Ugly by Design!
Have we changed or has the world around us changed? Is it our point of view or a new mindset? I watch very little television but if you watch an old television show it doesn’t take long to see the difference. If you go back to the time before TV the changes are even more apparent.
I watched and old rerun of the TV show the Rifleman recently. It was from the 1950 era and starred Chuck Connors. It was the same theme almost every episode as I remember. Lucas McCain would go to town with his young son Mark. There would be a bad man in town intent on doing harm to innocent people. Lucas would confront the evil man and eventually there would be a gunfight. Lucas would shoot and kill the bad man.
Not much different from our modern TV shows except for one thing. Lucas hated to do it! The show went to great lengths to show how much he hated having to take life. He would do it to protect innocent life but only then as a last resort. After he had killed the bad man it showed how sorry he was and how taking a human life was a terrible thing in any circumstance.
If you can stand to watch a modern program you will see leading characters that will kill without a second thought. Modern technology has made it so realistic that blood and body parts flying through the air are hardly noticed anymore. The gun comes out and goes off in a second and 2 minutes later the character is over it and on with his life. Has this changed us?
I wonder the effect of our television and movies with people around the world that don’t know what an American is except for seeing us on screen. Do they think we are really like that? They sure seem to be disgusted with us.
I remember being a small boy and going with my Dad when he would buy fishing tackle. Even though we went into the store to buy fishing tackle we would always go to the back of the store to look at the guns. I can remember him holding me up on his arm so I could see. It must have been in the mid-1950s cause nobody could have picked me after that without equipment. I can still remember how beautiful they were. The shiny black steel and the beautifully finished walnut gunstocks lined up in a wall rack were a sight to stir the imagination. Every gun in the store was beautiful and every gun there was for hunting or target use.
It is disappointing to go look at the guns when I go to a sporting goods store now. The beauty has gone. Everything is flat black or camouflage. It is almost like the gun was designed to look fearsome instead of beautiful. When I leave the gun counter and walk over to the knife counter it is the same story. The shiny blades have been made dull black and the edges of the knives look like predator teeth.
Our publications have changed as well. Since I am in the gun business I constantly receive gun magazines and sporting publications. These mirror what the general public pick up off the rack at the store. Bottom line is beauty has gone out of style. Even the people that hold the guns are scary looking. I took this picture while in the checkout line at the grocery store. I didn’t arrange it at all.
Figure 1Wal Mart magazine rack. Ugly by design
Does TV, Internet and print reflect what we think or do they tell us what we think?
Maybe we have just been told what we like so many times that we are starting to believe it. Adolf Hitler knew a few things about control and he said “If you tell them something long enough they will believe it.” I think that is exactly what has happened. Is it past the point of no return? Is scary the new beauty? Is it too late?
One thing I have been told enough that I believe it is that it is never too late to change. The Bible says “Think about what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.” The key word seems to be THINK! Do it often and do it for yourself. Don’t let a website, politician or anyone else do it for you. It has been proven over and over “What the mind can conceive the mind can achieve!”