Art, pleasure, and purpose

There was a small news story last week highlighting that the coming fall TV schedule will contain more sexuality explicit scenes than in past seasons, and that in fact (no big surprise), TV shows and culture in general is significantly more explicit than it was 15 years ago. According to the story,

“This escalating emphasis on explicit scenes as well as themes is the result of seismic changes already rocking Hollywood and the larger society…the competition for market share in a spiraling world of entertainment choices, the mainstreaming of pornography, and the explosive growth of an unregulated Internet.”

Then, again later this week, as I’ve been mulling all this over, I saw another article similarly themed…

"I do think that general attitudes about nudity are becoming more relaxed, but these changes take time, which is why there's still mixed responses," said Paul Levinson, communication and media professor at Fordham University. “We as a society are finally growing up and it's a healthy thing," he said.

REALLY??

The stories bothered me because I was left wondering, where will this stop?” And, WILL it stop, or will TV and our culture simply become more and more explicit? As a man and as a father of children who are growing up in this world, I’m concerned. I feel strongly that this sex-hyped culture (it’s a worldwide-culture as far as I can tell) in which we live is wrong, yet I’m so often at a loss for how to put words to this.

There is a small book by Ravi Zacharias that I picked up several years ago, part of his “Great Conversations” series, that speaks to these issues of sensuality in culture. The book, titled, “Sense and Sensuality” is a (fictitious, need I say?) dialogue between Oscar Wilde, Jesus, and Blaise Pascal on the topic of art and the singular pursuit of pleasure.

As I re-read the short book, several quotations stood out clearly to me:

“Nothing profane can ever be beautiful”

“Beauty at its best is Holy”

“In seeking pleasure, you pursued the body and lost the person. You sought the sensation and sacrificed the individual. In pursuing the sacred, you exalt the person and the sensation will follow. In pursuing sensuality, you exalt the body and profane the person…

…living becomes senseless.”