Thanks to DVD we have been able to enjoy the Emmy and Golden Globe winning series Mad Men, an early sixties drama built around an advertising agency in New York City. It is really about egos, the pressures of "getting ahead" and the impact on individuals and families. In Mad Men (a play on ad men) sexism abounds, children don't wear seltbelts and everyone smokes like the proverbial chimney. In one scene a doctor smokes while examining one of the female characters. A challenge for the agency is making sure cigarettes remain attractive as growing scientific evidence mounts about their danger.
My wife, Ruth, commented that what we are seeing are the realities of our childhood (no smoking in our households though) and how much of what was conventional wisdom was not so wise and has since changed.
In some respects we still live in a culture that "smokes like a chimney," burning the same dirty fuels to power our vehicles, heat our homes, and to run our factories as in the 1960's. Although we have come up with some alternatives we have been slow to embrace them because we haven't felt the necessity.
In his thoughtful book Hot, Crowded, and Flat Thomas Friedman encourages us to move into the E.C.E., the energy-climate era where we understand that smoking can kill us and that our creative and entrepeneurial energy must be invested in new ways of living. Even though Friedman is a best-selling writer with great credentials we are just as likely to ignore him as the others who have invited us to wake up. I shudder at the Sarah Palins of our world, as well as the not-so-heavenly host of religious right leaders who don't want to admit that humans affect the integrity of the environment.
Since we follow the A.D. (Anno Domine, Year of our Lord) guy, Jesus of Nazareth, I am content to live in 2008 A.D. but I want to think and act with an E.C.E. commitment.
I hope we are not mad men and women who aren't able to break out of the destructive conventions of our time.
5 comments:
I am fighting now for a son's survival, and so this blog is very close to home. We live in a culture that destroys its home, and this has filtered down to the core of who we have become, which is a society that has made self-destruction a right of passage. While we put up bill boards with the "just say no" message we treat the earth that supports us as if its breath is not vital to our survival. Deep down we believe that we are supporting ourselves, that somehow the miracle of existence is our own acheivement. It has occured to me right now, that this IS about ego.
The many people who asked me who Village Idiot was will breathe a sigh of relief that your moniker has been changed. Your thoughtfulness has been much appreciated and I hope folk will check out your poems by clicking on your nom de plume.
I knew before reading your response David that it was in fact Village Idiot turned Pupil...thank you VI for that! I have obviously become accustomed to your writing!
What can I add to both of your words? Nothing...you say it all!
I am amazed to see the numbers of young and young-ish smokers around town. Our smoking grandparents didn't know the serious harm they were doing... we do. Will we look back on the harm we have done to the environment in a similar manner as someone who faces smoking induced lung cancer in today's age of information and warnings...sometimes I wonder?
"Pupil"....I like it... for life truly is a learn as we go. I am sorry for the new burdens you must carry.
Thanks for these additional responses. Good point, Laura, that just because we are given the information we don't necessarily act upon it, indivually or corporately. Christian faith is meant to be hopeful and I try not to dwell on our willfulness in ignoring what is plainly before us. Perhaps we will repent, to use a theological term and turn in a new direction.
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