BETWEEN THE LINES: Lessons from the TV series ‘24’
A benefit of retirement is having more time. Working, raising children, attending their activities and paying for their education left little time for personal interests.
I cannot remember a television series I was able to follow on a regular basis during that time. I was only able to watch reruns after the 10 p.m. news, including "Cheers." Later, the addition of new channels to cable created more opportunities for me.
When my daughter visited during Spring Break, she told us about "24," a TV series she watched on Netflix. It starred Kiefer Sutherland, son of Donald, as a counterterrorism agent saving Americans and their politicians from acts of mischief. I caught the bug.
One of the benefits of technology is viewing reruns via the Internet without having to watch commercials — or having to fast forward through them. Hence an hour of normal viewing is reduced to 43 minutes, a savings of 28 percent of our time.
FOX’s "24" is highly addictive because each episode leads to another in a sequential time span. Each hour represents an hour of real time. The series encompasses 24 episodes, or a full day. It is amazing how much action there is. It makes our days boring in comparison, but at least we do not have to deal with the trauma.
The series ran for eight years beginning in 2002. I have just finished the last year and I am going back to complete the first two years I missed. Although the show is fiction, many truths can be drawn from it.
The first is that evil does exist, it is real and its actions cannot be explained away simply by poverty, discrimination, race or other excuses. The forces of good and evil interact at all times. Failure to recognize evil will lead to our demise.
Secondly, sometimes in life we are forced to make decisions between two bad alternatives or, as it is said, “choosing the lesser of two evils.” When those moments arrive, people often pick the course of action that benefits them best, and not what is the morally right thing to do. Society has made that course of action more palatable because it has made morality subjective.
The next pearl of wisdom I drew from the show is that loyal friends, those willing to suffer the consequences because of their support, are truly hard to find.
People lie, including government officials. Our elected leaders’ manipulation of the truth is far more damaging because they exercise considerable influence on society. The more power they possess, the more damage they can do. They tell the public one thing on the campaign trail, and then once elected do another upon arriving in the nation’s capital. Politicians’ words are superficial.
The final truth conveyed by the show is the importance of family. The characters to admire on the show, like Sutherland’s Jack Bauer, love their family and are willing to sacrifice their lives for their family’s safety. Jesus gave us an example of such, and left us with these words: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
I must go now. The next episode is fixing to start.
Laughlin is a Christian Libertarian. He is an economist, teacher, father, husband and most recently a grandfather. He has written a weekly column for The Tribune for 13 years. He and his wife Gina reside in Meadowlakes. To contact him, email ablaughlin@nctv.com. He is an independent columnist, not a staff member, and his views do not necessarily reflect those of The Tribune or its parent company.