Media shapes your belief
I usually get around to discussing media with people I meet. Some think today’s technology filled media is evil. Media is neither good or bad. It’s neutral, like plumbing in a house that doesn’t matter unless it springs a leak.
In 19th century England there was a people group called the Luddites. They destroyed machines used to make wool and cotton fabric. They thought the machines were of the devil. But in truth they were protesting the dehumanizing advances of technology in the industrial revolution. It wasn’t the machines that created horrible working conditions and poor wages – it was people.
Today in America we have the Amish, who maintain a equally radical, but less violent rejection of technology. They prohibit automobiles and electricity based on their theology. I must admit that after watching the 1985 movie “Witness”, there is a part of me that finds their lifestyle appealing.
In the first matrix movie – Neo, the main character, gets and answer to a question that is bothering him: “What is the Matrix?” Morpheus the prophetic guide has Neo in a secret room. Neo anxiously awaits the answer. But something averts his attention – to his right is a cracked mirror which reflects a fractured image of himself. As Neo looks into the mirror the cracks begin to recede and blend together, making the mirror whole. Now Neo’s reflection is no longer fractured and this surprises him. I believe the mirror 
represents a foreshadowing of the coming clarity that Neo is about to get about the technology that has imprisoned him.
Neo now studies the mirror rather than his reflection. He reaches out and touches it, but at the point of contact it bends and bows like liquid mercury and then snaps around his finger tips. He recoils but a portion of the medium stays on his fingers and then quickly multiples until it begins to consume him. Immediately the film cuts to Neo trapped in an incubation pod, struggling to escape. From here he is “born” into the real world and the story turns into a new direction.
The mirror is a metaphor for the technological world of the matrix. The mirror at first appears harmless but then suddenly takes on a life of it’s own. When Neo studied the medium of the mirror, instead of being distracted by his reflection he was freed from the prison of his mind; it is only when he observes the medium apart from it’s content that he perceives true power. With that discovery he is freed from his numbness and slumber. So are we!
This post was inspired from the book “ Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith” by Shane Hipps
… to be continued
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August 11, 2009 at 8:42 pm
In my opinion, it is not the media that is bad, its the people that abusing it and demoralizing it.
s.
December 3, 2009 at 3:44 pm
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