I came
across this quote from Daniel Boorstin, the former librarian of Congress and
director of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, which offers
his assessment of contemporary culture (found in Philip Yancey, Finding God in Unexpected Places
(Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2002), pp. 180 – 181):
When we pick up
our newspaper at breakfast, we expect – we even demand – that it brings us
momentous events since the night before. We turn on the car radio as we drive to
work and expect ‘news’ to have occurred since the morning newspaper went to
press. Returning in the evening, we expect our house not only to shelter us, to
keep us warm in winter and cool in summer , but to relax us, to dignify us, to
encompass us with soft music and interesting hobbies, to be a playground, a
theatre, and a bar. We expect our two-week vacation to be romantic, exotic,
cheap and effortless. We expect a far-away atmosphere if we go to a nearby
place; and if we expect everything to be relaxing, sanitary, and Americanised
if we go to a far-away place. We expect new heroes every season, a literary
masterpiece every month, a dramatic spectacular every week, a rare sensation
every night. We expect everybody to feel free to disagree, yet we expect
everybody to be loyal, not to rock the boat or take the Fifth Amendment. We
expect everybody to believe deeply in his religion, yet not to think less of
others for not believing. We expect our nation to be strong and great and vast
and varied and prepared for every challenge; yet we expect our ‘national
purpose’ to be clear and simple, something that gives direction to the lives of
200 million people and yet can be bought in a paperback at the corner drugstore
for a dollar.
We expect
anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect
compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect
to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind
and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for ‘excellence,’
to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literary. We expect to eat and
stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighbourly, to go to the
‘church of our choice’ and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God
and to be God.
Never have
people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt
more deceived and disappointed.
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