Why I do have television, but the television doesn't have me.
I was raised by television so I feel a sort of need to come to my surrogate mother's defense. After school till sleep, the glow of the t.v. made the dark less scary and the quiet less unbearable. She taught me some interesting things and some horrible things. Do I wish I would have put down the remote and played more football? Honestly, no.
What I gathered from your post is that t.v. is mostly an advertisment. I agree. However, this seems to imply that the "monitor" your t.v. has become is somehow something other than an advertisement. While some movies are meant to enlighten, I would argue that a vast majority are there to sell popcorn and to get a McDonald's tie-in.
What I kept wanting to say while reading your post is that television is a medium, it is not the enemy. Television has the ability to do both good an evil because the humans who develop its programming also have that ability.
It seems by this reasoning you could denounce countless other mediums like newspapers, magazines, or even the internet you used to post the blog I just read. Aren't there horrible things a google click away on this dreadful medium? But , aren't there amazing things as well? A camera can be pointed at a slaughter or the heavens, but if you don't like the picture don't throw away the camera, throw away the photographer.
Therefore, I would say (borrowing from Chesterton) that we can thank God for television by not watching too much of it or by not watching it for its sake.
As an aside, I don't have cable. I have an antena, but I haven't sat down and watched a show on the television for at least 5 months. Anyway, let me know what you think and keep posting. This will be a great way for me to keep up on the goings on of Mr. Morten. (Also known as - the king of contracts)
posted by Moise @ 4:49 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Jon:
I agree with your remarks to an extent. I think it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see some of your take on the matter as simply adding to what I already think about t.v., rather than as a corrective.
Your post's title is telling. You are a person who can control the device, rather than the other way around. For me it's not so easy. I can get sucked into badness fast and easily with little help from anyone. Further, I do not believe all that nonsense about people watching gobs of television. I don't think most people watch t.v. much.
Your comment about movies is right on; I think I hinted the same thing in my post when I admitted that most of the movies I've seen aren't what I would call edifying, rather, they are just uninterrupted commercials. What I didn't mention is that if I were the only person in this house, the t.v. likely wouldn't be here. My wife isn't ready to chuck it, though, and I am not sure that she's wrong.
Here is where you and I might part company on the subject. While I might agree that t.v. is not the enemy - "It is not what goes into a man that defiles him, it is what comes out" - that it is just a medium, I have trouble grasping just exactly what it is that television is mediating besides a well-crafted sales pitch from seller to buyer. I mean, who needs that?
The statement "televsion is not the enemy" sounds to me like a glossed-over version of the statement "it's just entertainment" which has so perplexed me. Sure, t.v. could be used for good, but how has it? Through "educational" programming? The history channel? The Discovery Channel? The news? You say we humans who develop the t.v. programming have the ability to use it for good, why not give examples of that good?
As to applying this thinking to magazines and newspapers, I think there is a difference vast and wide between t.v. and those two things. Even more between t.v. and the most reliable source of printed info, books. Lumping t.v. as a medium into the same category as printed media, is, to my mind, pure folly. Whatever controversy there may have been back when t.v. was new, and through the seventies when television had finally landed in every US home regarding just what happens when human eyes and ears tune into the thing, no one believes anymore that the human brain does anything that remotely resembles thinking at all, let alone critical thinking when it comes to t.v.-watching. The folks who wanted to convince us that it could do some of the things you imply that it could, don't bother with all that nonsense anymore. Why not? Because it doesn't matter. We don't care. We like it that we can low-power our brains and veg. That is the whole point. Now we know it was merely quaint to think that "Sesame Street" was ever going to "educate" low-income kids.
After mentioning these media as simply other examples of the same kind of thing, you jump to the fact that "horrible things" can be found IN them. Sure, but that isn't the point. My gripe with t.v. is not WHAT it puts out, but HOW it puts it out. Our brains are simply not built to GET information the ONLY way that television can give it.
There are a number of good books on the subject. "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" by Jerry Mander was one of my favorites. Anything by Neil Postman isn't bad either. Mander is actually a lawyer, I think.
Likening the television to a camera is even more baffling to me. A camera is more like a paintbrush, is it not? The t.v., at best, would be analogous to a canvas, right, or a photograph? Again, it isn't that this "canvas" can only show bad things, it is simply that it can't show anything PROPERLY as far as we humans are programmed to view, listen, think and reason.
Lastly, I know exactly what you mean about that comforting blue glow and low hum of the t.v.. Remember, I was a kid from 1969-1989. "WKRP", "Barney Miller", "Starsky and Hutch", and, my hero, "The Six Million Dollar Man". I did watch gobs of t.v. and can hum all the title tunes. I also like "Seinfeld" but who doesn't?
Lastlier,
Don't apologize, I get it ALL THE TIME!
Yours,
K-Boy? (Funny, but I have grave doubts about that moniker.)
I'm going to have to part company with you, Mr. Morten (you can read my initial thoughts before I read this post and comment at my blog or The Considerations).
As I noted in my initial post, I did learn a lot from television. As I understand it, some schools are learning that the lecture is no longer a viable way to teach kids; that they need to make television programs for the classroom because that is how kids are programmed to learn.
I do agree that it is sinful to compare television to a camera, but I don't believe that is an appropriate implication to draw from Jon's post. A camera is a tool, not a medium; photography in the abstract is the medium, conveyed by photographs as analogous to television programs.
I do have to note, however, (maybe I'm being egotistical here) that I think that each and every one of my photographs is worth a full day of television in the amount of information and emotion that they convey.
Post a Comment
<< Home