7 Deadly Sins as Words to Live By? - Ron Bishop, author of MORE

Deadly, But Made To Seem Desirable.

A Video Opinion Piece by Ron Bishop,
author of MORE: The Vanishing of Scale in an Over the Top Nation

They are Sunday School standards: The Seven Deadly Sins. Behaviors in which we're never supposed to engage. Attributes we're never supposed to exhibit.

But is it possible the mass media today tell us the 7 Deadly Sins are actually desirable behavioral traits? What do the media ask us to believe about the Sins through the narratives they present?

I'm not a fan of "hypodermic" models of media effects, which suggest a numbed audience instantly impacted by the onslaught of information they receive. Still, the media can suggest what we should be thinking about. By paying a lot of attention to a person, place, or event, the media persuade us that they are worth paying attention to.

So after resisting the temptation to put the Kardashians or Charlie Sheen at the top of each list, I compiled a few examples that support my point (See video).

CONCLUSION

So what are the sins in the narrative spun by the media? What attributes and behaviors aren't cool or don't get a lot of play? I propose this preliminary list: boredom (and its cousin, being boring; journalist Bernard Goldberg once called it the worst attribute one could exhibit in our society), calm (so long, Mister Rogers), acting casually, corniness, idleness, indecision, nuance, being poor (unless you have a tattered home in need of an Extreme Makeover), reflection (the genuine kind, not the self-involved prattle heard on Dr. Phil), subtlety, skepticism, and spontaneity (we are all witnesses to the demise in the media of the unscripted moment). In an age where everything seems to be over the top, a small dose of even some of these would be quite refreshing.

Ron Bishop, Ph.D. is the author of "MORE: The Vanishing of Scale in an Over-The-Top Nation, published by Baylor University Press, and is a professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

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