I don't understand people who villify it and blanketly say, "TV rots your brain." Some of my favorite memories involve watching TV with Jay and friends. I guess anything done to excess is bad but why is reading considered so much more proper of an activity? If you are relaxing after work, what's the difference what you do for fun? "Oh, you're not getting exercise," or "You aren't using your imagination." Bull pucky. I have a better imagination because of what I've been able to see on TV than what I can muster only in my small window of experience. And many people would/wouldn't exercise regardless of their TV watching. When I lived in Luxembourg and the TV wasn't in English, I really missed it. Did I find other things to do? Yep. If given the choice, though, I like watching something in the evening to wind down before bed and hate that many people, including the media itself, want to make me feel guilty about it. It's also very nice to watch a show while folding laundry or peeling potatoes. Oh, and I let the kids watch their fill, too. They naturally do other things as well. It's not the forbidden fruit and it shouldn't be. Just my two cents.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
TV is not the devil
Isn't it weird how TV gets a bad rap; most people would say not to watch much and yet we all do? I think TV is the best thing since sliced bread. We can see a country without ever going there. We can watch movies and be moved. We can learn about the news. Investigative news exposes corruption. We can just be plain entertained. And there is always the escape factor. What's not to like?
I don't understand people who villify it and blanketly say, "TV rots your brain." Some of my favorite memories involve watching TV with Jay and friends. I guess anything done to excess is bad but why is reading considered so much more proper of an activity? If you are relaxing after work, what's the difference what you do for fun? "Oh, you're not getting exercise," or "You aren't using your imagination." Bull pucky. I have a better imagination because of what I've been able to see on TV than what I can muster only in my small window of experience. And many people would/wouldn't exercise regardless of their TV watching. When I lived in Luxembourg and the TV wasn't in English, I really missed it. Did I find other things to do? Yep. If given the choice, though, I like watching something in the evening to wind down before bed and hate that many people, including the media itself, want to make me feel guilty about it. It's also very nice to watch a show while folding laundry or peeling potatoes. Oh, and I let the kids watch their fill, too. They naturally do other things as well. It's not the forbidden fruit and it shouldn't be. Just my two cents.
I don't understand people who villify it and blanketly say, "TV rots your brain." Some of my favorite memories involve watching TV with Jay and friends. I guess anything done to excess is bad but why is reading considered so much more proper of an activity? If you are relaxing after work, what's the difference what you do for fun? "Oh, you're not getting exercise," or "You aren't using your imagination." Bull pucky. I have a better imagination because of what I've been able to see on TV than what I can muster only in my small window of experience. And many people would/wouldn't exercise regardless of their TV watching. When I lived in Luxembourg and the TV wasn't in English, I really missed it. Did I find other things to do? Yep. If given the choice, though, I like watching something in the evening to wind down before bed and hate that many people, including the media itself, want to make me feel guilty about it. It's also very nice to watch a show while folding laundry or peeling potatoes. Oh, and I let the kids watch their fill, too. They naturally do other things as well. It's not the forbidden fruit and it shouldn't be. Just my two cents.
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4 comments:
Television rocks the house man! I do hate that pressure sometimes to act all highbrow and poo-poo it. Pretty much every parenting meeting or church meeting I have been too, there seems to be this "given" that we should all nod our heads in agreement when someone says television is the source of all evil. Give me a break. I'd rather have a childhood of too much TV than one where I get physically beat up or totally neglected. And that's the truthers.
TV’s no more evil than fire. They’re either good or bad depending on how they’re used and whether or not you control them or they control you.
Fire lets us forge tools and get to the moon or it can burn our house down with us in it.
TV can be educational and entertaining, taking us places and showing us things most of us would never see otherwise, or it can become an addiction just like anything else.
Anything good, including religion, can become bad. The people who get all self-righteous about TV don’t have a leg to stand on. “People in glass houses…” We all have our little addictions, our little idols; I have books – doesn’t all that reading make me so smart and superior? Hardly, especially when reading becomes another way to avoid something more important.
I like TV and it’s a great way for us and the kids to have fun and learn some amazing things, but there was a time when the TV was my primary method of escape from the world. I definitely used it to distract and numb my mind away from the pain and responsibility of life. Does that make the TV evil? Of course not.
What is this thing I’m doing? And is it life-giving or life-inhibiting? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference (like working for the church!) Bottom line, nobody can make that decision for someone else. There may be some general guidelines, but the details are deeply personal.
Wow Mr. Rattus, you wrote a lot of good stuff there. Since I have read no books in the last year, I would like to count your post as a book I have read, haha. Your answer takes things out of the realm of simple, soundbyte answers. Therefore, it is likely true. But utterly unuseable in social discussions. Who has the time for introspection these days? Hee.
That just jogged my memory - this is kind of unrelated to anything else though. I've been meaning to write about how "America's Greatest Generation" (the World War II veterans), strike me as somewhat of a paradox. Their sacrifice and committment was unparalleled, as was their work ethic after the war. The downside? Almost all of them strike me as not having an introspective bone in their body. Did Socrates not say the unexamined life is not worth living??! That's why I don't trust some of these people.
Just like the X-Files taught us...TRUST NO ONE! :)
“takes things out of the realm of simple, soundbyte answers. Therefore, it is…utterly unusable in social discussions. Who has the time for introspection these days?”
Too true. How sad is that? Time magazine had an article on whether Obama was shooting himself in the political foot by being overly honest and forthright. People don’t want to hear the “incontinent truth” they want easy answers and simple resolutions; which is somewhat of a contrast with "America's Greatest Generation".
Don’t get me started on the name “Greatest Generation”. I find that not only simplistic and maudlin, but down right insulting to all those who came before and after. They’re generation did a lot of impressive things, but like everyone else, their greatest strengths also tended to be their greatest weaknesses. They were/are only human and we need to see them in the light of what they did well and what they totally screwed up if we’re to truly learn anything.
It’s the simplistic, easy, emotional-based, pseudo-answers that drive me nuts! That is NOT what our country needs anymore!!!
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