Merton on the Media—Part 3

I wrote in the first blog of this series that Merton, after a couple of decades of deep devotion to the eremetic life at Gethsemani Abbey, increasingly became interested in world events. In order to inform himself and to understand what was happening in society, he became an avid reader of the news. He also developed an extremely busy correspondence with philosophers, religious figures, and scholars all over the world.

In the 1960s there was no internet that could be surfed to follow current events, and television was certainly not an authorized source of information in a monastery. Therefore, Merton read several daily newspapers and received numerous other periodicals and books in the mail. I am amazed at the volume of reading that he managed to do, while still participating in the monastic life. That said, as his reputation grew, he was increasingly relieved of daily monastery tasks, to allow him time to research and write.

Merton became very critical of America's mass media. He repeatedly described how poorly it informed people of current events, and that it often spread the propaganda of the country's rich and powerful. The media had become part of the corporate world and often served as the mouthpiece of corporate America. He described how the media diverted readers' attention with trivial pursuits and infatuation with celebrity affairs.

He wrote that “nine tenths of the news, as printed in the papers, is pseudo-news, manufactured events. Some days ten tenths.” He accused the media of being guilty of keeping violence, cruelty, and sadism ever present in society. He felt that this hyped-up information directly contributed to the public's tendency toward polarization and hatred.

Merton was especially troubled by America's violent culture. He had become an eloquent voice for the power of nonviolence, after becoming deeply devoted to Jesus' messages in the Sermon on the Mount. He also was inspired by Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, and Henry David Thoreau. He strongly supported the Civil Rights Movement that was unfolding at the time, and honored Martin Luther King, who also was strongly influenced by Gandhi. Both King and Merton vehemently opposed the Vietnam War—for which the media were complaisant, and they both became the target of hatred for doing so.

He wrote that, for most Americans the daily ritual of reading the newspaper was a form of “trance, in which one scans columns of newsprint, creates a peculiar form of generalized pseudo-attention to a pseudo-reality.” He went on to write “My own experience has been that renunciation of this self-hypnosis, of this participation in the unquiet universal trance, is no sacrifice to reality at all.”

I find it fascinating that Merton used the term “pseudo-reality” to describe the 1960s newspapers' content. I wonder what he would say about today's TV news, social media's outlandish postings, and fake news hype. I'm sure he would have something caustic to write about reality TV—quite likely dubbing it “pseudo-reality TV.”