MASS THINKING

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 10 (Supplement)

MASS THINKING

I SUPPOSE you put your washing out?" said Mrs. A. to Mrs. B. over the garden wall.

"My word, I do," was the prompt reply from Mrs. B. "By the time I've got Jim off to work and then Mary off an hour later, why, it's time to star! preparing the dinner for the youngsters. What time have I got for washing— I ask you? Besides, even if I had the time., this bagwash'll do me."

Which brings us to the thought that washing is not the only thing we "put out" these days. We "put out" our thinking, too. We really have not the time to think, despite the shorter working week. By thinking we mean the ability to come to a personal conclusion upon any matter of real importance, unaided and unhindered by the influence of mass thought.

Our daily work is done with the skill that comes through constant practice and requires less and less in the way of real mental effort. At the hand loom and the last our forefathers were able to, and had to. think. In this machine age a great deal of that need and opportunity for thinking has gone.

Then in our sport we take our places in the team and with much the same skill born of practice we throw ourselves about in the open air for a few hours every week. Of all forms of sport, we should think, golf is the most conducive to thinking, especially if you keep out of the foursomes and just go round alone with the ball.

Then after recreation comes the necessary entertainment. With barely enough time to eat a decent meal we rush into the bathroom and prepare for

the pictures. There again there is little time for thinking, because all the thinking is done for us. On the silver screen we see and hear human emotions given free play and lose ourselves for awhile in the lives of those more or less, fortunate than ourselves.

Take a handful out of life, friend poet. Though all men live it, lew there be that know it.

These words, from Goethe's "Faust," supply the motif for all work* of fiction on or off the screen. The plot, which somebody else has thought out for us. is unfolded before our eyes. A mirror has been held up to life. When the "show" comes out it is home to supper and to bed, or "We'll never be up in the morning."

Lest there should be any moment left during which we might really do some thinking we have the wireless to switch on. In fact many of us rarely switch it off. It is going in a faint undertone all day long. Of course, when a wrestling match or a Parliamentary debate is being broadcast then we all have a listen together, and seriously strafe the first person who cough* or rattles a spoon. These debates in the House can be either thought or anger provoking.

Nor have we mentioned the daily papers. We must keep abreast of the times and read what other men are thinking. Besides which, we must find out who has been "hatched, matched or dispatched," and how the war is going in China.

Thi* brings ns to the consideration of Sunday worship. Here again we can sit in the pew and have our thinking done for us in the pulpit. In a state of semiwakefulness, with the lights turned low, we can catch an odd phrase or two, and then go home and not even know what the text was.

In the totalitarian state (which is becoming so fashionable) an eagle, a swastika or a hammer and sickle is stuck on to a banner —some martial mimic and a fiery speech added, and the deed is done. Thousands of black, brown or blue-shirted youths and maidens will parade like robot* and cheer at the precise moment desired.

Nor i* this picture over-painted. This is the modern trend. Mass production, mas* thinking, mass action. The independent thinker is rapidly becoming a novelty. In the few democracies that are left in the wcild, something must be done to stop this evil drift. What are we doii'g about it in New Zealand? Let us hopo ihat the Government control of broadcasting will not lead to a form of intellectual tyranny, which, under the control of a strict censorship, will decide just what the people are to hear and what they are not to hear. This ability to set the whole nation thinking the same thing at the same time can be a very unhealthy business.

"Ears have they and hear not,** said Jesus. This was never more true than it is to-day. We live in a listening age

No. 2 of a series of helpful talks specially written for Week-end Pictorial

and we suppose that it is just as necessary to have "listening-itie" as it i* to have mea«les or whooping cough. Let us hope, however, that the complaint will not leave us permanently iacapable of thinking for ourselves, or of forging one independent thought upon %jie anvil* of our minds.

Nature has a wonderful way of snipplying antidote* for almost every noxious thing that she permits to thrive. Dock leaves always grow near stinging nettle*. What is the antidote for tbis mass-thinking malady—this malady of having ear* and yet of seldom hearing anything in the nature of an independent thought, planted in our hearts by God, in a moment of serious meditation?

What mental stimulants can we take to prevent our minds becoming like so many mechanical receiving sets?

There are many. Here are a few of then". Be alone sometimes. Save Tour petrol and go for a walk instead. Get the noise of the throttle out of your ears and see whether you can hear the birds in the tree* or the genths rippling of the waves on the shore. If you ean-

not go alone, go with your sweetheart or your friend, or, better still, go with your husband or your wife, and try to capture some of the quieter tones in the silence. Lovers never press their suits in the midst of the busy throng. A rustic seat, a moon and a few trees provide the ideal setting for the transaction of such important business.

God, who is the Great Lover, can the better press His claims upon our hearts when we are apart from the madding crowd. It was not in the earthquake, nor yet in the storm, that Elijah heard

ByRev. C. W. Chandler

that "still small voice," but in the solitude apart. Go ye apart. That is the first antidote.

Now, please do not think that I have an ecclesiastical bias when I say that the good old-fashioned habit of going to church, especially in the morning, is the finest antidote of all. There you will hear how God spoke to His prophets of old; the kind of men they were, and the kind of lives they led. It is there that you appreciate what is meant by being alone with your friends and fellow worshippers. Every prayer that is uttered can be applied to your own needs, and every hymn that is sung will be capau:e of some application to your own spiritual problems.

Above aIL do not just go for the sermon. The sermon is not the most important feature in public worship. There is far too much placarding dor.« in this direction these days. There is a real danger of the popular preacher becoming a popular entertainer, and affecting all the dramatic technique of the actor.

And here Just a word to my fellow clergy. How about us doing a little less preaching? What about soma silence in our worship? During such moments God might well speak to Bg. Let us all become a little "Quakerish," by organising a few silences in our services.

A parting shot. If we do put a great deal of our thinking out, let us go in for a bit of home laundering. Let us put a little stiffening into the little thinking that we do. A well-ironed laundered thought—a thought ont of which all the creases have bean smoothed—a thoujrht oTer which we have pondered, which we have turned over and over, and damped down and starched, and ironed, and folded, has, in the process, become a conviction.

Hands up all those who have any convictions! We are not referring to police records, hut rather to the red-hot convictions upon which you would stake your life. Can you, in the terms of the late Studdart Kennedy, "Bet your life on God"! Do you know what you believe? Are you persuaded, like St. Paul, that He is able to keep that which you have committed unto Him against that day?

Have you any convictions in ths defence of which you would be prepared to face some form of persecution? If you have not, then start thinking riaht away, before yon lose both the capacity and the desire for serious thought