To Restore the Proper Sense of Education in the Face of Contemporary Cultural Threats: The Example of the Media

Abstract

Nowadays, we are increasingly confronted with numerous attempts to eliminate an education that takes into account all dimensions of human life, that shows the way to personal maturity, that helps to overcome the existential imperfections of man. Consequently, in the socio-cultural reality surrounding us, traditional values such as goodness, truth and beauty are being neglected, and the dignity of the human person and their freedom is being disregarded. This situation is not facilitated by media organisations and their increasingly “progressive” offers aimed at children and youth. From an early age, young audiences are introduced to a world of aggression, evil, aesthetics of darkness and corruption, a world dominated by the cult of ease, pleasure and prosperity. Deprived of proper guideposts, role models and authorities in the sphere of education, they often uncritically accept what is offered to them. In the face of these contemporary cultural threats, today there is a particular need to restore the proper sense of education understood as perfecting the human being, actualising the fullness of their humanity, discovering what is important in them, a journey towards goodness, truth and beauty. Only a process of education understood in this way, aiming at the full development of the human being, has a chance of protecting them from a mutilated humanity.