Selective Influence

Some thoughts and a poem, of sorts

Thin women on billboards—
Dangerous, they say.
She'll stop eating.
She'll never feel she’s enough.

Violent video games?
Careful.
Your son might join a gang
of joystick-trained assassins.

But rainbow flags and latex queens
reading to toddlers in public halls?
That’s just inclusion,
nothing more.

Junk food ads
making our children sick—
we ban the toys,
blame the sauce.
But shout abortion
from every screen—
that’s just healthcare.
No harm done.

If you're obeying their religion,
then mimetic is copacetic.
But follow God's design?
“Train up a child in the way he should go”?
Now you're pushing your beliefs on others.

Selective Influence

Many years ago, popular cultural discourse over fashion models filled pages of print, editorials and advice columns. The widespread display of impossibly thin women on the covers of magazines and in advertising prompted a moral panic. Experts and commentators warned that teenagers would be harmed by such unrealistic portrayals of beauty. Imitation would lead to eating disorders and in the case of “heroin chic”, perhaps drug use. Fast forward to today and we find ourselves being told to join the annual celebration of “pride”. But here is my thought: If waif models were thought to lead to eating disorders, what does wall-to-wall displays of androgyny and promotion of homosexuality do?

There is a game afoot, and we cannot be ignorant of the rules:

Influence is “Dangerous” when it suits the narrative:

• Thin models in ads = promotes eating disorders

• Violent video games = turns kids into thugs

• Junk food marketing = makes children obese

• COVID misinformation = must be censored to protect the vulnerable

But then...

Influence is “Harmless” when it promotes the new orthodoxy:

• LGBT themes in every cartoon = just representation

• Euthanasia ads = just compassion

• “Abortion is healthcare” billboards = just truth

• Pride flags in classrooms = just inclusion

• Climate alarmism = just science

Try to promote God’s design for family and gender, or life and the stewardship of creation?
You’re probably a fascist.

It’s a real double standard.

Our culture downplays influence when it’s “raising awareness” about climate activism, racism, and pronouns, but pretends it’s harmful when it’s about chastity, abortion’s aftermath, or “gender transition” regret. You can see how the game is played. You get credit for “choosing” to comply with propaganda, but won’t be trusted with truth.

Here’s the deeper truth:

• Children are impressionable.

• Society shapes them constantly—by design or neglect.

• Strong foundations (in truth, virtue, faith) help them stand.

How can “normie” culture, which is rootless, relativist and tossed by every wind give them what they need for life and godliness? The Word exhorts us to protect children with truth and compassion.

“Train up a child in the way he should go…”
—Proverbs 22:6

“...So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine…”
—Ephesians 4:14

If you're not training your children, someone else is.
If society denies influence, it's only to smuggle in its own.

We’ve built a society that denies the power of influence—until it wants to use it. And the only ones protected are the ones who’ve built their house on the rock

Don’t buy the lie that influence only matters when they say it does.
Truth forms. Lies deform. We cannot “go out of the world”, as St Paul points out, but we must be aware of what is shaping our minds and hearts. Guard the gates.