Distractions

I was challenged as a regular cinemagoer by Ray Ortland's recent post about entertainment. Although I am not sure I agree totally. He has followed this up today with an interesting quote from Francis Schaeffer.

"People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people's lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence. . . .

No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet -- because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise. . . .

The Christian is supposed to be very opposite: There is a place for proper entertainment, but we are not to be caught up in ceaseless motion which prevents us from ever being quiet. Rather we are to put everything second so we can be alive to the voice of God and allow it to speak to us and confront us."

(Francis Schaeffer, "Walking through the mud," in No Little People, pages 86-87; HT Ray Ortland)

The only thing I'm unsure of in that comment is that it is only something that has started happening 'today'. Carl Trueman relates how Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) wondered about the same issue.

He can understand, he says, why poor people might enjoy the odd dance to distract them from the miserable drudge of their daily lives, but why should a king, glorious, powerful, surrounded by proofs of his own greatness need trivial entertainment? The answer is that, left to himself with nothing to distract him, he will think about himself and the reality of the death that awaits him.

(cited in The Wages Of Spin: Critical Writings on Historical and Contemporary Evangelicalism, p. 177)