ET COGNOSCETIS VERITATEM ET VERITAS LIBERABIT VOS
SLUH REVIEW Vol. 1 Issue 4
A journal of Faith, thought, and civics
Soul-Numbing Brain-Washing Rays of Distraction By Logan W. Hayward, Junior Editor
November 17, 2009
audience is. People do not set aside time in their schedule to watch TV programs; they turn on their set when they are bored. They do not hire babysitters to watch their children while they are watching television, as they would if they were going to see a play or musical performance. If people use television as a cure for boredom, as they inevitably will, and television producers know this, then these producers will create shows to catch the lazy eye of an easily-distracted viewer, not an inquisitive soul. This feeds into the deadly cycle of boredom: people looking for distractions turn on the television, and the more they watch television programs, the more distracted they become!
Most of the articles thus far published in the SLUH Review have dealt with the true function of government and/or capitalism. In other words, these articles have only dealt with the (very important) question of what the government should do or not do. I wager that all of our writers so far would desire a life where people focused less on issues of government and more on issues of religion, friendship, and wealth production. If the SLUH Review is a journal of “Faith, Thought, and Civics”, we writers should not just focus on civics (even if it is very fun)! I want to develop lifestyle recommendations that would lead people to practicing the Catholic faith and a good work ethic. So, I’ll examine a relevant lifestyle question: should people own television sets?
Yes, there are enlightening, informative, and truly funny shows on television, but I venture that for every precocious child watching Mythbusters or CSPAN, there are several more watching preposterous satire shows which turn their minds into rapacious vessels, constantly searching for oneliners and sarcastic barbs to throw at their parents and friends. I am no innocent observer of this—I’ve interrupted my friends and elders plenty of times before, and I think that my excessive viewing of television shows is a big cause of that.
Living without a television set is a radical proposal for affluent, middle class, and poor Americans—in fact, it is hard for me not to concede that television shows create a common ground for people. A rich man and a poor man, thanks in large part to television, can cheer for the same baseball team, tune in to the same character’s problems, and learn about the same scientific facts and historical records. Why should anyone give up such an egalitarian instrument? My answer: what good is it if people are watching the same shows if the shows are frivolous? Rich and poor people alike may enjoy watching silly reality shows, but would that really bing them together for anything positive?
I might seem to be arguing against a function of a capitalist economy, namely, entertainment, but I am really addressing an apparent paradox in the nature of capitalism: it can engender socialism! The more people earn, the more money and time they will (usually) have to spend on consumption, instead of production. If they spend much time consuming entertainment in a lazy fashion, they will lose the incentive to work, and will become much more cozy with schemes for government handouts, and lose sight of the founding doctrines of this constitutional republic. The leisure market has become a huge industry, in stark contrast to the small band of avant-garde composers and performers who produced the bulk of entertainment in years past. This leads me to predict that people
I assume that it is true that many people spend their television time watching educational shows. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with watching lectures or documentaries, but there is something intrinsically undesirable in the very nature of television. Television sets project noise and/or pictures to an audience no matter where the -1-