John Hayward Posted: 3 December 2009
Keywords: Worldviews & Culture,
Jeep's new advertising campaign has the tagline "i live. i ride. i am." Assuming the final assertion alludes to the Cartesian claims of Ren̩ Descartes, rather than the divine claims of Jesus, this offers yet another interesting insight into how the world of advertising is exploiting iWorld imagery Рa world in which the immediate desires of the individual have been deemed paramount. This barrage of me-centred 'My life, my card' adverts begs the question, as posed by pastor and politics professor Dale Kuehne in his ground-breaking book Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking relationship beyond an age of individualism, 'What kind of world are we creating?'
One new indicator comes from a poll conducted in Canada which asked people to indicate whether they personally believe a range of issues are morally acceptable or morally wrong (regardless of whether or not they thought each of the issues should be legal). Overall, the pollsters concluded that those from higher-income households tend to be more accepting of things than those from lower-income households – which would correlate with suggestions that ethical lifestyle choices bearing a personal financial cost are luxuries that can only be afforded by the well-off.
Perhaps of greater interest, however, is to see which kinds of issues most concern people. One observation that stands out is that iWorlders seem more likely to moralise about the treatment of animals than about the lives of their fellow humans. Thus although 41 percent disapproved of medical testing on animals, only 17 percent disapproved of medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos. And while 31 percent were opposed to buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur, only 22 percent were against abortion or doctor-assisted suicide. That said, more were opposed to the cloning of humans than to the cloning of animals ... but perhaps that was skewed by those who would be inclined to clone their pets if they had the chance.
| Issue | Approved | Disapproved |
| Contraception | 93% | 3% |
| Sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman | 87% | 10% |
| Divorce | 84% | 8% |
| Having a baby outside of marriage | 79% | 16% |
| Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos | 69% | 17% |
| Abortion | 66% | 22% |
| Sexual relations between two people of the same sex | 66% | 26% |
| Doctor-assisted suicide | 65% | 22% |
| Gambling | 62% | 27% |
| Buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur | 53% | 31% |
| Death penalty | 53% | 34% |
| Medical testing on animals | 44% | 41% |
| Prostitution | 42% | 45% |
| Pornography | 41% | 48% |
| Suicide | 28% | 53% |
| Cloning animals | 27% | 55% |
| Using illegal drugs | 25% | 62% |
| Married men and/or women having an affair | 15% | 75% |
| Polygamy | 12% | 81% |
| Cloning humans | 11% | 78% |
| Paedophilia | 1% | 91% |
The alternative rWorld presented by Dale Kuehne suggests that because God created people for relationships, then we find our deepest fulfillment in relationship with Him and in living a life rich in self-giving, rather than self-satisfying relationships. If we consciously chose to live in a way so as to create such a world, perhaps we would learn to value the lives of other people just a little more...
It's deeply ironic that the car should have become such a symbol of individual and self-centred success, when one considers its place in the history of mass production and mass consumption, its dependence on complex supply chains, and the myriad specialist skills and infrastructure required to get it (and keep it) on the road. I'm reminded of Mr Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow: "He himself was a fragment, Mr Sammler understood. And lucky to be that. Totality was as much beyond his powers as to make a Rolls Royce, part by part, with his own hands."
Dal 3 December 2009
Houses are not cheap and not everyone is able to buy it. But, mortgage loans was created to aid people in such kind of hard situations.
BUTLER21Carole 10 September 2011