The past was supposed to be better than today. I’m a conservative, aren’t I?
Did you know that people in America used to memorize poems and read stuff longer than a blog post? Did you know there was a day when kids’ brains weren’t full of Hannah Montana—or Eminem, for that matter? I always assumed these factors would create a higher level of discourse in the nation. But, if anything, political ads in 1952 were worse than today. Click that link for a fascinating site.
Faithlife just posted a blog interview they did with me about Authorized. Is there more to be said? Maybe a little! I got my first academic review of Authorized, and though I’m waiting to see if my response will be published in the same journal (the editor was...
The new ESV Preaching Bible is another win for Crossway. They gave me a copy to review (no strings attached, of course—well, actually, there were two ribbons in the Bible for bookmarking, but they weren’t attached to any stipulations from Crossway, just to the supple...
The new Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia has an article in it from yours truly, namely “Love.” A few friends have credits, too, including (but not limited to) Joe Tyrpak on David Brainerd (he wrote his DMin dissertation on Brainerd); Ryan Martin; and Nathan Lentfer. I...
I wrote the following introduction to the New Testament for Bibles International; it is being translated and placed into Bibles all around the world. The Bible tells one story, because God has one plan for all of history (Isa. 46:9–10; Gal. 4:4–6). The 27 books of the...
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Interesting post. However, I must disagree on your proposition here (I confess I didn’t watch *all* of the commercials).
What has improved is the level of technological/marketing expertise, neither of which comes from the general intelligence level of society.
What is missing now is what was present in those Eisenhower commercials – a personal appeal to vote for me and bandwagon to me, instead of a bashing campaign against the other side. On this point, I argue that you really were correct before – society has gotten worse in that we don’t make attempts to promote ourselves, but rather to insult the other guy (easier, and more mindless).
Anyway, that’s just my thoughts on the issue – and campaigning in general. To all politicians: tell me why you’re better, not why the other guy stinks.
-Eric
Good points, Eric.