Just a few days ago on the radio, the host of one very partisan radio station was asked, “What radio station would you like to see banned?” He said, “I don’t want any of them banned. I don’t even want any of them to go out of business.” One would not have guessed this response from the everyday discourse of his show which, like many others (on both political sides) is filled with caricatures of his opponnents, emotional tirades, sloganeering, and a willful refusal to answer questions or stay on topic when it would weaken his presentation. This is the woeful state of much media. Now, because of the depressing manners of much public discourse, in hearing the original question my first impulse, had I been asked, would not have been to defend freedom speech but to suggest a rest, a time-out so that it might be reformed. Call off radio for a day, a week! Play music for a month! Let's ask the media to work on developing thoughtful, careful, precise presentations, and to deliver them as even handedly as possible. Maybe, to use one of the church's words as Lent approaches, those entrusted with use of the airwaves could show some repentance.
Well, wishful thinking on my part. But living in the culture as it is, the Christian will do well to remember that making informed judgments, pursuing wisdom and finding it, is a lifetime's work. Truth is not always found in a day, much less in the short windows of time that our media give to serious issues. Importantly, we know that feelings are not themselves alone the basis for wise judgments. Nor, again, alone and by itself, is experience the sole basis for forming wise judgments and wise actions. Our perceptions, taken to be our experience, can be mistaken. And, of course, future experience has a way of often correcting previous experience. Deliberation, and testing our judgments against the judgments of others is a mark of maturity. Those closest to us can be a kind of vetting team, a counsel of advice, a sounding board. We also have ethicists, theologians, philosophers and essayists to make use of, along with deeply thoughtful people who may lack academic credentials but possess wisdom. Seeking wisdom, learning, is enjoined upon us throughout our foundational text, the BIble. It's part of our calling. (Thus, we have Chrisitan Education, formation, call it what you will, in our churches.) It can be our delight, too, even when it takes a good while, lots of effort, and a resolve to resist the noise of our times, for wisdom to appear like the shining jewel that it is.