“According to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of 4 hours and 35 minutes every dayâ€â€”An excerpt from Al Gore’s book “The Assault On Reason†contained in May 28 issue of TIME.
We have traded our democratic inheritance for a few hours of vapid TV distraction.
I am convinced that we have one avenue out of this terrible predicament into which we have fallen; we American adults must significantly improve our level of intellectual sophistication.
This can easily be done in a most delightful way; we adults can take one hour a day that we now spend on a couch before a TV screen and utilize that time studying the books that will enlighten us as to who we are and why we do the things we do.
Self-actualizing self-learning is a simple and powerful solution to a most dangerous and pressing situation. We have nothing to lose but our apathy and ignorance; and we have everything to gain, including our self-respect and the respect of generations to come.
I agree Chuck. Clever to identify “our freedom” or consent to be governed as a commodity. Amercia is choosing to “stay plugged into the matrix”, so to speak.
Do you think the middle class was destined to fail? Destined to become sheep watching TV that may think they are free. It seems the middle class would rather let others think for them.
To take a side topic; Speaking of commodities and currencies, Lately I’ve been learning more about the whole central bank (federal reserve) system, fractional reserve banking, and debt based money. I think the whole world is suffering under a racket! Why do our governments borrow money at interest from private central bank owners? Why don’t we rely on the trust of the people of each of our nations? Money should be for the betterment of mankind. Not to exploit it. Interest rates (or rather inflation or deflation and the money supply) should be determined by the people, not determined by the elite few for their profit and at the expense of the people, making nations suffer though depressions and famines.
This post should probably be moved into the political category.
I must drag the average down at least a little- I don’t have a TV. For the most part I agree the time wasted watchin TV would be more profitably spend reading, but even then one must take care that you’re not still letting someone else do the thinking. Schopenhauer cautioned that too many books cause inelasticity of the mind; they get you too used to following along as opposed to thinking. He furthermore pointed out that too be well read one must first stop reading badly. Wise words indeed.
i don’t have TV either. I do have one, but use it for Nintendo Wii only, or watching documentaries. My wife is always pressing to get cable but I refuse to pay money each month for 50% commercials thrown in my face! It is SO FUCKING REDICULOUS! I don’t understand how people can stand it in the first place.
Anyway, i think TV, Movies, Games, Sports, Music, Books… anything can take us away from having to think. It is good to relax the mind now and then doing whatever activity you like, but beware of “inelasticity of the mind”!
Phaedrus/B, I don’t usually address a third party but for you I will make an exception. I lived without a T.V. from 1980 until my parents came to live with me in 2001. I wouldn’t watch it much now but my mother likes to watch the news. I must admit I find it useful because it keeps me grounded in reality. Every time I get a bit optimistic I listen to the news and I am reminded how generally brain dead we are.
It is reassuringly to read that someone as well known as Schopenhauer cautioned against reading too many books. Thanks. I quit reading other peoples thoughts in 1971 when I graduated from university where I majored in epiphany. Having not found “the answer” in any one of the countless books I’d been ‘fed’ I began looking in the “book of life”. In my view we need knowledge “to reach out to the limits of our capacities…” However, we can also gather ‘facts’ in an effort to “fill the void”. To differentiate between the “bridges” spanning our realized capacities and the “wedges” that separate us from our nature requires the keenest “critical thinking” to quote one of Chuck’s favorite phrases. I don’t see much.
In closing I make another exception by mentioning that by trying, also in vain, to fill the void with money and all the stuff it can buy we have created the most absurd vertical cone-shaped economy, the god we worship without question despite its leading us to self-destruction.
But seriously, this is a little apocalyptic, right? I mean, I know our society is in business of producing an increasing separation between real life and the unending spectacle of global-market late capitalism… but the truth is ‘revolution’ also means knowing how to bide your (spectacular!) time. I’m saying, let’s be artists, not accomodationists–I’m asking, how do you plan to take the nihilistic spectacle around you and turn it into something positive? Whether it’s culture jamming, taking active joy, detournemont, guerilla surrealism, scrambling the codes, liberating desire… you’ve got to do something, or you will just slip right between the gears of the machine.
But before you can resist in good faith, you’ve got to be able to have a confident answer to this question: what’s so wrong about self-destruction? Aren’t we too focused on staying ‘faithful’ to the events which define our subjectivity? The problem is too many people are focused on themselves, on their territories, on their subjugating-machines–we are what we do to each other… we need more molecularization, more de-individuation, or else there will never be personal or social emancipation. Every time the social desiring-machines grasps you as an individual, it is to subjugate you–“Be young and shut up!” There’s no rational debate; this is about power and it’s about structures of knowledge. You can’t have a revolution based on a party or a platform…
I too am dragging down the average. I have no TV and read lots of books. I used to read a lot of philosophy but these days I find it tedious, same with politics, economics, etc.
No new ideas.
These days I read a lot of hard science fiction. Lots of new ideas to explore there. Also a lot of crap to wade through but the books are generally a pretty short easy read so it is not such a waste of time.
I like the what ifs they explore.
Like what if the world was taken over by some artificial intelligence?
Like what if the police was privatized?
Like what if half the population was killed in a plague or nuclear catastrophe or war?
Like what if you had to pay for the air you breath and someone hacked your bank account?
How would people behave?
These are interesting ideas to explore and give great insight into how people behave now.
The “food-chain” in “the natural order” is also a “vertical, cone shaped economy”, or a pyramid structure, in which minorities take more than they give to the whole system. Inequal exchanges and unfair transactions go so far as to work in this way: “You give me your blood, your life, and I give you the edges of my claws for a moment.”
Anyone whom wants to resist the naturally occuring factors which support or lead up to pyramid structure; anyone whom wants to resist both fascism and claste systems; anyone whom wants fair sharing and horisontal, democratic power alocations – you’re all liberalistic communists, whether you know it or not. You want the government to simply be a system which enforces justice and equalities/fair-exchanges. You want to control your government more efficiently, with less corruption, less inequalities, less plutocracies, etc.
Resisting or dealing with the constantly-inequalizing fluxuations of said nature is a difficult art to master, in any case. Both a swamp and a capitalist city are brimming with potentially dangerous parasites. There will be no unified effort today… Maybe someday, but not today. No momentous, supra-illuminated majority. Human math dictates that the “best” always exists as a minority. If or when the common people and the majority hold the most power or control, things will never be “best” in this kind of system. To compensate for the mediocratic muck, centralized specializations have always been formed. These specialists are also quasi-aristocratic. But their “superiority” in the system depends entirely upon how well they can use the system for their own mutualisms. In this case of control, and gain, the beings whom can exploit the most out of society will also have highest rank in society, if rank is based upon control and profits.
I’m sticking with an effort to understand demi’s social-austerity.
“Society is evil”
“Civilization is evil”
Simple as that, and the next step is to gain independance away from this toxic, false luxury.
When an individual is alone and working towards some kind of self-sufficiency, they suffer the direct consiquences of the actions which they commit against their own bodies. This generally means direct “justice”, because, during “injustice”, the perpetrator doth not bare the sharp end of his own sword during every violent thrusting. Dependancy leads to exploitation. Exploitation leads to loss and waste. Loss and waste leads to death and painful madness.
I’m not for any sort of governmental, religious or economic system, when I said what I did, in dark red. Life as a sort of hermit, is a good idea, though… People should constantly work towards becoming less dependant upon one-another. Otherwise, they eventually & often become childish parasites, crying and bickering for more blood from eachother.
Things such as “love” are also rare “commodities”.
i guess there is a lot of possible solutions to the ill of society, but which ones can actually be implemented? how do you actually change what hundreds of millions of people do every day? maybe the most effective way is by… putting sometihng on television.
Yes, TV does have that power to convince people to buy this or that, and therein lay the rub. We need to take charge of our own life.
Our schooling has left us with the opinion that learning is one big pain. That is very unfortunate because learning can be the most delightful experience one can imagine. If adults could just get past this great barrier that our educational institutions have left us with they will discover a marvelous new way to enjoy life. Learning can be great fun and my message to all adults is ‘get a life–get an intellectual life’.
For the most part I agree the time wasted watchin TV would be more profitably spend reading, but even then one must take care that you’re not still letting someone else do the thinking. Schopenhauer cautioned that too many books cause inelasticity of the mind; they get you too used to following along as opposed to thinking. He furthermore pointed out that too be well read one must first stop reading badly. Wise words indeed.
