At 04:57 PM 1/23/97 -0800, Alan Bostick wrote:

In the Jan. 20, 1997, issue of THE NEW YORKER, the "Comment", written by Malcolm Gladwell, makes a powerful arguement about the unintended consequences of the V-Chip, the programmable device to be included in next-generation television sets sold in the US that supposedly will allow parents to control their children's access to sex and violence on TV.

While I think it's always useful to consider unintended (or otherwise unexpected) consequences, Gladwell's argument sent a shiver down my spine with its shameless paternalism. This bit (from roughly the middle of his piece) is what I found creepiest: "According to one recent study, somewhere between twenty and twenty-seven per cent of the parents of four-to six-year-olds never restrict their children's viewing hours, never decide what programs they can watch, never change the channel when something objectionable comes on, and never forbid the watching of certain programs. It has apparently never occurred to these parents that television can be a bad influence, and it strains credulity to think that the advent of the V-chip is going to wake them up. Yet their families - mainly lower-income, ill-educated - are the very ones most in need of protection from television violence. Here is a rearranging effect with a vengeance: not only does the V-chip make television worse, it makes television worse precisely for those already most vulnerable to its excesses." I understood Gladwell's point to be, in essence, that the V-chip will allow TV producers to generate higher levels of morally impure content which he fears will pollute the minds of poor children because their parents are too stupid to protect them from the harmful content and too poor to buy new televisions which will include V-chips. While I think 95% of broadcast TV is crap which isn't worth the time expended watching it, even reading arguments like "poor people should be protected from harmful ideas they're too stupid (or too poorly educated) to avoid and too poor to purchase protection from" makes me feel dirty. I don't think Gladwell is, in any meaningful way, an opponent of government control of speech/expression - he's just an opponent of inefficient or optional forms of government control of speech/expression. He's a reasonable writer, but he's chosen to use his powers for evil instead of for good. (Some of his work is available on the web; apparently he once worked as a reporter for the Washington Post and is now on the staff of the New Yorker.) -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles@netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |