Author: Jonathan Dodson

When you pick a restrauant to dine at, do you primarily choose it based on quality of food or favorable atmosphere? If push comes to shove, will you select a place to eat that is more liking to your palate or to your preferred ambiance?

Many have observed that Western culture and economics is not what it used to be. Forty percent of the workforce in 1900-1950 was comprised of the Working Class, a class only registering at about 25%. What happened? The Creative Class, a class that has catapulted Western economies past a scarcity-based economy, one whose primary aim was to provide food, shelter, and clothing, to post-materialist, experience-driven economy. Commenting on the pitfalls of the post-scarcity, experience-driven culture of the Creative Class, Richard Florida comments:

If we crave experiences we will be sold experiences, and in the process we may find ourselves buying a bill of goods. The final pitfall is that even in the attempt to avoid packaged-and-sold experiences, we may pack our lives so full that we overdo it. While we scorn the couch potatoes hooked on TV, the desire for constant stimulation and experiences can itself come close to looking like addiction.

What is your experience of experience? Are there dangers here?

An earlier post explored some of these ideas, which have now been significantly expanded and edited to produce a new article. Acts 29 has just epublished “How Missional is Your Church?: Keeping the Global in Missional” Hopefully, a missiology journal will also pick up this article for publication, as it is currently being reviewed by journal editors.

May God grant us passion and intention to keep the global in missional.

Last night we had a hearty meal of bacon wrapped chicken, green peas, and Newcastle, accompanied by a tasty cranberry almond salad. It was hearty because of the fellowship. My two brothers and their wives joined our table for a delectable time of story-swapping, after returning from their recent travels in Scotland and Turkey.

Ben passionately recounted the true history of William Wallace, while Luke and Miranda kept us in stitches from some of their stories about their not-so-proficient-in-English, Turkish travel guide . Before transitioning from the dinner table to the comfort of the living room, we listened to the short story of “Harrison Bergeron” (1961) by Kurt Vonnegut.

Harrison Bergeron is the imprisoned son of George Bergeron, an exceptionally smart and capable man who is weighed down by state-issued handicaps–a 47 lb bag of birdshot around his neck and a radio transmitter ear piece that broadcasts mentally disruptive sounds every 20 seconds. It is an age of equality, due to the 211, 212, 213 amendments to the constitution. Everyone is forced to be of average intelligence, appearance, and capability.

While watching T.V. Harrison and his wife witness the prison escape of their son, whose handicapps are much greater than George’s. Like ripping through wet toilet paper, Harrison tears off the strips of steel attached to his shoulders to weigh him down. He breaks free of his mind and vision handicapping devices on live television and dubs himself Emperor of the world.

Then, he takes a ballerina for an empress and begins to dance to orchestral music. They soar in mid-air, upwards of 30 feet, just shy of the studio ceiling, where they eventually suspend in mid-air in a long-lasting kiss of love. This moment of serenity, inequality and peace is then radically disrupted by the shot of a double-barrel gun. The handicapper general killed them in mid-air and restored equality.

With tears in their eyes, George and his wife watch the T.V. burn out. They have forgotten what happened due to their mental handicaps. “What was it?” George asks his wife. “It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel. “Forget sad things,” said George. “I always do,” said Hazel.

What do you think of this vision of equality? How does enforced equality square with the “equality of the new heavens and earth?” These are some of the questions we discussed around the dinner table. What are your thoughts?

Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) has been named one of the best American novelists of the 20th century. Vonnegut’s writing style is distinct blending satire, black comedy, science fiction.

HT: BA