The  forms of linkage offered by the media cannot help but prove unsatisfying in the end.

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One of the reasons our media have grown so rapidly in power is that they provide people with so effortless a sense of having broadened their lives.  With the click of a switch, we can shed the narrow and humdrum confines of our accustomed existence,  and be transported to the beaches of California,  the corridors of power in Washington, or the adrenaline-pumping action of any number of police dramas.  There's no actual effort required. 

Nor is there any growth.

No other method of transcending the at-hand minutae of our existence works in quite this way.  Notable accomplishment in the sciences requires diligent and patient effort—as does satisfaction in the creative processes of the arts.   Religion, for its part, calls on us to transcend ourselves through action as well as through  prayer and thought or meditation.

The media have almost exactly the opposite effect, pandering to us in a manner that mainly induces us to regress.  Do we feel an inarticulate dissatisfaction or anger?  No problem;  they'll allow us to enjoy the vicarious experience of gunning down anybody who happens to cross us. Does the growing crush of humanity in our urban centers tax our capacity for civility?   The media let us vicariously become people who never have to say they're sorry.

But the greatest competitive advantage of the media is also ultimately their greatest weakness.  In the end, the easy illusion they offer of transcending the mundane circumstances of life never leaves people more satisfied, only more frustrated and more petulant. 

The point at which people sense that they are on a treadmill is often the point at which they seek out something more substantial.   In seeking a more satisfying sense of transcendence in their lives, people may turn to learning, or to the arts--or to religion.

In fact, they are already doing so.  And in growing numbers.

(c) COPYRIGHT 1998 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.