KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Anti-Hero
"ANTI-HERO: A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities..."
Consider what occupies and diverts our attention from substantive matters: Anna Nicole Smith; Britney Spears; the astronaut gone wild. It is all about the base, the tawdry and the anti-heroic. Today's hero's are cartoon characters.
Some blame television networks, especially cable, for our increasingly prurient interests. In recent days, TV has climbed into the septic tank with so many of the rest of us and delivered not what we need, but what we seemingly cannot get enough of. TV wouldn't be obsessing if we didn't demand it.
USA Today reported on a Pew Poll that found most Americans believe the media overdo celebrity news, but they watch it anyway. Sixty-one percent say they think the media over-played the death of Anna Nicole Smith, but 11 percent said they followed it as closely as the 2008 presidential campaign or the Super Bowl.
Can you name the last person you heard about who behaved in a classic heroic manner?
Politically, heroism disappeared around the time of Harry Truman, with brief appearances during the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Now, everything is poll-tested and "leaders" follow the opinions and base instincts of those they should be persuading to follow them.
To some extent this has always been so, but television has made gawking easier and the objects of gawking more accessible. This indulgence in the base has had a corrosive effect on our collective spirit. (Cal Thomas)
KneEmail: "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things" (Phil. 4:8).