Good morning all-
My dislike of TV is well known. While I say I have not watched TV in 37 years except for occasional sports events, there is some leakage. When ill, I have watched TV while falling asleep on the couch. Over the years, I have inevitably caught snippets of shows in other people's homes, or that my children or wife were watching. Some of it, like Discovery Channel or History channel, seemed interesting. The rest of it was very offensive, and I think damaging to manners and dialogue in the US. Here's why.
Back in the bad old days of TV, the '60s, when I was still watching, there was a discussion about the deleterious effects on children of watching murders. While sex was strictly regulated by a board of morals (which, among other things, prevented the viewing of Barbara Eden's navel on 'I Dream of Genie'), there was no limit on simulated violence in cartoons. We got to watch the Roadrunner kill Wiley Coyote hundreds of times on Saturday mornings. It was estimated that the average child, by age 12 (?10) had seen 10,000 murders on TV.
Well, if that was bad, what are we creating by what we present now? Show after show has fat, rude oppositional characters. Cartoon babies make arrogant, defiant remarks about their loutish parents. What is so funny about that? We all want to talk back to overbearing bosses or rude drivers. Is it really helpful to public behavior to see rude, aggressive characters doing this? Other shows demonstrate solutions to problems through violence and gross violations of police techniques. The average person watches something like 6 hours per day of TV. Does anyone really think this has no effect on the watcher? If we had a muslim leader telling his charges to watch 6 hours daily of broadcasts justifying violence toward America, we would consider that coercion and manipulation. What are we doing to ourselves?
Communist belief was that history should not recount facts, but instruct. That seems a little heavy handed to me, especially when the story to be told flies in the face of facts. But what about popular media? Should they merely entertain, or should there be some purpose, or at least control? If we are merely entertaining, than there is a race to the bottom to see who can be most gross, most sexual, most offensive. Everybody can laugh at fart jokes, and everyone's attention can be grabbed with violence and/or an almost naked woman. Is this what we want to portray of ourselves and our society? It is easy for me to imagine the Taliban, watching our TV, concluding their values are superior to ours.
The repeated excuse of producers and actors, when confronted about the violence, rudeness and sexuality of their shows is that they are merely entertainers. Consider, however, children raised in a violent or abusive home. Such children are dramatically more likely to be violent and abusive themselves. Those who grow up surrounded by screaming and cursing think of it as the normal way of expression. They have to learn, sometimes the very hard way, how to express their feelings without violence, either verbal, emotional or physical. It is hard to accept that repeatedly watching foul-mouthed, rude, aggressive, disrespectful characters on TV does not affect the way we interact with each other, making the foul expression of our inner feelings an acceptable form of communication.
I would love to see a restoration of the TV morals codes, applied to all TV, not just the networks, but cable as well. The guarantee of free speech has been used to do away with all restraints on broadcasting, with minor exceptions for overt nudity or foul language before 11 PM, as if these things only affect children. Pornography is protected as free speech, as is nude dancing, but that has not prevented it from being regulated and zoned.
I would love to see the same applied to TV. Shows with violent, rude, foul characters would be confined to certain times and to those channels that pay a premium to broadcast. Instead of premiums being paid to watch college football, we could have premium channels specializing in sex, nudity, violence and bad behavior. Perhaps this would modify behavior. There is no stigma in paying extra to see college football (it may be annoying, but it is not stigmatizing), but there might very well be second thoughts about deliberately buying programming from the rudeness channel, or the violence channel, or the sex channel.
Defenders say we can always turn off our TVs, and I have chosen to do so these 37 years. But most people do not. While I am all in favor of small government, I am also in favor of leading people to good choices. Not legislating prohibition, but guiding to better morals, better choices, better behavior. Given that most people do not turn off their TVs, I think there is a societal interest in limiting exposure to the nonsense and trash that is vomited into our living rooms daily.
Ted
My dislike of TV is well known. While I say I have not watched TV in 37 years except for occasional sports events, there is some leakage. When ill, I have watched TV while falling asleep on the couch. Over the years, I have inevitably caught snippets of shows in other people's homes, or that my children or wife were watching. Some of it, like Discovery Channel or History channel, seemed interesting. The rest of it was very offensive, and I think damaging to manners and dialogue in the US. Here's why.
Back in the bad old days of TV, the '60s, when I was still watching, there was a discussion about the deleterious effects on children of watching murders. While sex was strictly regulated by a board of morals (which, among other things, prevented the viewing of Barbara Eden's navel on 'I Dream of Genie'), there was no limit on simulated violence in cartoons. We got to watch the Roadrunner kill Wiley Coyote hundreds of times on Saturday mornings. It was estimated that the average child, by age 12 (?10) had seen 10,000 murders on TV.
Well, if that was bad, what are we creating by what we present now? Show after show has fat, rude oppositional characters. Cartoon babies make arrogant, defiant remarks about their loutish parents. What is so funny about that? We all want to talk back to overbearing bosses or rude drivers. Is it really helpful to public behavior to see rude, aggressive characters doing this? Other shows demonstrate solutions to problems through violence and gross violations of police techniques. The average person watches something like 6 hours per day of TV. Does anyone really think this has no effect on the watcher? If we had a muslim leader telling his charges to watch 6 hours daily of broadcasts justifying violence toward America, we would consider that coercion and manipulation. What are we doing to ourselves?
Communist belief was that history should not recount facts, but instruct. That seems a little heavy handed to me, especially when the story to be told flies in the face of facts. But what about popular media? Should they merely entertain, or should there be some purpose, or at least control? If we are merely entertaining, than there is a race to the bottom to see who can be most gross, most sexual, most offensive. Everybody can laugh at fart jokes, and everyone's attention can be grabbed with violence and/or an almost naked woman. Is this what we want to portray of ourselves and our society? It is easy for me to imagine the Taliban, watching our TV, concluding their values are superior to ours.
The repeated excuse of producers and actors, when confronted about the violence, rudeness and sexuality of their shows is that they are merely entertainers. Consider, however, children raised in a violent or abusive home. Such children are dramatically more likely to be violent and abusive themselves. Those who grow up surrounded by screaming and cursing think of it as the normal way of expression. They have to learn, sometimes the very hard way, how to express their feelings without violence, either verbal, emotional or physical. It is hard to accept that repeatedly watching foul-mouthed, rude, aggressive, disrespectful characters on TV does not affect the way we interact with each other, making the foul expression of our inner feelings an acceptable form of communication.
I would love to see a restoration of the TV morals codes, applied to all TV, not just the networks, but cable as well. The guarantee of free speech has been used to do away with all restraints on broadcasting, with minor exceptions for overt nudity or foul language before 11 PM, as if these things only affect children. Pornography is protected as free speech, as is nude dancing, but that has not prevented it from being regulated and zoned.
I would love to see the same applied to TV. Shows with violent, rude, foul characters would be confined to certain times and to those channels that pay a premium to broadcast. Instead of premiums being paid to watch college football, we could have premium channels specializing in sex, nudity, violence and bad behavior. Perhaps this would modify behavior. There is no stigma in paying extra to see college football (it may be annoying, but it is not stigmatizing), but there might very well be second thoughts about deliberately buying programming from the rudeness channel, or the violence channel, or the sex channel.
Defenders say we can always turn off our TVs, and I have chosen to do so these 37 years. But most people do not. While I am all in favor of small government, I am also in favor of leading people to good choices. Not legislating prohibition, but guiding to better morals, better choices, better behavior. Given that most people do not turn off their TVs, I think there is a societal interest in limiting exposure to the nonsense and trash that is vomited into our living rooms daily.
Ted
This whole health care debate is a strong fighting point for me. My parents' health is questionable at best. One, virtually uninsurable due to a brain tumor several years ago, gets thrown off state health care and is now paying over $400 a month with a $5000 deductible for private insurance. The other has been disabled for most of my life, been on SSI, draws disability, has now been kicked off state funded health care, and has to pay for private insurance (a major battle to find an insuror) to supplement what Medicare doesn't pay. Now facing a battle with lung cancer (we will know for sure this week), liver failure, chronic kidney stones, the list goes on, although he did beat Lymphoma. Yet they are as close to low income as nearly anyone can get, but because they "own" their home, no additional assistance is available to them. This whole healthcare debate as I see it, does nothing to really help anyone, it just creates more problems, certainly for those already with insurance. At what cost does the government decide who is "worthy" and what ailments are considered treatable? Will the decision be made for the person with a malignant brain tumor to not be covered for treatment, while the person with carcinoma can be because it's cheaper? That is what the Tenncare failure has become.
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