Viewpoints

ViewPoints 22 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD

catholicnewsherald.com | December 4, 2020

Joe Heschmeyer ‘Successful players in the outrage porn industry make a fortune by manipulating you emotionally, and by making you angry on purpose.’

How the news is destroying your soul (and what you can do about it)

We live in a strange age. It’s an age marked by contention, strife and factionalism. This is true in the Church and in the realm of politics. It’s not just that we disagree. It’s that we don’t trust “the other side,” and actually hate each other to a degree not seen in modern U.S. history. And American Catholicism hasn’t been exempted from this trend, either. You’ve got uncharitable pro-Francis and anti-Francis Catholics bashing each other, and uncharitable pro-Trump and antiTrump Catholics bashing each other.

So what’s going on, and what can we do about it? Here’s what Neil Postman, C.S. Lewis, and St. Paul might say about where we’ve gone wrong, and what we can individually do about it.

THE OUTRAGE ADDICTION INDUSTRY

One problem with food might be that it’s mislabeled – this was a problem in much of the early 20th century. But another problem is just that the food itself is unhealthy junk that makes your life worse when you consume too much of it. The news is the same way. There is fake news, the reporting of things that literally didn’t happen. But a much bigger problem is junk news – news that exists only to entertain and that actually makes us worse people when we consume too much of it.

Part of the reason for that is our addiction to outrage. Way back in 2015, Psychology Today had a post warning about that “anger is a public epidemic in America.” The author explained why anger is addictive: “What happens is that anger can lead to similar ‘rushes’ as thrill-seeking activities where danger triggers dopamine reward receptors in the brain, or like other forms of addiction such as gambling, extreme sports, even drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines. Anger can become its own reward, but like other addictions, the final consequences are dangerous and real, and people follow impulses in the moment without regard to the big picture.”

Two of the biggest drug dealers in this new landscape are the news media and digital social media platforms.

Recall that 24-hour news is a relatively recent phenomenon. It didn’t exist in the past because there was no need for it. Ordinary people didn’t (and don’t!) have to know about every possible scandal or controversy or outrage. Indeed, the desire to know everything just for the sake of it (or for the sake of feeding your outrage addiction) is a sin that used to be something that we warned against. Catholic theologians like Aquinas describes the vice of curiositas, an unhealthy curiosity that’s not motivated out of a sincere love for the truth. He cites St. Augustine, who warns: “Some there are who forsaking virtue, and ignorant of what God is, and of the majesty of that nature which ever remains the same, imagine they are doing something great, if with surpassing curiosity and keenness they explore the whole mass of this body which we call the world. So great a pride is thus begotten, that one would think they dwelt in the very heavens about which they argue.”

This problem isn’t a new one. Originally, it made sense to stay on top of the news of the day, because it was directly relevant to your daily life: weather reports for farmers, local goings-on around town, etc. But with the introduction of the telegraph and photograph in the late 19th century, we could suddenly read about – and even see – events having no relation to our lives in any way. This began a subtle shift from the news as useful to the news as entertaining. In his 1985 masterpiece “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Neil Postman traces the history by looking at, of all things, the crossword puzzle: “The crossword puzzle became a popular form of diversion in America at just that point when the telegraph and the photograph had achieved the transformation of news from functional information to decontextualized fact. This coincidence suggests that the new technologies had turned the age-old problem of information on its head: Where people once sought information to manage the real context of their lives, now they had to invent context in which otherwise useless information might be put to some apparent use. The crossword puzzle is one such pseudo-context; the cocktail party is another; the radio quiz shows of the 1930s and 1940s and the modern television game show are still others; and the ultimate, perhaps, is the wildly successful ‘Trivial Pursuit.’ In one form or another, each of these supplies an answer to the question, ‘What am I to do with all these disconnected facts?’ And in one form or another, the answer is the same: Why not use them for diversion? for entertainment? to amuse yourself, in a game?”

As Postman shows, this trend from news as important to news as entertaining trivia isn’t a new one, but it’s been amplified by the introduction of video, by the creation of 24-hour news networks, and by the invention of digital media platforms like Twitter and Facebook and of political news websites.

The successful players in this industry make a fortune by manipulating you emotionally, and by making you angry on purpose. In a piece cleverly entitled “YOU’LL BE OUTRAGED AT HOW EASY IT WAS TO GET YOU TO CLICK ON THIS HEADLINE,” Wired looked at some of the science behind “clickbait.” Here’s what they found: “Emotional arousal, or the degree of physical response you have to an emotion, is a key ingredient in clicking behaviors. Sadness and anger, for example, are negative emotions, but anger is much more potent. ‘It drives us, fires us up, and compels us to take action,’ Berger says. If you’ve ever found yourself falling for outrage clickbait or spent time hate-reading and hate-watching something, you know what Berger is talking about. ‘Anger, anxiety, humor, excitement, inspiration, surprise – all of these are punchy emotions that clickbait headlines rely on,’ he says.”

This is the point to which we’ve come. The news isn’t there to tell you pertinent information about your life. It’s there so that you see something that make you angry enough to click on it, because then the news site can charge advertisers for the time you spent viewing the page. It’s appealing to your baser emotions, and manipulating you in ways you may not even realize. It’s hardly an exaggeration to describe it as “outrage porn,” because the psychological manipulation is basically the same as what successful porn sites do in tapping into lust.

The solution to all of this, fortunately, is easy: Put down the remote, click the little X in the top right corner, and walk away from the screen.

RESISTING THE DEMONIC ASSAULT

Outrage addiction is closely tied to the rise of partisanship, and the loss of trust between the two parties. It doesn’t have to be that way, but that’s the way it’s been. On most issues we haven’t seen much movement in the last few years, or we’ve seen movement in positive directions in terms of people coming together. But in politics, we’ve seen the chasm getting wider and wider and the level of trust getting lower and lower. Outrage porn both benefits from this and amplifies it.

C.S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters” has it right. The letters are written from the perspective of one demon (Screwtape) counseling another (Wormwood) on how to destroy a man’s soul. Here is how the spiritual situation looks, unmasked: “All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at this period. Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them. ... Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ‘cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favor of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.”

At the time Lewis was writing, World War II was going on, and there were strong cases being made by British Christians for both pacifism and for serving in combat. But the point wasn’t which side was better. It’s that both sides conducted themselves in a way that ultimately subverted Jesus Christ to a mere means of settling domestic British policy. We can do the same thing now with any of the major debates going on in America.

I’ve watched this happen all around me, and I think it’s tearing the online Catholic world apart. What started with a debate over whether voting for or against President Trump was the proper Catholic response has metastasized into something much bigger, in which once-reputable Catholic writers and apologists on both sides are known now not for their nuanced defenses of the Gospel, but for their political flame-throwing.

The solution is the one that Screwtape warns against: an attitude “in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience,” and the world is recognized as a temporary, passing thing, as sort of means to heaven rather than the other way around.

CHECK THE FRUITS

Finally, we need to do a better job of checking the spiritual fruits of our actions. St. Paul gives us two helpful diagnostics in Gal. 5:19-24: “Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

So it’s worth exploring two questions: How do the people I follow speak and act? Are they doing it with enmity and anger? Or are they marked by a spirit of joy, peace and patience? And even more importantly, what am I like after I read or watch their stuff? Does it fill me with love and a spirit of kindness? Or do I have the hallmarks of outrage addiction and the works of the flesh? Really explore that question in prayer if you need to, and then be open to whatever God’s calling you to – even if it means a total change in your media diet.

Brian Pusateri

Divide et impera

Do you know what “divide et impera” means? We have seen it played out these past several months in the United States and it is on full display around the world. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote about it in 1513, and the term “Machiavellian” became synonymous with deceit and deviousness. But the concept is much older: Julius Caesar employed this technique, as did Napoleon. How is it impacting you and how is it impacting our world?

“Divide et impera” means “divide and rule” or “divide and conquer.” In politics and sociology, it means gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. Spiritually speaking, it’s highly destructive.

The author of this strategy is the devil. The word “devil” comes from the Latin and Greek term “diabolus,” which literally means slanderer. The roots of the word are “dia,” meaning across, and “bolos,” meaning “who throws.” In other words, the devil is a slanderer who throws division across the world. He is the author of distrust; he polarizes people and ruptures relationships. Does this sound familiar?

We see it every day: rich against poor, black against white, Republican against Democrat, “red” states against “blue” states, the Senate against the House of Representatives, state government against the federal government, spouse against spouse, child against parent, Catholic against Protestant, “conservative” Christians against “liberal” Christians, neighbor against neighbor, Muslims against Jews, Muslims against Christians ... the list goes on and on.

This is evidence of the hideous divisiveness of the evil one in our lives. As Christians, we must ceaselessly work to end division and build unity among ourselves, within the Church and in the world. We need to stop the fighting.

Anyone old enough to remember likely recalls this famous public service message from 1971: A Native American paddles his canoe through pristine waters, surrounded by litter. He pulls his boat onto a bank, strewn with litter from a nearby freeway. Someone flings a bag of trash from a passing car, and a single tear rolls down his cheek. A narrator then says, “People start pollution. People can stop it.”

Divisiveness is the litter of the modern world, and it is strewn everywhere. I am reminded of Jesus’ return to Jerusalem, in which Luke 19:41 states, “As He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it.” As I ponder the world’s divisiveness, I wonder if Jesus is weeping again. “People started this division. Christians can stop it.”

In order for us to have any impact on reducing division and building unity in the world, we must first recognize the division within ourselves. St. Paul famously points out this division in Romans 7:18-19: “For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”

The terms “my flesh” or “the flesh” which St. Paul uses here do not mean our flesh and bones. It means the parts of us that are alienated from God. He is referring to the rebellious, unruly and obstinate parts of our life. These must change.

Let’s take a closer look at the devil’s strategy. Included in an even longer list in Galatians 5:19-21, St. Paul tells us the works of the flesh include hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions and occasions of envy. We have seen a lot of this on the news recently.

These works of the flesh are at the root of all division, and they clearly are the work of the devil. St. Paul tells us this in Romans 8:6: “The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace.” I think we can all agree that our world is sorely in need of more peace. St. Paul continues in verses 7-8: “For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God; it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

My friends, we must first deal with our own inner divisiveness and our hatreds, rivalries, jealousies, outbursts, acts of selfishness and envies, so that collectively as Christians we can bring about an end to the many divisions in the world. In Romans 8:14, St. Paul gives us a warning, but he also concludes with hope and encouragement: “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Both in our own life and in the world, the devil is employing his “divide et impera” strategy. He wants to divide and conquer us.

With Jesus in our hearts, let’s recommit ourselves to becoming agents of change in this world. Let’s become agents of peace. Ask yourself: What am I doing and what am I saying that causes division?

We must start by changing our own behavior. If each one of us does our part to change, this world will become a much better and more peaceful place to live.

Perhaps it was all of this division that caused Jesus to pray these words to His Father: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). It may also be why He taught us to pray “but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13).

My brothers and sisters: I appeal to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, let us bring an end to the division among us and let us work to become united in mind and heart.

Heavenly Father, make me an agent of peace in the world. Where there is division, help me to heal; where there is hatred, help me to sow love; and where there is darkness, help me to bring the light of Christ. Amen!

Letters to the editor

Kudos for focusing on racism

I appreciate and applaud the Catholic News Herald’s recent coverage of racism, including the commentaries by Deacon Clarke Cochran. As a cradle Catholic who is white, male and elderly, I am becoming increasingly aware of my privilege in this society. I accept personally that “Racism is a … deep and persistent infestation in (American) society” – as Deacon Cochran wrote in his Nov. 20 commentary entitled “Responding as Catholics to systemic racism.” Among other privileges, I am able to ignore the negative impacts of racism, while persons of color and lesser financial means struggle daily with fear, rejection, and a lack of material and societal resources.

JEROME WAGNER is a member of St. James the Greater Church in Concord. The Church is a rainbow

I’d like to congratulate Deacon Clarke Cochran for his commentaries about racism. I have found his parish, St. Peter Church in Charlotte, to be very representative of the views shared by the pope regarding respect for all life. Until this view is universal within the whole Catholic Church, the light will not be as bright for Black Catholics.

Another issue I have is the depiction of Christ with blond hair and blue eyes all the time. Christ is universal and everyone should see their own likeness and take joy in an image that is relatable. To combat racism, we must recognize that the Church is not white but a rainbow of all God’s people.

ALVIN BOND is a member of Our Lady of Consolation Church in Charlotte.

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