One of my pet peeves is when hotels offer shampoo and body wash in different bottles, but they’re actually the same liquids! It’s not so much that they are cutting corners; it’s that they undermine our intelligence.
Watching news from media outlets in the US is similarly demeaning. In fact, deliberately so. I’ve always wondered why CNN international is superior and more informative to the inferior and more sensational CNN national. But even beyond this, when you remove the entertainment on CNN national and the conspiracy on Fox News—as the black and white options; there are numerous grays in between—the message is pretty much one and the same. It’s shampoo and soap, diluted and user-friendly. Undemanding and unchallenging enough for us all to grasp in the morning or evening—as Russians slaughter Ukrainians with the blessing of their church and Israel bombs Hamas using civilians as collateral—while the bread is in the toaster or the meal in the microwave.
On December 12, the Huffington Ecumenical Institute cosponsored a panel discussion with the Massachusetts Council of Churches in order to demonstrate that the nuances of the conflict in Israel and Palestine are more than just black and white. First, the tragedy in the region is not a binary dispute between Jews and Muslims. A third, neglected, and forgotten dimension is found among the diversity of Christians, who are nonetheless a tiny and nervous minority. Second, the hostility in the region has a face, countless faces. We see them on television and on the internet—every day, at breakfast and dinner. And third, the only way we can discern, separate, and interpret the facts is we look beyond (better still, outside) CNN and Fox. That’s news “for dummies.” We deserve better, and we should expect more—both for those caught up in the battle zone, but also for ourselves.
May the new year bring greater hope and healing to our world!