Media and Emotions

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The importance of images and emotions

If emotions are what prompt action, and our mental images are what prompt emotions, then it’s going to be very important to monitor what images we let into our heads. An image stimulates an emotion, which prompts an action, which forms a habit, which builds a character, which in turn decides whether you end up in heaven or hell for all eternity.

So we’d better be careful which images we cultivate with our own imagination but we’d also better be careful about what images we allow in from outside. In practice, it means we need to make an assessment of what kinds of media we’re consuming.

Three feelings in particular have the capacity to get our emotional and moral life off the rails: Lust, Anger, and Discouragement or Despair.

So are we feeding these passions with the media we consume?

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Sexual desire is good, but only when it’s directed to love of your spouse and the creation of life in the family.

So are you indulging in media that focuses on sexuality or romance that isn’t helping you live out the vocation to marriage and parenthood?

Obviously, men, if you’re indulging in pornography, or even movies and shows with sexually graphic scenes. Then you’re putting images in your head that you’ll never be able to get out. And I promise you – I promise you – those images will make it harder to be the generous, selfless and strong man that your wife and kids need you to be.

And women, if you’re indulging in romance novels, or watching romantic comedies. In which the characters only care about their own relationships, their own needs, their journey of self-expression and self-discovery and self-exploration then you’re putting images in your head that will make it much harder to be a woman of charity, a woman who gives herself generously to her family in a million unsexy, unexciting, and underappreciated ways.

It will make it harder for you to live a life of quiet prayer and service. It’ll make it harder for you to be a Christian. It’ll make it harder for you to be happy.

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Anger is only useful insofar as it motivates a change in an area under your authority. That’s why usually, the only helpful anger is anger at your own sins – since you always have the authority and the ability to do something about that. But if you’re consuming media that makes you angry all the time – about stuff you have no control over – then what is the point of that?

Making yourself angry all the time for no reason? Only a lunatic would want to live like that.

And yet so many of us spend time just reading and watching things that infuriate us. Certainly, the top offender in this area is news

Politics, social commentary, even Church news. If it makes you mad, you don’t have to read it – because there’s almost never anything for you to do about it.

Social media is another one. When someone we know posts something we find offensive, it’s amazing how often we’ll go back to that person’s twitter feed or Facebook page “to see what they’re up to this time.” Don’t do it. Just act like a grown up and ignore it!

Even sports – it’s amazing – can be a source of major anger for a lot of men. The coaches, the refs, the players – they must be blind! How did they not see that! It’s outrageous! Yeah, you know what, you don’t need to watch it. You don’t need to be mad if your team loses and the rival team wins. You don’t need to worry if all the professionals involved aren’t as insightful as you are.

Life has enough problems – and actually, you have enough problems – without you going online or watching tv to get yourself needlessly worked up.

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Discouragement/Despair

Despair, or discouragement can be a good emotion if it helps you give up a badly misguided project but when it makes you just want to give up in general – when it starts to become a depression that makes you lose the motivation to keep trying to do what you know you should – then it’s deadly.

Now most teenagers like to listen to depressing music and read depressing books and watch depressing movies. It’s is a shame, since usually teenagers would be a lot happier if they’d just reflect on how good they are and how good life is and how generous God has been to them. But at the end of the day, it’s understandable that they consume all that depressing media. After all, teenagers are in a difficult place in their life. They want to believe that their feelings of angst and moodiness are profound (even though they’re actually pretty superficial feelings). And, most importantly, teenagers don’t have anybody depending on them. But if you’re a middle-class American adult Christian, you have absolutely no business indulging in media that makes you moody and sulky and gives you an existential crisis.

You have no right pretending life is dark or dismal when you worship the Lord of Light. You have no right pretending you’re lost, or that there’s no meaning in everything, when you have been blessed to find the Way, the Truth and the Life. And most of all, you have no right to destabilize your emotional state when there are other people depending on you.

You’re a grown up, not an adolescent. Don’t listen to music or watch movies or read books that make you forget that.

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Good media, good images – virtuous passions

There’s beautiful art out there – images of the glory of God’s world, of the goodness of the human person. Images of Jesus and Mary that make you thank God for the splendor He has made. There is music by men of genius – much of it offered in glory to God. There are books – novels, short stories, essays – by brilliant writers who remind you of the truth, and make you excited about what’s really good.

These are the kinds of media to consume. As St. Paul says, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things” (Phil 4:8).

Those are the kinds of things to see and read about and listen to. Those are the kinds of images you want. Those images create emotions that prompt decisions which make saintly men and women.