Cultural Depravity and The Massacre of the Innocents

Cultural Depravity and The Massacre of the Innocents

Sand Sheff ---12-14-12

In response to the tragedy in Connecticut. 

Whatever our beliefs, surely today we stand united in revulsion at what some in our nation have become capable of. We gaze out numb, nauseous and angry at the scenes upon our screens. It should be Christmas time. We pause to reflect upon the madness. As if on cue we begin to hear the comfortless words of politicians and paid commentators who will no doubt attempt to use this horror to advance one agenda or another.

 As we listen, it would be wise to remember that few of these so-called leaders and "experts" really confronted the sickness of our popular culture during the last election cycle.  They talked taxes and stimulus and jobs and energy and gay marriage, but when it came to the endangered soul of America they remained effectively silent. Surely the President’s tears are sincere. Nevertheless, one hopes he might reflect on the financial support he received from Hollywood and its cultural and corporate cohort, the video game industry, which among all our institutions have done the most to set the stage for this satanic mayhem, this culture of depravity.

Does anyone believe that this murderer of schoolchildren did not play hour after hour of vicious video games, watch putrid television shows, indulge shadowy fantasies on the internet? All of these mass killers do. It is the common thread among them all.

The culture of depravity is the realm of the murderous video game, the torture shows and murder on television, the pornographic pit, the zombie apocalypse, the social network itself where everyone’s lives have become a TV show. It is the empty, perverse, voyeuristic, violent climax of freedom’s attempts to survive the tidal wave of immorality that accompanies the dark side of its expression. It is the place where nothing and no one is real.

Our acceptance of the virtual world has created a scenario where the weakest and cruelest among us can begin to see others as digital apparitions, where even flesh and blood children become unreal targets in a game.

As it so happens, our acceptance of the virtual world also allows the soldier sitting at a joystick in Pakistan to bomb villages by remote control,  murdering other nation's innocent children anonymously and with impunity. We cannot lie to ourselves about our own murderous national sins, our own perverse pastimes and expect our nation not to breed perverts, murderous liars and sinners.

More information will do nothing to help us. We have enough information to choke our brains for a thousand years. There is no political solution. There are no laws one could pass. Only an honest and overwhelming religious reaction could possibly save the soul of America. Not a reaction that comes from the clownish “Christian Right”, who paint themselves as judgmental Pharisees preoccupied with their tax returns and gay people. Not a reaction that comes from the soft “Progressives” and their own political and economic preoccupations. But a reaction from the unaffiliated gut of the disorganized American people. Enough is enough. Our souls are on the line.

Our religious “leaders” are useless in the face of this modern catastrophe. When will they bother to wake up? It is time to face what must be faced. The prophesied Beast of the end times spoken of in the Book they claim to worship turns out to be the computer/entertainment/surveillance Network itself. What else could the Beast be? It corrupts us from the inside out while it simultaneously sets the stage for a technological tyranny unparalleled in the history of the human race. It eats souls. If you don’t believe the Bible, Mr. Preacher, that’s ok, just say it then. Or maybe you can tell us what the Beast really is. And to anyone else out there, even if you don’t believe the Bible or anything else for that matter, at least you can perhaps see that dignity, privacy and morality are rapidly disappearing from popular life in America. What are we now? If it’s not the machine that brought this on, then what did?

Real is better than virtual. God’s creation is worthy of honor, and I say we dishonor that creation every time we honor the screen. We are building a prison for our children’s spirits when we hand them over to the television and the computer.

Out of an age-old hunger for information, entertainment and communication, we have created a high-definition den of anger, frustration and desire that spits in the face of our ancient religions and traditions. Now we bear the intolerable fruits of our preoccupations with the massacre of innocents.

Our only hope is to reject the virtual kingdom, to unite against the enemy from the shadows that seeks our humiliation, our degradation. We need to turn back to God and beg his forgiveness. Forgiveness for what? How about you take a moment and think that over yourself. Forget your political “leaders”. They have shown that they don’t care about anybody but the corporate dogs who have robbed and ruined our country and our world. Disconnect your cable service. Throw away your smart phones and video games. Open the Bible. It has all been foretold. The virtual kingdom is an earthly trick from a spiritual force. It knows we desire to be as gods-knowing both good and evil. But there is only One God. He is present in His Creation. He does not operate through video games.

Let's use our revulsion at this new cruelty for action. Stop giving money to the kingpins of cultural depravity. Stop giving your children’s minds to them. Renounce violence and degradation and oppression in all its forms, real or virtual. Pray to God that he may have mercy on us.

I try to use the network only to warn about the network, much as one would enter a theater to warn the occupants that someone intended to burn it down. I try not to shout my warning in too panicky a tone. Nevertheless, folks, it is likely time to head for the exits. No sense worrying, outside the theater is a place we used to call the real world. It’s not such a bad place after all. The consolidated Virtual Network is a triumph for tyrants who seek to make us turn on each other. The blood of children has been on their hands for thousands of years.