Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00933)

Hi Mic,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you. 

If you think about it it
> is like seven degrees of seperation: if enough of us
> can influence just one person, and that person can in
> turn influence another, then eventually the entire
> world will be influenced. 

So true. It makes one pause, does it not, to think about just what 
kind of influence we are spreading? After all, it isn't so much what 
we say but what we actually do that sends the message to others. I 
can say I believe in altruism, but if I behave in a selfish manner, 
nobody is going to be fooled. And it is interesting to consider the 
nature of the inluence itself. Life has taught me that telling 
someone to do something, even for his or her own good, is seldom 
effictive. Everyone has to learn for themselves what works and what 
doesn't in life. Everyone has to go through the experience in order 
to gain the wisdom.
>
Now let's go back to our media mediums. Would you
> agree that the modern media is supporting the
> intrenched capitalist system? By this I mean that the
> media, by and large, is generally in support of a
> capitalist system that at the end of the day promotes
> selfishness over altruism. Now if this media is
> influencing enough people the system is
> self-supportive and has a feedback whereby people
> believe that a capitalist system is the best, and
> only, economic system solely because it is purported
> to be so. Now would you agree that if the media were
> more altruistically tuned and encouraged us to help
> those in need there would be more altruism in the
> world? If so, then one way we could align people's
> behaviours with those advocated by theosophy and other
> religions would be to penetrate the media.

I won't quarrel with you about the bias of the prevalent media 
machine. But I think the theosophist can rise above the limitations 
inherent in our system. If we believe in reincarnation and karma, we 
can accept that whatever system we live under is the system we 
deserve to live under. We made it and it is up to us to change it. We 
might move out into the public sector and attempt to work there, and 
we may do a lot of good. But isn't it also true that we can only be 
effective in so far as we have established the qualities we wish to 
promulgate in ourselves first? That's a tall order, but it seems we 
could say something like, "Revolution begins at home."

Adelasie
>