Nature Deficit Disorder — Is Your Child at Risk?

Author Richard Louv believes that America’s children are now suffering from a syndrome he identifies as “nature-deficit disorder.” In his 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods, Louv suggests that the current generation of American children knows the Discovery Channel better than their own backyards–and that this loss of contact with nature leads to impoverished lives and stunted imagination.

Louv begins by recounting an anecdote involving his son, Matthew. When the boy was about ten years of age, he asked his father: “Dad, how come it was more fun when you were a kid?” The boy was honestly reflecting on his knowledge of his father’s boyhood. Richard Louv, like most of us who came of age in his generation, spent most of our playing time outdoors, building forts in the woods, exploring every nook and cranny of our yards, and participating in activities that centered in child-organized outdoor fun. Louv reflects, “Americans around my age, baby boomers or older, enjoyed a kind of free, natural play that seems, in the era of kid pagers, instant messaging, and Nintendo, like a quaint artifact.”   Continue at Al Mohler

The Fun Cult (or the Cult of Fun)

Along with money, nature, sex, religion, youth, politics, and self, one common American idol is fun or entertainment.  Everything is advertised as being fun – from fun learning programs in schools, to fun office environments, to fun doctor’s offices, fun rules the day.  This is such a major idol in America that some people can even make a living playing games (or acting), and others will spend their living to watch others play games (or act a part).  Worse yet, we’ll hail those who make a living playing games as heroes and stars - despite the fact that many of them have no idea what the “real world” is like.  Entertainment is a huge American idol.  Q/A #1 of the American catechism is this: “The chief end of man is to glorify fun and enjoy it forever.” 

I like how Carl Trueman puts this in “Boring Ourselves to Life.”  He cites Pascal’s Pensees and notes that entertainment is distraction: “Distraction is the production of entertainment for the purpose of taking one’s mind off the deeper realities of life.”  Or, in other words, “how we fill our lives with rubbish instead of reflecting upon real truths.”  Of course, moderated entertainment is fine provided it is not sinful, but when it becomes the “means of keeping us from facing up to the truths of our creaturely existence,” it is profoundly bad for us. Keep Reading>>>

Ideas Have Consequences: A Partial Paraphrase and Review of Modern Fascism by Gene Edward Veith