The Biggest Sin of Pop Culture?

Ever get songs "stuck in your head"? Of course you do. . .we all do I suppose, unless something is broken in our heads. It can be very annoying when the song is trivial, like "Mama, don't let your boys grow up to be cowboys. . ." On the other hand, it is comforting when it is something profound like, "Christ has risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." I first noticed the difference when I came into the Orthodox Church and started memorizing a few of the troparians (short hymns) that we typically sing in our parish. I would find them coming up "on their own" during various times of the day, just like old pop songs would. For perhaps the first time, I was grateful for the "broken record" because it served to not only instruct me, but it transported me emotionally back to the warmth of an Orthodox service.

As I thought through all this, I became convinced there was a large and growing element of oral tradition in our culture in the form of pop music and pop culture (i.e. movies, late-night-TV, commercial jingles and/or images, etc.) in general. I lamented that my poor head was so full of the songs and jingles of my early-to-late teenage years that sometimes I felt I couldn't fit anything else in. Of course, I was wrong. . .there is still room. However, being filled with trivia, propaganda, and unsettling images does have its effects. "Something" is being passed down and that "something" has "formed" me substantially, little by little, over the years. Many times, my "responses" in conversations are quotes from songs, movies or comedic skits. (Who hasn't quoted a Monty Python line to "make your point" in a conversation?)

So, I was a little bemused this morning when on the way to work I heard an anthropologist being interviewed on NPR saying:

Human behavior is much more complex, but even something as purely beautiful as music may have helped people survive, says Penn State University anthropologist Pat Shipman. She says early human groups may have used rhyme and music to pass on important information. Mbuti Pygmies living in Congo still use music for such purposes.

"It's been shown quite convincingly that rhymes, repeated rhythm, sometimes repeated melodies do help embed information in your brain," Shipman says.

Perhaps this is the greatest sin (and inherent danger) of pop culture. It has managed to replace Holy Tradition, that wonderful and grace-filled mechanism to remember and pass on Divine revelation from one generation to the next, with trivia, devilish propaganda, and just plain misleading information about God and ourselves.