Opiate of the masses — TV?

I miss Calvin and Hobbes. It was one of those rare comics published by a Christian that was neither preachy nor boring. In fact, it was so cutting edge that many secular comic artists complimented Bill Watterson for his comic. He only wrote for about 10 years, then he gave it up and has disappeared from the comic scene.

Calvin was a little monster in many ways, but also had an imagination that could soar. Hobbes was always the thoughtful straight man (tiger) to Calvin’s warped thinking or flights of fancy. It was always Hobbes that asked the difficult questions, the questions that made one think. Mind you, not all the episodes of Calvin and Hobbes were trying to communicate a lesson. That  showed how astute Waterman was. Had he tried to make every episode a lesson, he would quickly have lost readers.

In the comic above, he directly tackles what was the increasing problem of television. The cable networks, and the spread of cable, were fairly new in the 1980’s, and we had just begun to see what having that many channels available 24 hours a day could do to humans. Particularly children were enticed by the all-day cartoon channels or the all day children’s programming channels. It took a few more years for adults to become as caught up in televisions as the children became.

But notice what Watterson did. Rather than taking a simplistic approach to the issue, he begins immediately by citing a controversial philosopher, Karl Marx, on a quote that would be guaranteed to get a rise out of almost any Christian. In other words, he takes a baseball bat and whacks you over the head. The second panel then points to a television set chortling about how silly Marx was to think that it was religion that would be the opiate of the people.

Now, think it through carefully. By the time Watterson writes, religion no longer has the influence in the First World countries that it did in the 19th century. Instead, we have seen the rise of both the consumer society and cable television. The constant message of television is that if only you will buy this product–only $19.95, but wait, if you act now . . .–your life will be immeasurably better. Whether it is couched in the commercials of children’s programming, or the product placement found in so many series, the drumbeat of the message goes on.

All too often, one’s senses get dulled, and one thinks that simply because one has watched news programs and “wept” with victims on Oprah, that one has been involved in the world. But, that is a spectator’s involvement, an involvement that titillates our senses with the false idea that we care. But, we do not care. In actuality, we often ignore the neighbor next door while weeping over the person whom we will never meet. You see, television is an opiate, in the full sense of the world. It is addicting. Many people spend too many hours in front of one. But, like an opiate drug, it dulls our senses to those who are outside that television box. It dulls our senses to our neighbors and to a needy world, so that we do not act towards them as we should.

Does this mean that we need to unplug our television? No! As with most things, there is an extreme over-reaction to a problem that would have people destroy their televisions. But, it does mean that we need to take Watterson’s warning seriously. We need to consciously make sure that we care for real people every bit as much, and even more, than we care for either fictional people or for people whom we see on television and whom we will never meet. Ultimately, when we go before the Lord he will not say, “I was hungry and you empathized with me as you watched my hunger on television.” Neither will he say, “I was in prison and you watched an investigative news report on conditions in the penitential facilities of this country.”

The reward will be to those who actually did what the Lord asked of them, “To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”