Why I Don't Watch the News (or even Read it)
The Battle for Our Daily Attention
One of my favorite essayists and public intellectuals, Charles Eisenstein, recently made an excellent point about the news media, in reference to a little-remarked passage in Return of the King.
By this point in Tolkien's tale, the old steward, Denethor, is sick with despair: for years he's been seeing visions of doom in his crystal ball-like palantír. As Gandalf points out, the seeing stone cannot lie. But out of all possible truths, it can show what it wants to show, or what Sauron wants it to show. In other words, it can report a highly selective version of events, and in this way poison the mind.
It's perhaps a stretch to say that our news media can't lie; arguably, they can and do. By accident or by design, they certainly get it wrong often enough. But even when they're telling a version of the truth, they're filtering it through a glass darkly. They're piling on the ugly and sensational, to the exclusion of so much else. While they harp on political gridlock, war updates and natural disaster death tolls, they're leaving out the many tendrils of hope and renewal that it's essential for us to also notice. For only that way can we nurture them.
When’s the last time you saw a news story on this bizarre and wonderful place, or on this new direction in sustainable, ecological housing?
Perhaps most insidiously of all, the news reinforces a certain vision of the world, a version of reality notably devoid of magic, beauty or meaningful grounds for hope. One that's devoid, in other words, of reasons to stick around on this messy, often brutal earth plane.
Many people would say they need the news to stay informed. In that case, it’s good to ask:
Who or what is doing the informing? And what might they be seeking to form you into? (One consideration: frightened people make for good consumers.)
How do you feel once you've received your daily (or hourly) dose of information? Notice, for example, if there's an addictive thrill of foreboding, or maybe a hit of self-righteousness that comes with the thought "see, told you so."
What might there be more room for in your life if you let media take up less real estate?
Not to be too dramatic, but if there’s a battle for our souls being waged, this is one of its main fronts. Our daily attention. What we let in, and what we don’t.
Those convenient little info pellets ought to come with a surgeon general’s warning. If you’ll take one from me instead: don’t swallow what they’re putting out. Don’t be a passive consumer of anything, certainly not anything as powerful as story.