Seduction and Resistance

When they were teens, my sons often protested when I limited--or tried to limit--their exposure to violent or overtly sexual movies and video games.  Setting aside the futility of the exercise, given that they were growing up in a culture that flooded their minds and hearts with a tsunami of violent or lustful images each and every day, I contend even now that I was right to do so.  It strikes me as inconsistent, if not willfully blind, to maintain that the sight of beautiful art, the sounds of musical masterpieces, or the words of great literature can be transformative, and not grant the same kind of power to base images and ugly words. 

Both image and word elicit response, regardless of their content.  Sometimes our response is ephemeral.  We react, then forget.  They wash over us and drain away, leaving no apparent mark.  But at other times, they remain, stuck in mind's eye or the heart's echo chamber, haunting or enchanting us for days, weeks, years, even a lifetime.  They captivate us, for better or for worse, and we can find it difficult, if not impossible, to free ourselves.  And once they hook us, they begin to shape our behavior, our interactions with the world around us.  This is why companies spend billions of dollars each year on advertising.  Their leaders know well the power of sound and image to suggest and gently direct our behavior, even against our better judgment.  The power of suggestion is enormous; it is the essence of seduction.  Totalitarian states have known this unpalatable truth for centuries.  Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ruthlessly exploited it for their own purposes, placing entire nations under their spell.

When, in the early 1980s, the serial drama, The Holocaust, was shown on West German television, an enormous upswelling of anger and bewilderment erupted from young Germans born after the Second World War.  They confronted the older generations, demanding to know how it could have happened in Germany, the nation of Bach, Beethoven, and Goethe.  Often just as bewildered, tormented by guilt and regret, many older Germans protested that the younger generations, having grown up in a democratic, pacifistic culture born out of the defeat of Nazism, had no understanding of how brilliantly Hitler had manipulated the emotions of a frustrated, deeply wounded nation, or how easy it was to be seduced, to dismiss the brutalities of the SS and SA as regrettable but infrequent expressions of excess enthusiasm or as the propaganda of Germany's enemies.  Hitler was mesmerizing, a master of symbol, word, and image.  Only the strongest minds, those most deeply committed to a greater good--the Dietrich Bonhoeffers, Sofie Scholls, and Willi Brandts--could resist.  To many of the younger Germans, this sounded like an excuse, as it did to many outside Germany.  But having seen Leni Riefenstahl's notoriously brilliant propaganda film, The Triumph of the Will, I could not help but be sympathetic.  In spite of myself, in spite of every truth I knew about Nazi Germany, she had my heart racing, entranced by the spectacle of the Nuremberg rallies, thrilling to Hitler's plane as it landed in the Berlin airport, anticipating the adulation of the crowds awaiting their leader's emergence onto the runway.  If I could be so affected, what must the Germans of the 1930s have experienced?

Of course, the very success of The Holocaust in awakening the anger of young Germans is itself illustrative of the power of image and word, especially when they are married together in a single medium.  It brought to life a horrific past in a way the dry academic history texts of West German classrooms never could, forced a public conversation long overdue, and became a powerful force for good.  Image and word can be made to serve many different masters, many different purposes.  Our capacity for discernment in assessing their end is crucial.  The questions we need to confront are, Who is the master of the images and words we are experiencing?  What is he telling us?  Why?  What is his agenda?   What response does he want us to have?  And what should our response be?  In short, we need to assess critically what we are experiencing, to set it at the mercy of reason, examining it in the light of values we know to be true.  I believe wholeheartedly this is why, despite being inundated by some of the worst dreck of the American entertainment and advertising media, my sons have grown up to be thoughtful young men.  They have learned, at least in some fashion, to make these assessments.

And yet, I cannot help but fear for them and for the culture at large, precisely because so much of what washes by us is, in fact, unexamined.  So great is the tsunami that we are unable much of the time to maintain a critical distance.  And this is a peril.  If, as Christian philosopher Dallas Willard insists, our character is determined by the company our mind keeps, how do we make sure we keep the right company?  How do we resist the temptations blandished before us?  How can we remain impervious to the pornographers who want to excite our lust, the demagoguing politicians who wish to enflame our resentments, the corporate pitchmen who seek to amplify our greed?  Clearly, it would be of benefit to us to restrict our exposure in some measure, so as to allow some breathing room, and to focus instead on those words and images that feed our souls.  As St. Paul put it to the Philippian church, "...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  These are the things that strengthen both our critique and our resolve to resist.  Both Paul and Jesus understood how deeply our inner thought life impacts our actions.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned his disciples to turn away from anger and lust within because he knew these were the passions that fed both murder and adultery.

Admittedly, such a  prescription does not sit well in the American psyche, conditioned as we are to understand freedom as the highest good.  As public atheist Christopher Hitchens once protested in a debate with Dinesh D'Souza, it smacks of mind control.  But Paul understood the problem well.  He, after all, was the great proclaimer of "the freedom of the Gospel" and rebelled against the deadening hand of the Law: "For freedom Christ has set us free." (Galatians 5:1)  Yet, as he pointed out to the Corinthian church, just because we are free to do something does not mean that we should.  All things may be "lawful" for us, but they may not be beneficial.  In fact, says Paul, some things are bound to become our masters if we are not careful.  (I Corinthians 6:12 f.)  The key is discipline, a submission to the Way of Jesus that is as much about habits of the heart and mind as it is about what we do and say.  The end is perfect freedom, the kind of freedom that comes from knowing what is good and right and true, and desiring it alone.  This is the promise to Jeremiah that a day will come when the Law of God will be written on the hearts of Israel.  It will no longer be necessary to instruct and correct, for all will know what to do and how to do it.  (Jeremiah 31:31 f.)  The good will become instinctive, as reflexive as a boxer's counter-punch.

If we can tune our minds so as to be able to do complex calculations or understand multiple languages, or compose exquisite poetry or music; if we can train our bodies to run and jump and respond with agility, speed, and grace; then surely we can train our souls, our hearts, to desire above all else what is good and true and do them.  If we do not, if we refuse in the name of freedom or passion, we will in the end become slaves to the seducers of the world--not just the pitchmen and pornographers, but the tyrants, despots, and demagogues as well.  And when it happens, we won't even notice, we won't even care, because it will be exactly what we lust and yearn for, exactly what we "want"... at least in the moment.  Misery will undoubtedly follow... but by then, it will  be too late.