While thumbing through some books on the shelf earlier this week my mind went to wheeling about postmodernism. One of the more interesting effects technology has had on postmodern generations, either of the Gen X or Gen Y populations, is the notion of relationships. Take television for instance. People have come to experience relationships not through their own lives but rather vicariously through the media. Marx made an interesting observation, though in a completely different aspect, that when seperated from the alienation from species being capitalism causes in materialistic cultures. Since we are well-along into the technologization of culture and the materialization of relationship, we are more in a position of retrospective consideration of Marx's insight. With television we relate to people through the medium of television. Most people these days are isolated from normal social interaction because of the requirements needed to survive in the materialistic world. To connect, or attempt to regain what is lost as a result of the alienation, people rely on media mechanisms in order to try and restore an innate sense of normalcy. Think about it. All across America, one of the most highly technological and materialistic societies, people have more emotional and mental interaction with the characters in television shows than the people in their own lives. It's as if the real life stories that occur, the struggle for survival and a sane exisistance are muted undercurrents of everyday life. This quiet subconscious battle between the real life people experience and the constant need to manage the stress of survival forms a quiet dynamic that marks one of today's major unspoken stresses. The anxiety strangles people and they hardly realize it because the coping mecahnism our generation formed requires most of their energy. The television dynamic of relationships connects with people in an unimagined way. Thousands, maybe even millions, of people get involved with the intimate relationships of imagined characters in a predictable fashion, daily, weekly...on some random basis. Yet,the real relationships with wives, husbands, children, family, coworkers and friends are strained, challenging dynamics with little gratification as culture promotes to signify the happiness we all seek. It's a weird dynamic and situation we live in, but we have to ask ourselves, are we supposed to try and live in this world where the power to connect is an artifice that affects the postmodern mind? The postmodern experience has been shaped by this particular issue in a way that we will not fully be able to fathom for probably at least another generation. Nonetheless, as Christians we try to mimic what the Apostles and first century Chruch goers lived. While doing that, how are we supposed to answer to the call to join in with imagined people media puts forth to mislead us? I guess kill the TV might not be such a bad slogan after all.