Television & Cultural Destruction
The engine which has always driven humans toward so-called progress and
development is 'rising expectations'. It is a sort of divine or devilish
itch which is peculiar to Homo Sapiens. Whether this is good or bad is a
value judgment. This force has certainly brought our species to the dominant
position on the planet. Until the 20th century this primarily influenced
only other members of our species. Now it is influencing all life on earth
and even the physics and chemistry of the planet.
Until the last few decades this rising expectations force was relatively
subdued because people's vision of other people was limited to their neighbours
who usually had the same standard of living. Television has changed all
that. In America slum dwellers can enjoy watching the lives of the rich
and famous while a rat runs across the floor of their own hovel. Resentment,
alienation and despair are, as a result, far more in evidence now than they
were decades earlier when economic conditions were even worse. The sense
of family and belonging were stronger in former times but these have been
almost blown away by commercial television.
I say commercial television because the unholy handmaiden of the technology
is the use of it to make profits. What seems to sell is the worship of consumer
products, the celebration of sex without love and the triumph and fun of
violence. These are being used to sell products and are indoctrinating our
youth in particular and destroying our culture and heritage in general.
Those parts of the world that do not have much commercial television do
not have many of the social problems from which we suffer in North America.
There is a direct correlation. Government television, although it may be
prone to propaganda, does not seem to be nearly as destructive.
The great tragedy is that the technology is spreading rapidly all over the
world to cultures already vulnerable to collapse. It is a cruel joke to
pretend that these billions of people will ever have a fraction of the American
consumer products yet they are throwing the traditions of thousands of years
(traditions that worked quite well in their environment) into the garbage.
This priceless heritage will never be retrieved, nor will it be replaced
with anything of more value than the despair of an urban slum where frustration
will continue to build up as the inhabitants watch the rich and famous on
television. I have heard some recent horror stories about remote mountain
villages with no television where an enterprising young man has a generator
and a VCR and screen. He rents foreign action films and shows them nightly
in the village.
Thus, rising expectations are rapidly being turned into a world-wide force
which will destroy biodiversity and cultures and breed frustration and violence.
Can anything be done about it?
Robert Bateman
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