Playing God, Becoming Nothing

This past week, I read three things that offered a glimpse of how empty the modern notion of what it means to be human really is. The first was an email I received from a student at an Ivy League school where I recently gave a lecture on the desecration that characterizes this present age. He recalled how, a couple of days after my lecture, he wandered into a bar populated by intelligent, bright young things—students, lawyers, those who represent the professional, intellectual classes. While there he noticed that the television screens on the wall were not offering the usual fare of professional sports but rather pornographic movies depicting sex acts. As shocking as that was to him, even more shocking was the casual way in which the business of the bar went on as usual and conversations continued apace.