Escapist Entertainment

UPDATE: Alexander Hellene responds.

Recently, I came across this tweet:

Men should limit their intake of escapist entertainment. Reality is a lot more interesting that the 9,000th installment of a superheroes movie.

— Michael Sebastian (@HonorAndDaring) June 20, 2019

(Archive here.)

At first, I was going to object, but then I realized that I already did that in my personal life.

That being said, I must stand up for my profession.

Let me be clear: I do not believe he is making a bad choice. If he is not interested in escapist entertainment,  that does not mean that anything is wrong with him.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss why being involved in escapist entertainment is actually good.

As I’ve stated before, conservative folks tend to be more practical-minded, albeit for good reason:

The US conservative ethos can be summed up as: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Make money to support your family and improve your lifestyle. Handouts are shameful. In following this ethos, they select careers with a practical application that would get them earning right away. It’s not bad advice; you need money to live, and more money is better, for bills need to be paid. With this conventional mindset, conservatives relentlessly focus on “what works,” emphasizing careers like engineering, resource extraction, skilled trades, and other things of that nature. Since these are skills immediately useful to society, conservatives have a reputation of “getting it done.”

This mindset, however, leaves the conservative with a certain blind spot regarding popular culture. They see it as frivolous, childish nonsense not worth paying attention to, hence the above tweet.

However, I argue the opposite.

Rightly or wrongly, people of all ages enjoy their entertainment, and it’s best for conservatives to go where the people are. No amount of insulting them as “babies” or “teenagers” is going to make them stop. Due to a combination of complete disinterest by conservatives and a strong culture of left-wing bias, most purveyors of popular culture are progressive, with a noticeable minority of libertarians (and yes, most creators lean left even in Japan.) Thus, it behooves conservatives to participate in the conversation by talking about their favorite works and creating works more to their liking. After all, you can’t change things if you don’t show up. People are going to seek entertainment one way or another, so make sure there’s something to catch their eye.

However, one would argue that the solution isn’t different entertainment, but reducing the consumption of entertainment altogether, especially fictional entertainment; people need to focus on real things, not make-believe. If there are to be stories at all, let them be true ones, the argument goes.

It’s a strong objection, but it’s also incomplete. People love stories, whether real or make-believe, because they speak to hopes, emotions, and fears in an interesting way. Because of this, stories will be sought out and listened to; if someone feels caged, they will imagine themselves free. People will imagine society at its best and at its worst, sometimes simultaneously. Withdrawing from the arts or trying to destroy them is not an option, and doing the latter will leave us all the poorer.

However, there is a way to keep one’s consumption of entertainment in its proper perspective: Don’t make it your religion.

Here’s a good, simple heuristic: If the desecration of a pop-culture franchise offends you more than the desecration of public, organized religion, you’ve made pop culture your religion.

There’s also a corollary: If you hold fast to your religion, it doesn’t matter what happens to the pop-culture franchises. You can discard them and move on because your ethics and self-concept rest on a firmer foundation than the imaginings of artists trying to make a buck.

In short, enjoy your entertainment and support those who are trying to make a change. However, remember that pop-culture franchises, even conservative ones, are no substitutes for real, divinely inspired ethics.

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Enjoy Shining Tomorrow Volume 1: Shadow Heart, but don’t make it your religion.