Hollywood’s “Moral Nihilism”
I am not a cultural crusader in the Moral Majority sense. Christians are strangers and aliens here. American Christians, while valuing religious freedom ought to be more opposed than anyone else to the notion of a state sponsored church. Christians must approach politics very carefully in order to avoid becoming a house organ of any particular politician or party. That said, we are resident aliens. In this sense we should, as Dylan Thomas put it, “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” We rightly rage against abortion, violence in our streets, the neglect of the marginalized, and the growing moral nihilism of our popular culture. We rage against these things not in an effort to establish a Christian country. Countries are not Christian. People are. We rage against these things because they are an affront to a God who is holy and good. We rage against these things because unrighteousness degrades and destroys people.
What we have seen out of Hollywood in the last week is that the purveyors of entertainment and therefore shapers of popular culture are not merely morally misinformed but moral nihilists. At some point Christians are going to have to stop giving these people their money.
Gene Veith writes:
Over 100 Hollywood moguls and insiders–including Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese, David Lynch, and Harvey Weinstein–have signed petitions urging the release of child rapist Roman Polanski, who has been arrested after fleeing a plea bargain 30 years ago. What impresses me is that pretty much the rest of America–the whole range of conservatives, liberals, feminists–are on the other side, demanding that Polanski face justice for raping a 13-year-old (not a statutory rape, but forcible sex against her will), even though he is a famous movie director.
The moral nihilism of the entertainment industry manifests itself again in the case of David Letterman, who admitted to being blackmailed to the tune of $2 million for having sex with his staff members. We’ll doubtless learn more about that, but what struck me is who the blackmailer was. Not a pathetic loser snooping from the shadows, but a big-name, high-powered television executive, Robert “Joe” Halderman, a CBS News producer.
