How we honor what we value

Each and every culture has had its own way of expressing value with regards to concepts, ideas, literature, art etc. One of the ways we can measure what we value is how we spend our time, and what we are doing with it. So, this got me thinking. How do many people in our day and age spend their time? I quickly came to the conclusion that in an unprecedented manner our culture days spends a lot of time entertaining ourselves with media. Most people, it seems, commonly rent movies, go to theaters, and spend time online. Today, media is a clear expression of what we value, and how we honor what we value.

For example, in ages past works of literature were held in high regard if they were widely read, and published, studied, and discussed. The reality is today, for better or worse, people in our culture seem to be reading less, and would more readily go to a movie. Interesting. Perhaps it is possible that this expresses what we value, and those who we honor. I say this because many of the movies that we watch were inspired or written by people who are long since gone, but their influence remains because someone thought their work valuable enough to recapture with media. Some prevalent examples of this are The Lord of the Rings trilogy, written by J.R.R Tolkien in the first half on the 20th century. Another might be The Chronicles of Narnia, written by the late C.S. Lewis. (Sidenote: C.S. Lewis' death was overshadowed by the assassination of JFK). These works are obviously valued in our culture as millions of moviegoers pour into the theater to view them. There are many other such examples, some of which have been valued and recreated throughout history, such as Troy, based upon the Illiad by the ancient poet Homer.

My point is this, are we simply entertained and that is it? Or is this a way in which our culture expresses something that it values? Are we honoring those that we value?