A Conservative Response to Popular Culture

Note:  Voices for the Unborn is dedicated to pro-life and pro-family issues.  I believe that in posting this article we have a better understanding of just where our culture is headed and how it got there in the first place. I also believe we have the answer and have had it all along.  It is PRAYER.  It is the best defense against all the evils that have overtaken our country and our world.  Only when we all turn back to God and ask for His help and His mercy, will we see a real change.

by Bruce Frohnen

How should a conservative interact with popular culture?  We live in a time when popular music mocks religion, prime time television depicts homosexual relations and multi-generational groupings as “the new normal,” films depict literal orgies of gory sadism, and all promote narcissistic nihilism with a snarky self-confidence expressed in gutter language.  How should we respond in our daily lives?

A morally valid response would be open rejection.  One of the more famous stories about Russell Kirk is that he found one of his children had smuggled a television set into his home and literally tossed it out the window, where it hung by its cord for some time.  The story generally garners appreciative laughs—including, no matter how often I hear it, from me.  And such gestures have value.  But the television has become a rather important tool in our society (as has, of course, the computer).  What is more, we cannot escape mass culture by simply turning it off.  Perhaps most important, our newspapers and news sites are active propagandists for popular culture. 

 Newspaper “lifestyle” sections laud the latest trends in shallow self-indulgence as the “news” sections tell us that only fools and bigots fail to share the liberal mindset.  Even the much-lauded Fox news pushes sex advice and cultural dreck under the name of “celebrity news” on its website.

 

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