Deep thinking has been looking a bit thinner on the ground of noearthlycity lately. Perhaps taking my foot off the labouring pedal over the summer has resulted in brain contraction!? A certain loss of intellectual confidence (in my case in the face of challenging writing projects) leads me to comment on a set of increasingly ‘lowbrow’ cultural artefects. Something I have observed in longwave in friends and family, and now see in myself [pride always comes before a fall]. Talking about the Simpsons is safer than talking about the meaty stuff of life. Ditto on the blog: ‘safer’ to put up one’s personal thoughts on a film or TV series than on anything really serious.
Theoretically, I don’t want to supprt a falsely watertight dichotomy between, e.g. ‘film’ and ‘theology’, but there it is in practice unless you work at it. You can theoretically believe that, e.g., art is crucially important, that God is interested in everything we do and all that cultural-mandate-Schaeffer-apologetics stuff, and then still consume a film (of any sort, though certain sorts lend themselves to popcorn consumption rather more readily) uncritically, unreflectively and without any intention of change. Once in while that might be OK, but habitually and it becomes dangerous and the effect on personality can be a contraction…
