Entrainment vs. entertainment

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to the students and faculty of Wright State University in Dayton. We discussed a subject from the pages of HHH: gangsta rap as entrainment vs. entertainment.

When we watch gangsta rap videos, “we think we’re being entertained when we’re really being ‘entrained’—i.e., psychologically bonded to the negative elements. With repetitive ingesting of rap, our children’s thoughts and emotions become aligned with the lyrics and video images. When this happens, children begin to imitate the behavior they’ve entrained to.” (p. 53)

Have you ever wondered how it is that a dance that was created on the East Coast on Friday night ends up on the West Coast by party time Saturday night, if not sooner? Social entrainment is an artificial group harmony that occurs when the group is exposed to the same misinformation and miseducation about self and culture over time.

I don’t believe that the Internet and cell phones cause youth to think and act the same. Technology is just an agent of the entrainment process. We must look deeper. Why do our children entrain to the negative aspects of gangsta rap? If we can answer this question, we can begin to save them.

Entrainment to the gangsta values promoted in gangsta rap is one reason why parents are stressed out, why ministers are bringing Hip Hop into the church, and why educators are struggling to deal with their students’ poor academic performance and unmanageable classroom behavior.