Too Much Reality

Humankind cannot stand too much reality.” -T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

I have not been asked to give a speech at Rutgers University. I suspect I never will be either. Not too surprising.

What might be considered surprising, however, is the person who recently was asked.

There is so much that disturbs me about Rutgers University’s decision to pay Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of “Jersey Shore” reality television fame $32,000 to speak to the student body about her “GTL lifestyle” (that would be Gym-Tanning-Laundry for the uninitiated). I begin with the judgement that she was someone worth bringing on campus at all (the major takeaway from her talk: “Study hard, but party harder”); and that she was paid with money from a mandatory student activity fee; and that her appearance fee was more than the fee paid to Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison for giving the commencement address at the very same school one month later. I could go on.

My first instinct was to go on the offensive; attack the messenger. “Snooki” is so easy for sensible people to dislike, to blame, to vilify for her part in this cultural drift toward banality and worse. But after a good old fashioned, self-righteous rant, I realized that I was doing some classic scapegoating. This character is a creation, not a creator. She is a symptom of the illness, not the illness. Even before her fifteen minutes of fame end, there will be (and already is) another loud, crude, exhibitionistic “Snooki”, or Brody, or Sheen, or take-your-pick Kardashian, or Paris ready to squat in the role of “reality star” for the next fifteen minutes.

My second instinct was defensive; dismiss the message because of the messenger. “Snooki” is a bad joke, and the Rutgers decision to invite her is just an aberration. I’d never ask Snooki to speak, pay her to speak, or listen to her speak. This isn’t my reality. And the vast majority of the world is with me on this one, no doubt. “Distracted from distraction by distraction…filled with fancies and empty of meaning.” All the noise, and toys, and hysteria, and fighting, and booze, and vomit, and sex, and plastic surgery…

But if this is true, then why am I so worked up? Why, if this person and this decision are so pathetic and irregular, am I so angry about it? This isn’t about me, right? Not my reality? Not connecting with my story at all?

Here’s a crazy thought. What if reality television was not primarily inexpensive programming material intended to numb America into a moral stupor, but rather a sophisticated series of commentaries hidden in the guise of trash, meant to graphically expose humankind’s frailty…both poignant and horrible at the same time?

Maybe I shouldn’t pretend to be so surprised about Snooki, and Rutgers?

The recently beatified Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once asked why she did what she did. Her answer: “Because I have a Hitler inside me.” She is a saint. I can’t get there yet (mostly because I don’t consistently want to get there yet). But what I can admit to today is that I have a “Snooki” inside me.

Like “Snooki”, and the folks at Rutgers and elsewhere who find her fascinating, I have a fallen nature; a fundamental fault line which reminds me in little and big ways as life rocks and rolls that often my reality does not conform with Reality. Like “reality television”, my life is still too filled with staged encounters, and drama, and sensationalism, and youtube-worthy moments of puff and emptiness.

Too much Reality for my reality.

To use Eliot’s words once more, I too seek to be “distracted from distraction by distraction”, in order to not rest too long at the “still point of the turning world.” And all the while the God Who Uses Everything whispers that I am very much like those people…the Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Kardashian, The Hills, Celebrity Rehab people. I would still too often prefer to talk about myself, to observe others (taking particular interest in their mistakes), to bask in the illusion of control, to pretend to have all the answers, and to subtly feel superior in an acceptably “Christian” way.

And maybe you can relate? Just a little? So now what?

I’d like to turn to the solution, to quickly switch the focus to what we can all do to put the reality television dimension of our own lives in the rear view mirror. I’d really like to do this. Because humankind cannot stand too much reality.