Television....arrrgh!

[bram]

There is too much television on at my place. When I am home alone, the box stays off, the large, flat grey screen only shows a shadowy reflection of me moving mysteriously around the room, and silence blasts out from the 5.1 speakers. However, as I am not the dictator around here, I am called upon to partake of the joys of television. I cannot slink off to the study in an aloof and antisocial manner, I have to participate in the interests of family harmony.

Nor can I issue forth a stream of derision and intellectual superiority as I watch, I must endure silently and enjoy the emanations of this most distasteful device.
I use the word endure, because for me, the experience of television is one of almost continuous resistance, resistance to the continuous outpourings of positions and opinions which I am apparently expected to assume as my own, by virtue of belonging to this human race. Nowhere are the machinations of the collective ego more actively being broadcast in a barrage of brainwashing. The message is centred around a single premise: that the end justifies the means. The fact that there is no end, and that there is only the means is not admitted here, but more about this later.

My (mostly) silent endurance has allowed me to observe the workings of this device whose only apparent purpose is to align the individual consumer egos with the great collective ego like iron filings, and I have observed that television, in accordance with most aspects of our lives, has gone through a process of globalization in recent years. Whilst free-to-air channels still exist in most countries and provide a form of television which is culturally specific, the cable and satellite companies now provide a global tv experience which can be obtained in most parts of the world. There are five distinct classes of television program, viz sports, news, entertainment, movies and documentary channels. Leaving aside sports, which is still the least politicized of the variations, the remaining channels share some similar characteristics.

The news programs- these tell what to think, period. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are justifiable, the news programs tell us who the terrorists are, and why we should fear them. Erosion of civil liberties- the end justifies the means. Drone strikes- good thing, terrorists again. News is provided for us by Fox, CNN, BBC and the like. Then there is the ‘financial news’ whatever this means (Bloomberg, CNBC). Market reactions, everything comes down to the bottom line. Dozens of striking miners shot dead in South Africa, but hey, the share price is holding up, so it’s not all bad news.

The entertainment genre consists of crime fighting/ solving agencies of many different varieties. Hard working, honest, caring crime fighters who have to bend the rules to get results (the end justifying the means) and nail the bad guys. Violence against suspects and forced confessions are now (since 911) fully acceptable. These shows are very pernicious. Big brother really is our friend, and needs to be able to track us at every moment- because of terrorists (including environmental concern groups), and people who would murder us in our beds for fifty cents. They also encompass the American love for firearms, and these lovable crimefighters will shoot anybody dead at the drop of a pin. In the greater good of course. Usually these shows have some kind of theme, such as the schitzophrenic detective or some other nonsense. These programs often also contain an attempt at humour in the quirky behavior of the under-pressure crime solvers, but the humour is usually so pathetically off the mark that one is forced to admit that humour, being largely cultural, is close to extinction following the destruction of its habitat by the globalized tv trash.

Movies are where the penchant for violence really comes to the fore. Some of the movies just consist of guns being fired for 90 minutes, with the odd demonstration of violent dangerous driving and the ensuing explosions in between. The movie industry ensures that our children are thoroughly acclimatized to violence, perpetrated by the good guys against the terrorists (see above), and engenders an unwarranted familiarity with guns and weapons, and of course the conviction that the end justifies the means at all times. It appears that guns/ car violence is almost a prerequisite for the funding of a modern day movie.

So we turn to the documentary programs, where we might find some respite from the mindwashing of the news, entertainment and movie programs. Not so. Wildlife programs focus 90% on the carnivores, and the killing of animals by other animals- after all, life is like that, so why should we behave any different? The discovery and history channel series focus largely on the discovery and history of handguns, backed up by sporadic episodes of war and genocide.

Well, that’s my anti-television rant over for now, thank you for listening!

[markpierre]

So the NLP is not working on you. They would probably recommend antidepressants.

[modwiz]

I cannot slink off to the study in an aloof and antisocial manner, I have to participate in the interests of family harmony. Nor can I issue forth a stream of derision and intellectual superiority as I watch, I must endure silently and enjoy the emanations of this most distasteful device.


This is where you are stuck. It is a choice you make. Our lives are made up of our choices.

TV and movies, especially the sewage effluent from Hollywood, is pure toxicity. People point to flowers that grow in the sewage as an enabling reason to not condemn the medium as it is currently used. The medium is not the problem, it is the content.

[bram]

Hey modwiz,
Flowers grow in sewage? There's hope for me yet then!
Seriously, I think I am developing an immunity to the toxicity- by continuing to endure and staying aware of the subliminal mindwashing.
Love, bram

[spiritwind]

Thank God, or somebody, that my family finally gave up on trying to get me to watch any of the mindless dribble. About an occasional movie, maybe twice a month, is all they can get out of me. And I absolutely could not keep my mouth shut regardless of family harmony. I am not a dictator but neither do I have to watch something that might be downright painful just to please someone else that I am spending time with them. I liked your rant Bram. Maybe suggest going out to dinner or taking in a sunset would be a good idea. Just a thought.

[donk]

Great rant, I have been thinking this exact thing a lot lately:


It appears that guns/ car violence is almost a prerequisite

There is very little entertainment (TV or movies) on the screen that does not involve a gun. Apparently we NEED violence or the threat/possibility of violence to be entertained.

The "documentary" area is moving toward only shows about making profit or working in danger or unusual ways (Storage Wars, Shipping wars, Dawg the Bounty Hunter, American Pickers) or about the world ending.

Killing and working...all we do for fun. How did we get here? Ah, eff it, I am off to do some work in the virtual killing fields of Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 3 on the ol' xbox....

[WhiteFeather]

I share your pain OP without any doubt. In my circumstances I have two children that frequent The Disney Channel highly often. It is quite disturbing and hypnotic to say the least. Finally,,,, they understand that Disney, Nickleodeon etc. cause some great grief, pain and misery to my being. So at times we agree on a good movie without any commercials. As the commercials and all its entirety cause overwhelming distress as well. I sometimes have to bribe them to accomplish my goals. So when they are watching the poisoned and dumbed down, fast food TV shows, i simply slip on my headphones attached to my kindle and view a good YT video or some good music. It works for me.

[Guest]

I'm alone a lot.

[ThePythonicCow]

There is too much television on at my place.
I added a blank line between each paragraph in your opening post. Hit the "Enter" key twice to make a blank line. It's easier for others to read longer posts that way :).