Everything is Image

Some more thoughts on the image culture, borrowing liberally from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.

What is the Christian's response to the accelerating shift from a word-based communication to image-based communication? Is this simply a change in medium that the Church should embrace by creating better websites, promoting more telegenic celebrity-in-chief pastors, having more close-ups of worship leader studs on sanctuary big screens and showing more movie clips during services? Or is the shift from "people of the Book" to "people of the Look" something more serious. Even before the rise of the Internet, Postman warned that the medium defines the message, and he feared that television images were inherently unsuited to intelligent public discourse.

Cable's coverage of the 2008 election seems to vindicate Postman's critique. I, as a moderately addicted D.C. policital junkie, have watched countless hours of CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC this primary season. I dare say that 95% of the coverage has simply been horse-race fodder---who looks the best now; who hit who and how did the other hit back; were those real tears; does he sound impassioned enough. For the Democrats, I have heard little to no reporting on policy differences between the two candidates. Indeed, there is a dearth of information about any candidate's actual "policies" beyond repeating the thin platitudes and slogans offered by the aspiring leaders of the Free World. Obama is about "hope" and "change" so hopeful people like college students should vote for him. Clinton is a "fighter" (who happens to be white) so people who feel like they are getting kicked around (like white factory workers) should vote for her.
That's what passes for election "coverage" in 2008.

The night Obama clinched the nomination, McCain tried to steal some of the limelight by giving a speech of his own. Unless you caught the speeches live, you would have no idea what was said. You would, however, know that the McCain speech was delivered in front of a green background (thus stealing the wrong sort of limelight) and it made him look pale and old. You would know that John is not as good at public speaking as Barack. You would know that the Democrat was in a filled sports arena while the Republican only spoke in a hotel ballroom. Yet, you would not know anything about what was said (and frankly neither said anything that important). Substance (what little is offered) is now just a vehicle for delivering the important political elements of tone and emotion.

Postman delivers a fascinating thought about the Old Testament roots of a "word culture" by noting the importance of the Second Commandment (that's the one about graven images for those of you like me who haven't read the list lately):

The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an
unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract
thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God
could enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of
converting their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit
by reflecting on the Mosaic injunction.

John opens his gospel by naming Jesus "the Word." Perhaps it is already too late for politics, but the Church would be wise not to now quickly embrace "the Image."