Prayer Flags at Mount Everest, image courtesy of Clubtread.com

By Jenny Singer

"Have you ever heard of the madman who, on a bright morning, lighted a lantern and ran to the marketplace calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!" As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why? Is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he emigrated? -- the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this Earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? -- for even Gods putrify! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife -- who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event -- and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!" Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said. "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling -- it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star -- and yet they have done it themselves!" It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem aeternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?" From Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science God is Dead, Original Text, German & English

NOT LONG after Hurricane Katrina, I was awoken from my dreams. I heard a voice, in my sleep, repeating the phrase "God is dead" over and over. I had been reading a great deal of philosophy and Nietzsche was the focus of my current fascination. I had fallen asleep that night with the television on, watching news coverage of the hurricane victims screaming for help into the news cameras. I recall vividly the shot of a dead body covered over with blankets in a wheelchair on the street. Even the reporters were angry and suffering with tears in their eyes.

I had a printout of Nietzsche's God is Dead passage in the bookcase by the bed. I reached over and began reading and as I read the following passage from The Gay Science, tears began to silently roll down my face.

"The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. 'Where is God gone?' he called out. 'I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon?'"

My spirituality is firmly grounded in nature. I have never been an environmental activist. I have deep respect and reverence for nature but it has often been a respect of convenience. That embarrasses me. In the moments before dawn, I experienced what felt like a huge 'aha' moment. The images television news portrayed connected the dots for me and I wept.

The cumulative effect of catastrophic natural disasters in the past year coupled with decades of messages about the consequences of global warming had finally found their target. If God/dess is in nature, (according to my belief system) and humanity is contributing to nature's demise, then it is humanity that is causing the death of God/dess. Watching the continuous coverage of this disaster was painful because I too am part of humanity and part of the problem. If ever there was train of thought I didn't want to be on, this was it. Visions of my children's disposable baby diapers underneath piles of all the other debris I have contributed to the not so noble cause of global warming began dancing in my head. I read somewhere once that it takes 500 years for disposable diapers to decompose! For just a little while, I was both the murderer and the madman.

I called a friend, a dyed in the wool, hardcore Pagan environmentalist wanting to share my insight, expecting to find agreement. He said casually, void of emotion, that he wasn't so sure about the whole global warming thing after all. He felt that the Earth's ability to sustain life is a finite thing and we are not the cause as much as we are just helping it along. Shocked, I called another friend and I shared my insight with her. She sighed heavily and expressed virtually the same opinion.

My father once told me about the teacher who told her student that the two biggest problems in life were ignorance and apathy, to which the student replied, "I don't know and I don't care." What was the meaning of all this? Surely my friends were not ignorant and apathetic; these adjectives were the least likely adjectives I would use to describe them. I puzzled over this for a time.

I stumbled across an article about a newly emerging psychological diagnosis named "Media Induced Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" in A Journal of Narrative Psychology. MIPSD is characterized by many of the same symptoms as traditional Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. According to the article, patients have the potential to develop "Media Induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" after just five hours of exposure per week of media violence.

Some of the symptoms of 'The New Disease' attributed to Media Induced Post-Traumatic Stress disorder include:

-- Estrangement from others and a feeling of a shortened future

-- Difficulty in falling or staying asleep

-- Compulsively desire to seek out the images associated with the trauma

-- "Mean World Syndrome" perception of the world as an overly dangerous place cultivated by repeated exposure to traumatizing media images

-- Numbing and an accompanied loss of interest in activities or interests that were previously important and significant

I began to wonder. Had I even for a brief time suffered from this new type of PTSD? Had my friends, who had spent their lives promoting environmental causes, been manifesting some of the symptoms as well in their expressions of resignation that did seem suspiciously numb in retrospect?

I called my father-in-law, a board certified psychiatrist, and asked him what he thought of this new mental illness. He had no idea what I was talking about and had never heard of this new affliction. He did agree that repeated exposure to events that portray horrible death and destruction make people numb and stoic and that this is a prime breeding ground for depression. He talked about the more typically acknowledged form of post-traumatic stress in soldiers who are exposed to so many battlefield horrors they become zombie like, and how that really serves the military because it makes soldiers compliant and that is what the military wants from its soldiers.

He also pointed out that the media's ability to create mass hysteria is not something new. Case in point, Orson Welle's radio broadcast, an adaptation the original War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Many millions of people mistakenly heard a fictional radio broadcast and thought that Martians had invaded the Earth. They missed the opening announcement at the beginning of the radio broadcast explaining that the story was fictional. People who heard the broadcast were convinced that our country was being invaded and there was mass hysteria and panic.

My father-in-law is about one of the most learned men I know and I was surprised when he went on to defend television and the media. He conceded that while it is possible for people to demonstrate symptoms of post-traumatic stress from watching catastrophic events on television he went on to say, "If your spirit is intact and flowing through you in a dynamic way, television and media can encourage and feed peoples hunger for connectedness. I live my life grounded in sorrow and grief and the things I see help me to be a more compassionate human being." He recalled how seeing the first broadcast of the original Gulf War made him literally cry tears of sadness. "The things we see on television cause us to feel connected to each other, and images have the potential to feed our anger and fear. The positive side of the media is that it can make us angry enough to stand up for ourselves and others. It can also cause people who might never have otherwise to reach out and connect with each other and work together for the common good."

The funny thing is I have never seen Dad watch television. When my husband and I visit he is usually in his library reading a book. I know that he is highly respected in his field and our conversation helped me see the other side of the argument and why it is necessary and useful for the media to cover events that are tragic in nature the way they do. He is also 72 so I figure he knows a few things I don't. It may be that I momentarily lapsed into a tailspin from watching too much coverage of Hurricane Katrina. I see his point though. The images were moving and did cause me to connect with others.

My husband and I encouraged our friends, all full-grown adults, to "Trick or Treat for UNICEF." I am a member of the local United Nations Association and it was the first thing that came to mind in terms of how we could help the children of Katrina. Although the UN limits its assistance normally to international causes, in this case it used its resources to assist Katrina victims. My husband I dragged a giant five-gallon water jug every time we went to someone's house for a month to collect their pocket change and whatever had fallen between their sofa cushions. Humorous in a way, but we were truly moved to action in our compassion for the people we saw suffer.

I have decided the world isn't really the horrible place I felt it was for some time, and that the images and words I heard and saw can empower me to make it a better place. Just yesterday we were talking about New Year's resolutions and decided to campaign with our neighbors to bring back the recycling bins the new management got rid of when they took over. Television and the media provided what I felt was empirical evidence of the possible consequences that come with ignoring the warnings scientists have been giving us for so long about the environment and the effects of global warming.

I'm no longer the murderer of God/dess or the madman prophesying doom. I am however definitely paying more attention because even if there is a finite cycle of life on Earth, I choose to honor God/dess by not being one of the people that help it along. My mass communication technology professor said in class that there was a time when everyone needed to know about astronomy but technology has replaced that need. We have become disconnected from nature as a result. I might not need to look at the stars and sun anymore because of technology but I still do. I care about what is above and below and as traumatizing as television and the media can be at times I know I am constantly being mobilized into action by the things I see, hear and read. The media is the mechanism that informs me and helps me protect or at the very least promote the ideals I hold dear.

As for my Pagan friends who seemed to have lost interest in saving the environment, I hope they move from their sense of resignation to a place more consistent with their life's work. I feel very differently now about all forms of the media because I truly understand that it is not the television that is the true receiver and decoder of the information the technology age delivers. I am the receiver and decoder and I get to use the information I gather and decode in powerful ways because I am privileged enough to have access to it.

This is a story about the impact mass communications technology has had on my life and the lives of people I know. I see now that technology allows us to connect with the message, regardless of its content, and that is a good thing. There are certain doors in life we walk through that we can never return from. The door of communications technology is one of those doors. From the inside of that door looking out, I have a new found appreciation. We as individuals have infinite opportunities to do positive things with the information we receive. We all have infinite potential to impact the lives of all humanity in a positive way, everyday and in every way. Technology may drive the media but ultimately we control the remote.

 

Works Cited

God is Dead, Original Text, German & English, Retrieved December 19, 2005,

The New Disease, A Journal of Narrative Psychology, Volume 2, July 25, 2004, Retrieved December 19, 2005,

The War of the Worlds, Retrieved December 21, 2005,

Personal conversation with Dr. Ray Johnson, Sr., December 20, 2005