We live in a world which seems to take little interest in joy. Indeed it often seems we are expected to distrust joy. But it cannot be that individually we fear and distrust joy. So what is it? Simply put, joy is not newsworthy and therefore reports of what is happening in the world, including our own neighbourhood, reflect a universal media distrust of joy.
It serves the media’s purpose as a general rule to show a world convulsed by anger, endemic recriminations and bitter rivalries and to depict institutions – governments (and oppositions), the law, universities and schools, the arts, business, unions, churches, marriage and family life, sports associations, and indeed, any constituted authority you can think of – as corrupt, inclined to mischief, misguided and untruthful and oppressive with people as a result mistreated, doleful, fearful and resentful and not possessed of one single iota of joie de vivre or sense of humour. In the media every day a “dismal day doth dawn.”
This is not at all surprising. It is part of the well-known media syndrome which welcomes disaster and the worse the better. Newspapers and television programmes which kept on daily observing in dominant headlines that 99.99% of the population happily escaped death by bloody murder, tragic drowning or horrific accident would soon go out of business unless
