that. But choices bring consequences which cannot be avoided. Viewing repeated violence de-sensitizes one's spirit. It may bother us the first time, but as with repeated exposure to profanity and vulgarity, repeated watching of violence which at first would have caused us to recoil in shock or change the channel eventually dulls our senses and, ultimately, triggers no negative reaction at all. It is exactly as Alexander Pope observed, "We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
I side with BYU professor, Van Gessel, who said:
"It simply can’t just be a cosmic coincidence that the tangible object that the adversary most craves—a physical body—is precisely the object toward which he aims the most lethal of his fiery darts in his manipulation of the entertainment media. How to make mortals regard the human body as less than holy? Very simply, just strip its sacredness of all its modest coverings and parade it to public view; batter it and explode it and riddle it with bullets; and display it nakedly engaged in its most intimate activities to make sure the viewer or listener comes to consider public performances of sexual activity as commonplace. What our Father in Heaven regards as the Holy of Holies Satan treats as an open-set film studio. You can almost hear the fiendish laughs of the demons over every depiction of the physical bodies they so desperately envy being exposed to public view and treated like so much meat in a butcher’s shop.
"Some of you will regard me as hopelessly out of touch. I hope I am." (“The Welding Link of Culture,” BYU devotional address, 3 May 2005).
I hope I am too.
You're not out of touch, Dad. In fact, after reading all of the books in the series and getting caught up in the hype of the movie (which I have not seen), I'm surprised at how I have become so desensitized. A local radio DJ said something on his morning show, when a caller called in to say how excited he was to see the movie, that brought it into perspective. He asked, "So, what you're saying is that you're excited to watch children violently kill other children while others watch on as spectators?" The caller didn't respond. The DJ asked him to call back after seeing the movie to give a review and talk more about the concept. I will admit, it's hard to keep myself from the movie theater to see this story played out on the big screen. But after I read about the deaths in black and white type and hardly felt any ethical or moral feeling about it....in my mind it's not reality, it didn't happen for reals...real or not, I don't need that in my life.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this. I needed it! :)
Thanks very much for your thoughtful support. I, too, have decided to eliminate some “favorites” from my reading list, authors whose characters I’ve faithfully followed for years – including one whose latest bestseller became available in paperback 3 days ago – and which I will not purchase.
DeleteIn my mind it has a lot to do with the concept of eternal progress. God didn’t send us here, as C.S. Lewis said, just so that at the end of the day He could declare that “a good time was had by all.” We are here for greater, higher things. We are expected to be making real progress – distancing ourselves from worldly things and learning to love the things that God loves.
Can you imagine the elevators in the Church Office Building this morning – jammed with General Authorities arriving at the office – and all of them asking each other if they saw “The Hunger Games” over the weekend! We would be shocked if they did. We hold them to a higher standard – so why not ourselves?
By accepting the gospel we’ve agreed to board a train that is distancing itself from the things of the world. We would be fooling ourselves, however, to think that every time a so-called “good” movie or book comes along that we can jump off the train for awhile, run over to the great and spacious building to view or read it, and then assume that because the train is still in sight we can hop back on anytime we like. That will work for awhile, but one day we’re going to turn towards the train and it will be out of sight.
I believe that the “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth” described in the scriptures (Mosiah 16:2) will be heard among those who knew they should have stayed on the train but for whom the pull of the world was too great an attraction. Their rationalizations remind me of what Robert Frost alluded to in “The Road Not Taken”:
“Oh, I marked the first [the higher road] for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.”