In the same way that all of us consume and appropriate nutrients from our food, so we all also consume the cultural and social world around us. We cannot help but hear and see and feel the time and tide of culture. Social or cultural osmosis occurs today at astonishing speed and with hideous power.
The zeitgeist means the spirit of the age; it is the mood of an entire era. Think of the Roaring 20s when the Federal Reserve first discovered it could just print money and artificially raise the stock market. Poverty was supposed to have been eradicated. The cultural mood in America was unlimited prosperity, low moral standards, celebration, and heady optimism. After all, the U.S. had just won the war to end all wars, World War I. Moral codes fell dramatically, and hemlines rose accordingly. Booze flowed like ink from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s pen.
There was much pressure on young Americans to adopt the common outlook. The power of culture, though, took a megawatt boost on November 2, 1920. It was the very first broadcast of a commercial radio station, KDKA out of Pittsburgh, which chose that day because it was election day. For the first time people would hear the election results before reading it in the newspapers. (The winner was Warren G. Harding, by the way.) Never before could one person speak to more people at once than someone could meet in person in a lifetime.
A scramble to control the airwaves ensued. Politicians, corporations, and religious leaders all wanted to gain the upper hand over the airwaves so that they could be the one speaking directly to America. The radio became the undisputed king of culture.
Americans began to assume a system of the world, or a way that the world is, without thinking. The advertisements presented a way of life that was accepted uncritically. Society was changing dramatically and it was fueled by the cultural pressure. Many good things occurred, such as women receiving the vote. Cars were being mass produced and 26 million of them were sold in the 1920s. Passenger aviation began to be a viable enterprise, and there were many more technological advancements that transformed everyday life so that many aspects of life would be unrecognizable to someone born only a hundred years before.
All these technologies made the nation seem smaller, but it also made the human person smaller. No one had a voice if he or she didn’t also have a microphone. Eventually the elite got control of the microphones, the government controlled what could be said over the radio, and the common American voice grew almost inaudible under the din of the ten-thousand-megawatt voice bought and paid for by elites.
Then suddenly the world was turned upside down in the 3rd and 4th quarter of October 1929 during a series of corrections, slides, and then eventually crashes to the stock market. Seemingly overnight the zeitgeist moved from optimism, permissiveness, and celebration to humility, repentance, and despair. Everyone was influenced by this new spirit of the age, but the radio remained king. With the proliferation of technology, cultural experiences became far more standardized with everyone feeling the common cultural mood. People could be molded by influencers like never before, and it all happened so naturally.
Fast-forward this narrative and you will see television, color television, an explosion of programming and commercials, cable television, satellite TV, and finally the internet all adding irresistible power to the standardizing influence of culture upon the average American.
A pattern of public manipulation has emerged through the controlling influence of media, and the internet is not immune. As every new technology arrives, everyone scrambles to master it. Eventually a few companies control access, profiting off of the ads and access. Then the government controls appear, controlling content and maintaining monopolistic powers for a chosen few. This has not yet occurred completely in the case of the internet, but it is plainly beginning to occur. Already corporations like Google and Facebook control access, monitor usage, sell the data, and censor content that they do not like. Meanwhile the government has proposed legislation time after time to tax the internet, control speed and bandwidth, stifle competition, regulate content, spy on everyone, etc. If the historical pattern endures, these elite interests will eventually win control. I can only guess that humans will immediately begin working on yet another technology free of these controls, perhaps blockchain?
What does all this have to do with Christianity? Christians, like everyone else, are swimming in the zeitgeist. It influences us whether we realize it or not. Being aware of that fact helps us to take precautions against it and, with hope, avoid some of the worst outcomes.
One of the most important steps in our journey to Christ is to become aware of our own worldview. That is, we actually take off the interpretive lenses through which we view the world and examine them. Are we getting an accurate picture of the world as it really is? Does our worldview transform the blurry, unfocused, and confusing elements of the world into a clear picture? Can it explain both the past and present, and does it provide predictive models with more accuracy than competing worldviews?
Christianity does that for us when it is sufficiently understood. It is the best explanation for the world as it is. It has better answers for the origin of the universe, the existence of life rather than mere matter, the existence of consciousness, the existence of qualia, the fine-tuning of the universe, etc. Science almost always supports a Christian worldview rather than a materialistic one.
Worldview development is vital to passing on genuine Christian values, therefore the Christian has to develop resistance to the zeitgeist in order to be faithful to Christ. I would invite readers to check out the many books written on Christian worldview. An easily accessible online resource is the work of Summit Ministry; there is a fun and free worldview pop quiz here. Feel free to share your results in the comment section of this page. How Christian are you?
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