It is very hard to explain what is wrong with watching television. It seems like such a harmless pleasure -- an escape from everyday problems. And when people say it, TV, instills the wrong values, it is hard to explain what values, what wrong values, it instills.
As usual, a couple of quotations made me see clearly what I could not see --they articulated for me what I could not articulate. “Television is anti-life because everything on television -- and in movies -- sees progress as seeking material possessions and freedom as endless irresponsible pleasure.”
Think about it. Every single human being we see on television and in the movies sees progress as seeking material possessions -- and I'm not even focusing on the ads. Of course the ads focus on material possessions -- but the people in the sitcoms -- indeed in all the shows, see progress as material possessions. Beautiful clothes, beautiful cars, beautiful houses -- that's all we see on TV -- and we want it -- me included. How could we not want the yachts and the restaurants and the flashy cars: they seem like the good life to us.
As another quotation says, “Acquisition means life to miserable mortals.” We all focus on acquiring, on getting, on having -- it has become all of life. And as that quotation goes on to say, the people within a consumer society are prisoners of addiction, prisoners of envy. One never has enough material possessions -- we are addicted to buying, and we are constantly envious of others who seem to have more than we have.
And television parades that before our eyes daily -- gorgeous women, gorgeous cars, gorgeous homes -- and we want them, and we are addicted to acquisition--which is a miserable life to mortals.
But it is not only acquisition, seeking material possessions, that is emphasized on TV. All those party movies, and animal house movies show freedom as endless irresponsible pleasure. There is no sense of communal obligation, societal obligation, global obligation shown on TV. What we see as freedom is endless, irresponsible pleasure.
But why am I preaching? I do not mean to preach -- I am trying to explain what is wrong with television. Television seems harmless -- it is just entertainment -- it is just a way of getting away from the daily grind that is so terrible. But it is television that is terrible. Insidiously, quietly, it is instilling a way of life -- it is fashioning our values: progress has become seeking material possessions, and children are being taught that freedom is endless irresponsible pleasure. That is what is wrong with TV -- but what we can do about that I don't know -- but I do know, now, why I dislike TV so.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein