There's a poster that says, " Live by Choice, Not by Default". That is the kind of poster that should be charged with Spiritual Assault. Maybe it will be on Judgement Day. I can't wait to see the exquisitely shorn, bottom-wisp coiffed woman named Jewel Iksen-Radcliffe standing on the dock that Day, answering for those words (and then I'll be right after her for judging her- but wait a minute, she doesn't exist. ha.)
Now, let's dissect that phrase. "Live by Choice" first: what does that mean? Is this a subtle sexually liberated, pro-abortion phrase? For as we all know, a woman just can't be free unless she has the right to kill someone. Wait. Oh, yeah, the truth is exactly the opposite. A woman can't be free unless she has the right or the ability do do what is right; that certainly doesn't include killing someone. So perhaps that isn't what they mean. I suppose we'll have to look at the context then, in which we find the words. I have to admit, I suppose, that I was in an outlet akin to a fat farm. It is called "Curves" (Why don't they call it "Sleek" or something like that? I thought I was trying to get rid of those five or six extra curves). Well, anyway, I was at "Curves", finishing my workout, and there was the poster. So the context is that we are all, most of us, out of control, eg. Food Chooses Us. So, we're all a bunch of poor oppressed women, oppressed mainly by the weight: literally oppressed to the point of not being able to breathe well when sitting in the car sucking that sixth soda.
Maybe, just maybe, there is a good intention there in that phrase: Take Control, Baby. Choose your food to the proper end. Well, they should have said that. "Live by Choosing Your Food to Live". No, that doesn't work well. This phrase on the poster seems to suffer from the same problem that many advertisements do: they make a universal, philisophical statement about something that doesn't warrant it: "Have It Your Way" or "Do What Tastes Right" or something like that. It is depressing, really: when noble values are used to sell burgers, it somehow demeans the noble value. Not in its objective value, doing what is right will still be noble, but it will lose its attraction and nobility in a subjective sense, to the teeming masses, of which I am one.
So, "Live by Choice", if it is about dieting, seems to devalue the grand romance of free will. But perhaps the statement in it's entirety, IS at a higher level than fat farm or burgers- which may make it all the more subtle and possibly dangerous.
The statement, "Live by Choice and Not by Default" reminds me of a return to the sixties slogans, but for the common man, not the blowin' in the wind' hippie. It carries the same value that the hippie ended up with. It is truly a statement about self-actualization, of stripping all the values put into one by the traditions and culture, the media and the consumer-driven interests, and THINKING about what you want.
Sounds good.
Not.
The hippies in the sixties had, I think, a brief golden moment where they were on to something, but then it went south. Way south. To hell. In the golden moment of partial clarity, they were realizing that their values were being driven, in the larger culture, by the interests of big business and advertisers, and those in power who wished to control them by arousing and satiating their desires for goods and self-images. They started fighting back, eschewing materialism and wishing to build a 'love-culture'. If they had turned to Love Incarnate, ah, there would have been a golden moment shining out for generations- the Kingdom of God ever-nearer.
Instead, they went the direction of self-actualization, of stripping the self of all indoctrinated values, good or bad, to a point where there was nothing left. And then, instead of recognizing the hole in us where God belongs, the Source of all real value and identity, they started creating themselves. They began to Live by Choice and Not by Default. This was, though, a Satanic chimera: individualism, self-image, self-esteem: the true and freeing realities are ever out of their grasp. They succeeded in making dolls of themselves, ever more able to be manipulated by the culture at large and big business.
Part Two will, well, finish it.
