Thoughts about Violence and Lawlessness

BOOK – 

The Moral Center by David Callahan, Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 2006 [cf Demos Public Policy Center]

P51 - “America is the most individualistic, hedonistic, workaholic society on earth. But, because of the sway of traditionalists, we can ‘t think straight about managing these conditions when it comes to our most important social institution, the family.” The family is a basic conservative Christian value, the cornerstone that anchors our culture..

P77 - “…no one should be merely the means to someone else’s ends - whether its for pleasure, power, or profit.” Individual worth is a basic human value and a thoroughly Christian perspective.

P98 - “A child who watches two hours of cartoons a day sees nearly 10,000 violent incidents each year.” Assuming this is an accurate statistic, consider this in the light of p. 105--the average kid sees 40,000 commercials yearly. What kind of violent culture is raising our kids?

P98 - “Violence was also found to be prevalent in 68 percent of children’s programs, and a typical hour of such programs contained fourteen violent incidents.”  [“KEY FACTS: tv VIOLENCE,” KAISER Family Foundation, Spring 2003]

              RE: ADVIRTISING
                             P105 - “Parents, schools, and churches are fast losing their power to shape the
                             values of the next generation. Instead, that power is being ceded to private actors
                             who are motivated mainly by financial self-interest.” Do parents, schools, and
                             churches have any right to control what media is fed to our children or are we to
                             remain victims of corporate “legislative power”?

                             P105 - “It has been estimated that total advertising and marketing expenditures

                             aimed at children reached $15 billion in 2004, up from $100 million in Television
                            advertising spent in 1983. The average American kid sees 40,000 commercials a year.
                             Kids are also increasingly exposed to advertising at school and in other places, such
                             as summer camp. As Juliet Schor has written, marketing is fundamentally altering the
                             experience of childhood. Corporations have infiltrated the core activities and institutions
                             of childhood, with virtually no resistance from government or parents.”
                             [from Schor “The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture”]
                             What moral responsibility does a corporation have to parents and public beyond making

                             money for an investor or client?

              P121 p- “If Americans are exceptionally resistant to social control, and therefore vulnerable to

              criminal temptations - it is because they live in a society that enshrines the unfettered pursuit of
              individual material success above all other values.” quoted from Robert Merton Social Theory and
              Social Structure, qtd by Callahan. The only way a society can survive is by being social, through 

             cooperation and interrelatedness. To act otherwise is to be “anti-social”. How long can a basketball

              team  survive by playing as five individual stars rather than as a team?

              P122 - James Truslaw Adams calls “Lawlessness has been and is one of the most distinctive

              American Traits.”  This comes from an expert in law matters. What does the Bible say        
              about lawlessness?

              P124 - “If self-interest is such a great virtue and people step on each other legally all the time,

              how immoral can it be to step on someone illegally?” Good question.

              P130 - “Even as legislators have been busy imposing draconian standards of conduct on the poor over   recent                     decades, they have been equally busy insuring that the wealthy are held less accountable for their   bad                               behavior.”  If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as                             yourself,’ you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin” (James 2:8-9 Bible).  

The value (truth) of this blog with its several book quotes, and my commentary added in red, is not based upon any reader’s perception of Demos as liberal or conservative. I have heard it criticized from the right as being leftist or liberal. My desire is that you and I deal with the basic values I have projected. Please keep your comments to the point.

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