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LIQUIDTHINKING IS: Stephen Zedler Jimmy Doyle Andy Mullins Current Sountrack
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Tuesday, June 28, 2005
"Unseemly Access" More from DeZengotita's Mediated DeZengotita describes a critical moment in his formulation of some of his ideas about how media shapes our lives. He says he was at a convention about applying new technology to education. The keynote speaker was showing videotape of a multi-million dollar deep sea submarine that could be controlled from a remote by 12-year-olds in a classroom. He said that, throughout the entire presentation, he had an uncomfortable feeling, but that feeling turned to full-blown indignation when another guy stood up to make a comment about how THEIR group was working on a project that would allow 12-year-olds to control the Hubble telescope for their collaborative science projects. I was morally aroused. I was thinking, "NO! NO! -- stop, twelve-year-olds just shouldn't be able to do that. It's just wrong. What had hit me was how horrifyingly out of proportion it was. Enough already with this access! People shouldn't have such access, it's unseemly, this access to anything and everything, access from anywhere, access on demand, access so smooth and fluid, so effortless--and, so inevitably, bound to be taken for granted eventually. It should be hard to access the extraordinary. Unless you want to make it ordinary? Later he says: Is there anything you haven't seen? Anywhere you haven't been? The whole of history, the whole of nature, striking poses -- just for you. Is this right? Are you entitled to this access? Who do you think you are? So I'm back in my Sunday School classroom at the age of 7. We have puppets and felt-boards that tell us stories of Noah and the flood, and of Moses and the plagues of Egypt... much simpler and much more cheerful versions than in the ones in scripture. Why is Noah always smiling in these children's versions? It's like he's oblivious to the fact that the rest of humanity was wiped out. Then I'm at the Christian youth conference I used to attend when I was in middle school. The music is up-beat. The speaker's tone and inflection perfectly capitalizes on the mood set by the confessional video of a seventeen-year-old former drug-user, which follows the video confessional of a sixteen-year-old whose best friend overdosed. The emotion flows freely. It seems like, at that moment, God is so easy to touch that an entire convention hall of 5,000 can do it all at the same time. Do we have unseemly access to God? Is this what explains the look of dead apathy that I see so often in my students. Jimmy and I often comment to each other that words won't do it for them anymore, because they've heard it all. Have they seen it all, too? Have they experienced it all in this sanitized atmosphere that vaccinates them to the real deal? Did they get just enough of Jesus when they were young to keep him from infecting them in their future?
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Jimmy Doyle is a dad, husband,
teacher, friend, and other things. Currently he's just trying to figure out what it means to follow Christ and be in community with others. He enjoys having conversations with fellow pilgrims on the journey.
Stephen Zedler has a wife and three kids who he loves very much. He has been called by God to study and teach history, particularly U.S.
history. He also believes that God has called him to reform the way children are educated in America.