I’m not a fan of political conventions. They tend to be what media critic Daniel Boorstin called ‘pseudo-events.’ They are staged and scripted, produced and performed in order to garner media coverage. Here’s an example of the difference between a ‘pseudo-event’ and a real event. If my neighbor’s garage burns down because of errant bottle rockets, that’s an event. The news trucks show up because something real happened. But if my neighbor burns down her garage to get the news trucks to come, that’s a pseudo-event—a reality created just to grab some TV time.
Twice in the last month, the arsonists have struck. First the Democrats burned down their garage, with the news media dutifully covering the conflagration. And then the Republicans were all set to burn down their garage—with what they hoped was a bigger, better and certainly redder fire. But this second pseudo-event ran smack into hurricane Gustav. Hot air turned out to be far less interesting than dangerous air.
Of course by now everyone realizes that, as events go, Gustav was a bit of a letdown. Gustav failed to live up to the speculation about its devastating potential. (At least it failed to devastate New Orleans or other major US population centers. There’s no clearer sign of our national egocentricity than the fact that the devastating impact of Gustav on impoverished neighbors like Cuba has gone largely unnoticed.) In fact, Daniel Boorstin might point out that because Gustav got more news coverage as something that might happen than it did as an actual happening, it was more of a pseudo-event than a real one.
Why does any of this matter for Christians? First, because pseudo-events tempt us to lose sight of Jesus. The clamor and glitz of the pseudo-event disorient us from the still small voice of God (1 Kings 19:12) and from the Savior who “had no form or majesty that we should look at him” (Isaiah 53:2). So our sense of what is real and what really matters is shaped more by the news of today’s pseudo-events than by the good news about Jesus. Second, because pseudo-events lure us away from daily discipleship. They are so big and splashy that our everyday life begins to seem small and boring by comparison. Yet it is precisely here in the humdrum that Christ calls us to follow him. Finally, because pseudo-events distract and disengage us from serving our neighbors. They do this partly by taking our time; I can’t watch the political convention and mow my neighbor’s lawn at the same time. But they do it more by stultifying our imaginations. When is the last time you saw a pseudo-event that propelled you to active, loving service of your needy neighbor? Not the Oscars or the Golden Globes, not the Super Bowl half time show, nor a nominating convention either.
Which is why it is so interesting that the Republicans have curtailed their convention in favor of showing concern for and giving attention to the potential victims of Gustav. (And to be fair, the Democrats have worked just as hard to parade their concern for Cajuns in front of the camera.) Perhaps this is one of those rare moments when the collision of human need and neighborly concern bring out our best, transforming even a pseudo-event like a nominating convention into a call to something that looks quite a bit like loving service. If so, I’m glad. But I’m not going to pin my hope for substantive change on that kind of politics, because it remains far too uncommon, and far too unreflective. And more than that, I’m not going to pin my hopes there because my hope—all of it—has already been claimed by and for Christ.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t engage in local politics nor wish that the American political process were less addicted to the pseudo-event and more committed to substantive change. In the aftermath of Gustav, what I’d really like to see, what we could really use, is a thick public policy discussion about the viability of building (and rebuilding) an entire city below sea level. Surely it’s time for somebody to point out just how crazy it is to try to fence out the sea. That’s what we need, but that’s almost certainly not what we’ll get. Why? Because we don’t find substantive discussion of complex issues nearly as interesting as pseudo-events, and because Hurricane Hanna is already heading toward the Atlantic coast.
Brent Laytham
Professor of Theology and Ethics
North Park Theological Seminary
npts | 
09 26th, 2008| 
