This statement is the concluding sentence of an NPR story regarding the disaster in Japan. I thought I could bring it back to the notions of attention and distraction we talked about in class. In the midst of this crisis, with human lives on the lines, it doesn't take long for our money-obsessed culture to get down to the question that's really on our minds: How does this affect Japan as an investment? The rest of the article doesn't mention the economic impact of the quake. It describes the conditions for the Japanese people and provides a summary of the continued nuclear threat. There is no talk of the earthquake's fiscal damage, but someone still chose a line about the country's financial state as the final word on this story. And that is what Bellah was talking about when he outlined his thesis of distraction in modern American society.
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Indeed, people do pay attention to somethings and money seems to be one of those things. Here we have another, significant example of Bellah's concern for worthy topics of attention and his suggestion that worthy topics are those that promote a sustainable society.
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