Technology Against TV (David McGrogan, 20/2/2023)

King Krávoka

An infection of Your universe.
In a recent and now lost-forever interview with Dan, I was asked how it was that I manage to juggle having a 'proper job', a young family, reading lots of books, writing this blog, and producing RPG materials. Any answer would make me sound big-headed (as does me bringing it up now...), and I can't now recall what I actually said in response. The truth of the matter is that I actually feel spectacularly unproductive and constantly beat myself up about that. But I suppose that, in the round, objectively I probably do more with my time than the average person.

90% of the reason for this is that I don't really watch TV (including streaming televisual stuff online). It's not true that I watch no TV, but I more or less religiously limit it to around 20 minutes a day - just long enough to wach half an episode of NextGen or a full episode of Frasier or Seinfeld, or a whisky review, or something. Mindless unwinding does have its uses, and I recognise that, but 20 minutes is more than enough time spent indulging.

Part of the reason why I don't watch TV is that I find most of it mind-numbingly stupid and crude, even the supposedly 'intelligent' stuff, and can't figure out why people who I know to be intelligent don't also notice this. Part of the reason is that there just isn't really much out there that particular interests me - I tend to find TV drama pretty cringeworthy, especially when it's in the fantasy/SF genre, and modern comedy is almost universally dreadful. But most of the reason is that I think TV is actually a rather poisonous influence on the modern world, that modern online streaming services have put that poisonous influence on steroids, and that I feel guilty for watching it in the same way that I would feel guilty for using social media - an equally baleful force in our lives.

Why, though, is TV so bad?

The first reason is probably the one which has the greatest chance of finding broad acceptance. It is that, even if TV isn't actively bad for you, every minute you spend watching it is a minute you're not spending actively doing something that would improve your life (studying Spanish, learning to play guitar, talking to your family members, knitting, practicing drawing, doing yoga, cooking a delicious and healthy meal, trying to get your head around Hegel, etc., etc.). TV watching is almost entirely dead time: the mental equivalent of just sitting on your sofa eating white bread and margarine. Sure, you can kid yourself that by watching documentaries or decent drama that you are learning things and developing yourself - pull the other one. One day you will get to the end of your life and look back and ask yourself if you have any regrets, and while I have no idea what the answer to your specific version of that question will be, I guarantee you it will not be 'I should have spent more time watching TV.'

The second reason is that TV is a literalising medium: it makes you stupider. Compare the experience, phenomenologically speaking, of watching TV versus reading a book. TV presents us with images and speech. Because it can't present us with internal monologue or indeed tell us anything about the thoughts, experiences, and knowledge of the people it depicts, it is required to make those things explicit in the form of actions and dialogue. As a consequence, it is almost as though it were designed to destroy our capacity to develop a fully-fledged theory of mind - with the final result being an approach to other human beings which understands them as the kind of crude, stick-figure representations which we are used to seeing on our screens. You may dispute this, or ask me to cite evidence; I can only respond - isn't the evidence all around us in our political and cultural landscape? People often fault social media for the awful goodies vs baddies tribalism that is increasingly dominant across the developed world; I think increased TV watching, especially thanks to the advent of streaming services that allow one to watch 'good' TV (I use the term loosely) 24/7 is just as much to blame.

The third reason is that excessive TV watching develops a habit of passivity. How many times have you said to yourself, over the course of your life, 'What shall I do now? I suppose I'll see what's on TV.' Next time you think that, pause for a moment and reflect. Why was that your first response? Because you default to TV watching when bored. Your initiative has been dulled. You have got out of the habit of actively engaging with the world and with people around you. You prefer the path of least resistance. TV watching has trained you to think like that. Make working out, or going for a walk, or baking, or reading a book, or learning a skill your default option instead.

The fourth reason is that the overwhelming aesthetic of the TV screen is fundamentally pornographic. Now, let's hold our horses for a moment. I don't mean that TV is necessarily hypersexualised or that there is too much sex - implicit and explicit - on TV and in our media landscape in general. (Though I do think those things too.) What I mean is that TV, as a visual medium, tends to be dominated by a style, a way of looking at the world, that is best summarised by the phrase, 'Phwoar, look at that.' Phwoar, look at her. Phwoar, look at him. Phwoar, look at that view. Phwoar, look at those colours. Phwoar, look at that cheetah. Phwoar, look at that explosion. Phwoar, look at that car. Phwoar, look at that slo-mo replay. Phwoar, look at that gunfight. And so on and so on. It is pornographic in the sense that it replicates the relationship between the viewer of pornography and the pornographic image: one is reduced to an empty vessel through which the image communicates itself directly the one's lizard brain. This is basically dehumanising. It bypasses the part of us that is above the animals, going in fact straight underneath. This may not always be so terrible, in the same way that sometimes eating chocolate cake isn't always so terrible. But it is terrible in large doses.

Our societies are increasingly secularised. Many of us are convinced that you have only one life and that's that - there is no afterlife. And yet more than ever before we fritter away our lives simply observing, and not, for the most part, even observing things that are real. Rather, we spend hours a day essentially just observing the fantasies of others. This is deeply strange and sad. Stop it.
Source: noisms | Monsters and Manuals
 
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the main issue I have with this is that it could be said about well.... Just about anything. "Why do X when you can be doing Y and Z instead?" heck I mean monks of various religions thought the very grind of living was time wasted that could be spent on achieving enlightenment/perfection hence why they would lock themselves in remote areas deprived of the necessities of the physical so that they could spend all their time thinking/meditating (Till they inevitably starved to death) I think it may come back to "All things in moderation." (Which to be fair is a struggle in it's own right.)
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
So you're European. Good to know.

Anyway, about the article: I both agree and disagree in a way.

To start with the first point: I'm not sure that it really works the way he thinks it does. A lot of people I know watch TV in the evening before they go to bed, when they are too tired to do something else. Would such time really be spent any more productively making an attempt at learning Spanish or knitting?

There's also of course the fact that appreciating aesthetics is an entirely valid past-time, and watching a show allows you to engage with its themes and quality in discussions with other people.

If you're spending 10 hours on a Saturday uncritically watching reality television, you need desperate help and point one definitely applies to you, but it doesn't really apply universally.

Again, point two only really applies to people who are thinking about a film uncritically. It took me six hours to watch Fight Club because I kept pausing the film to think about the story and its themes and characters. I'd also say that the type of tribalism he speaks of existed for so long before film that its a bit silly to attribute it to film, especially when I'd say that film is a good medium for creating empathy for people unlike you. If you leave a film feeling more tribalistic, either the director intended as much, or you felt the message of the film was hostile to you personally. There's also the fact that many famous literary authors have avoided internal monologues while writing in a way that could communicate a characters thoughts and intentions without obviously stating them out to the reader. This is called subtext, and is used in both books and films.

Point three is valid, but applies to technology in general - regardless of what kind of entertainment we desire, it is more easily accessible than ever. Books, music, film, video games - at the end of the day they are all a handful of button presses away.

Point four is essentially point two, but applied more generally and with more philosophical wording. Obviously, there are films that are essentially designed around empty spectacle - Transformers is a good example. There are plenty of films, however, that actually want the viewer to be engaged with and think about what is going on.

Honestly, all you really need to do to point out how TV is bad is to say that its addicting and that much of it is designed to hook you in and maximize your consumption of TV rather than to provide high quality aesthetic value or to communicate interesting themes.
 

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