No way to know how bad, how quick...

Years ago a friend recommended the 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, as a “must-read” for my journalistic understanding.
In an absolutely astonishing on-the-money foreword, Postman compares the fear of George Orwell’s 1984 coming true with the reality of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World being the real outcome.

“Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing,” he writes. “Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history.

“As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

“Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

“Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

“Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

“As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.’

“In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

*****

Toward the end of the book, Postman revisits this theme with, “In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth.

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”

*****

Here’s just a smattering of other great quotes from Postman’s book:

·         “The clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation.”

·          “Exposition is a mode of thought, a method of learning, and a means of expression. Almost all of the characteristics we associate with mature discourse were amplified by typography, which has the strongest possible bias toward exposition: a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance for delayed response.”

·         “Moreover, we have seen enough by now to know that technological changes in our modes of communication are even more ideology-laden than changes in our modes of transportation. Introduce the alphabet to a culture and you change its cognitive habits, its social relations, its notions of community, history and religion. Introduce the printing press with moveable type, and you do the same. Introduce speed-of-light transmission of images and you make a cultural revolution. Without a vote. Without polemics. Without guerrilla resistance. Here is ideology, pure if not serene. Here is ideology without words, and all the more powerful for their absence. All that is required to make it stick is a population that devoutly believes in the inevitability of progress. And in this sense, all Americans are Marxists, for we believe nothing if not that history is moving us toward some preordained paradise and that technology is the force behind that movement.”

·         “The line-by-line, sequential, continuous form of the printed page slowly began to lose its resonance as a metaphor of how knowledge was to be acquired and how the world was to be understood. "Knowing" the facts took on a new meaning, for it did not imply that one understood implications, background, or connections. Telegraphic discourse permitted no time for historical perspectives and gave no priority to the qualitative. To the telegraph, intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them.”
 

·         “To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another. To accomplish this, one must achieve a certain distance from the words themselves, which is, in fact, encouraged by the isolated and impersonal text. That is why a good reader does not cheer an apt sentence or pause to applaud even an inspired paragraph. Analytic thought is too busy for that, and too detached.”

·         “In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, print put forward a definition of intelligence that gave priority to the objective, rational use of the mind and at the same time encouraged forms of public discourse with serious, logically ordered content. It is no accident that the Age of Reason was coexistent with that growth of a print culture, first in Europe and then in America.”

·         “Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter?”

·         “The reader must come armed, in a serious state of intellectual readiness. This is not easy because he comes to the text alone. In reading, one's responses are isolated, one's intellect thrown back on its own resources. To be confronted by the cold abstractions of printed sentences is to look upon language bare, without the assistance of either beauty or community. Thus, reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity.”

·         “...there must be a sequence to learning, that perseverance and a certain measure of perspiration are indispensable, that individual pleasures must frequently be submerged in the interests of group cohesion, and that learning to be critical and to think conceptually and rigorously do not come easily to the young but are hard-fought victories.”

·         “It is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions.”

·         “What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer.”

.       “If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.”

·         “Marx understood well that the press was not merely a machine but a structure for discourse,   which both rules out and insists upon certain kinds of content and, inevitably, a certain kind of audience.”

*****

Just like there are “the deep things of God,” there are also the deep things of the Adversary. John writes in Revelation 2:24, [24] But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.

“The depths of Satan is a doctrine, a teaching, a philosophy,” explains Jordan. “Where ‘the deep things of God’ lead to our glory and, just as you and I are destined to share in the glorification of Jesus Christ throughout all the universe, the same thing is true in the reverse for those into ‘the deep things of the Adversary.’

“Paul writes in Romans 7:13 [13] Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

“There’s a rule in grammar that says you never define a word by using the word itself because the definition is meant to explain what the word is. But when Paul defines the word sin here, it’s as though the Holy Spirit searches out all the words in the vocabulary of man and He can’t come up with a better word to define sin than to call it sin.

“Sometimes you get something reduced down to the lowest common denominator and you know what it is; you don’t need any further definition because there isn’t anybody who doesn’t get it.

“Well, one of the most damning, most awful--one of the clearest, plainest, bottom line verses of degradation in the Bible that represents ‘exceeding sinful,’ is the last verse in Romans 1: ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’

“This is not a verse that gets a lot of play but it’s a verse that goes right down to the depths of sin and I suggest to you that, in human terms, the depths of sin demonstrate ‘the depths of Satan.’

*****

“What men call sophistication, or liberation and enlightenment (‘We’ve thrown off the shackles of Victorian morality’) is really just God giving them over to their own desires.

"The most damnable thing God Almighty could ever do to a man, short of putting him in the lake of fire, is just leave him to himself because there is something in you, brother, that will take care of you all by itself. God doesn’t have to work up a sweat to take care of you; just leave you to yourself.  

“In Romans 1:24, we see God give them up; He gave up their body. In verse 26, He gave up their soul and in verse 28, He gave up their spirit. Completely abandoned by God. No restraint. Verse 29 begins, ‘Being filled with all unrighteousness,’ and then Paul goes down through a heinous list of things until he comes to the end in verse 32.

“When it says, ‘Who knowing the judgment of God,’ don’t ever forget that. Every unsaved man, no matter how deep he goes in his rebellion and sin, and no matter how fast and hard he travels the road of degradation, he knows there’s a judgment.

“People say, ‘Well, how do you know that, preacher?’ I’ve dealt with them, but I don’t know it because of that; I know it because God said it.

“I’ve sat across the table from college professors with two and three Ph.D. degrees trying to argue with me and you know what you do? You don’t take the bait. I once had a nuclear physicist--the guy had two degrees in nuclear physics and one degree in English literature from Stanford and MIT—who’d spent about 35 years in school and was arguing with me about this thing and that thing and said, ‘If there’s a God and a devil then you can’t count on the tensile strength of steel.’

“I just said, ‘The problem is not what the tensile strength of steel is, the problem is your sin’s going to damn you and put you in hell. You’re going to die and face God in the judgment and, Doc, the judgment’s going to get you.’

“That old guy broke out in beads of sweat on his forehead, cleared his throat and changed the subject, wanting to talk about what Robert Joyce said. Well, I’d read Robert Joyce, but I just said, ‘All I know is you’re going to face God in the judgment. The Book says it’s appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment, and Doc, you ain’t ready!’

“Now, I know what they do. They go away mad at you, see. I didn’t get anywhere with that man that night, but I’ll tell you what, he left in a sweat and that’s what he needed to live in.

“Every person who comes into this world knows two things: they know there’s a God and they know they’re going to face Him in judgment. They know His eternal power and godhead. God says He fixed it so they know that.

*****

“The end of Romans 1:32 says that ‘they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’ It’s enough to damn yourself but now you’re rejoicing in damning others with you. That’s the depths of sin. That’s how low-down sin can be.

“It starts out just condoning something. You then move to approving it, and then aiding and abetting it; helping it out. Then it won’t be long until you become its patron and you’re rejoicing in the sins of others. That’s the final step, the approval of sin in others. That positive satisfaction in the wrongdoing of others. That’s just malignant madness. That’s the depths of sin.

“It’s one thing to do it yourself and say, ‘It may damn me, but I’ll do it!’ but it’s something quite of a different color to say, ‘I’ll not only do it, I’ll rejoice in having other people do it with me!’

“You say, 'Where does that come from?!' Listen to me, there isn’t anything you ever saw anybody on this planet do that isn’t in your flesh to do also, because what caused them to do it, they got from Adam. And you got the same stuff they got from Adam; it’s called flesh.

“When Paul said, ‘In my flesh dwelleth NO good thing,’ you can say that. That old sin nature’s got a bent toward aestheticism and culture. It’s ‘the tree of the knowledge of GOOD and evil.’ It’s also got a bent toward lasciviousness, wantonness and evil. God doesn’t accept either one.

*****

“James 1:15 says, ‘Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ That’s what sin does. Sin is of a nature that it can never be satisfied. What it does is it becomes dead and then it just gets deader and deader and pretty soon it’s just death in the pot and it takes more to stimulate it and more to get it excited.

“It takes more jazz, more volume, more juice to get the stimulation the next time and it's, 'I’m hooked on the stimulation, but the more I stimulate it, the deader it gets dead,' and then you’ve got to go further and further.

“It starts out easy. The dirty jokes become the dirty story and pretty soon the dirty story becomes dirty pictures. First it’s just a magazine you can hide in the back of the closet and the next thing you know it’s the Triple X movies and the next you know, it isn’t pictures anymore; it’s illicit relationships.

“First it’s just a little dalliance but then it’s done over and over and now it’s constant fornication and pretty soon that isn’t enough because that gets satisfied and dead. That doesn’t titillate so now it begins to be deviancy and all the sexual perversion you see out there in the world today, whether it’s the homosexual perversion or pedophilia, bestiality, things that are just so . . . you know, you read about them and hear about them and say, ‘Say it ain’t so?! It just can’t be?!’

“How’d they get there? Nobody goes into wickedness like that except through a long, slow process of evil thinking, and the things that you tonight think are repulsive and that you could never do . . . if you start back over at the beginning of it you, too, could get there and the only way to avoid getting there is leave it alone to start with!

*****

“How do you explain the sadistic, masochistic activities in the world? It’s a three-letter word. Sin. ‘The wages of sin is death.’ You get to the place where you ‘not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’

“They’re not only doing it; they’re out there so dead, and so driven by sin, that they’re promoting it and rejoicing in gaining patrons for their evil arts. It’s malignant madness. That’s what the flesh does and all of that is only the manifestation of what the Adversary does.

“Let me show you a verse in Ezekiel that curdles my blood. I can’t fully grasp the heinous depths to which this thing goes and I’m glad I can’t. Paul said, ‘Be simple concerning evil and wise concerning that which is good.’

“I don’t want to know what this stuff is; I’m not interested. But I’ve had people sit with me, and I’ve had to deal with people who’ve been there, or somewhere close to it, and I’ve seen the hooks and the chains of sin holding onto a person’s soul in a way that I don’t want to be any part of.

“I’ve seen a little bit of what the verses say and I don’t want any more first-hand experience than what I’ve had, but I can tell you it’s a very sobering thing.

“In Ezekiel 29, Ezekiel goes from talking about ‘the king of Tyrus,’ the king of the north, to Pharaoh king of Egypt. And once again, just like in chapters 27 and 28, where he was talking about the king of Tyrus but was really talking about Satan (who the king of Tyrus represented), he does the same thing in Ezekiel 29-32.

“Ezekiel 29:2-3 says, [2] Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:
[3] Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

“Who is the great dragon? Satan. The prophecy goes on down and you come over to chapter 31:2-3. [2] Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
[3] Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.

“What are we talking about there? Who was in the Garden of God? Who was in Eden? Same thing you’ve got in chapter 28. When Ezekiel talks about the ‘cedar in Lebanon,’ the trees, he’s talking about the angelic creatures; their different functions and things they carry on.

“Prophetically, you’re out at the end time in the 70^th week of Daniel. You’re looking forward to destruction of the satanic policy of evil with the Second Advent of Christ. What culminates out there under the personage of the Antichrist, that ultimate form of the lie, began and was propagated among mankind in the Garden of Eden.

“Pharaoh was a part of that and along through history God puts in little things about it, about what’s ultimately going to happen, and he talks to Pharaoh here as though he was Satan out there, because it’s all the same program.

“Watch what happens out there. Verse 16 says, ‘I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.’

“That’s like Isaiah 14:9: [9] Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

“So he goes down to hell and they say, ‘This is the Antichrist; here he is,’ and you notice there’s some people who are going to be COMFORTED when that happens!

“In chapter 32 you have a picture of the battle associated with the Second Advent of Christ as He goes and destroys His enemies. Verse 31, speaking of Satan under the cover of Pharaoh, says, [31] Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord GOD.

“He’s going to see all these host who He’s gathered together; who have been DESTROYED by God’s judgment. He shall see them. He shall see all these people who have been damned and destroyed as they followed his program.

“Watch Verse 32: [32] For I have caused my terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

“Pharaoh’s going to look out there in hell and look at all those people who’ve been damned by following him and the verse says he’s going to be comforted in the damnation of all those multitudes. I read that and I say, 'Wait a minute, how can that be?!’ and then I remember Romans 1:32.

“Then I remember Hosea 7:3: ‘They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.’ I remember all those verses like that where it says, ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, not only do them but rejoice in them that do them.’

“Not only does he go to hell under the wrath and judgment of God, but he looks out at the multitudes who’ve been damned by following him and says, ‘Wow, ain’t that wonderful.’

“There isn’t anybody down there that I know of that’s happy to see you come, but that verse says there’s going to be somebody one day. You know what that tells me? That tells me that hell and ‘the lake of fire’ is going to be the mad house of the universe; ‘the depths of Satan.’

“There’s that sadistic glee over the eternal damnation of others to the place that Satan himself would look out over the hordes of people that were damned for following him and rub his hands together and go, ‘Hee, hee, hee, hee,’ and have a good time over it.

“Folks, you don’t want to be a comfort to the devil. You don’t want to comfort him by seeing his plan work out in your life. You want to discomfort him, and the way you do that is you live under the wonderful administration of the wonderful grace of God. As Paul says, ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!’ That’s this wonderful wisdom that God afore prepared unto our glory.”