I turned on a television set last night, for the first time in many months. I was watching videotapes, but I caught fragments of shows while tapes were rewinding, etc. American TV has taken a definite turn for the vicious since I last watched. It's still pablum-and-opiates, but someone has spiked it. We're seeing an increasing focus on elitism, "survival of the fittest", etc -- shows that present the "elimination" of the weak as a virtue, and where game-show hosts masquerading as intellectuals intentionally humiliate contestants. We are seing a separation of moral responsibility from action and being conditioned to accept viciousness in authority figures. We are also being conditioned to accept the idea that some form of pseudo-intellectual "correctness" excuses viciousness. The tone is very similar to "entertainment" or "public education" films that were produced by the propaganda arm of the german National Socialist party in 1936-1938, which I remember from school but which folk in Germany, or those who attend current-day American schools, will not recognize due to censorship. We forget history, believing that this will prevent us from repeating it rather than the other way round.... The progression was reasonably simple, as I recall. First, the people are conditioned to accept "harsh reality", survival of the fittest, etc. Second, the people are conditioned to accept that, these things being inevitable, hurrying them along is a virtue. Third, some class of people are identified as being "inferior" and pseudoscience upholding the claim is advanced. The shows I saw last night were deep into the second stage, and universal public monitoring is now more pervasive here than it was then and there, and our schools are raising a generation of people who think monitoring and draconian weapons laws are normal, and ideas not "politically correct" are being persecuted as vigorously here as they were in Nazi Germany. The parallels continue... The "new media must be controlled" of that era was radio and television -- now it's the internet. Same basic debates going on -- most of the same outcomes happening. I am scared. Bear
I remember seeing the Nazi agitprop films during anthropology classes in college. I'm not saying that modern TV is particularly splendid. But at the producers are capitalists trying to maximize ratings (and sex and insults may do that), not murderous government officials trying to justify mass extinction. -Declan On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 09:20:32AM -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
I turned on a television set last night, for the first time in many months. I was watching videotapes, but I caught fragments of shows while tapes were rewinding, etc.
American TV has taken a definite turn for the vicious since I last watched. It's still pablum-and-opiates, but someone has spiked it.
We're seeing an increasing focus on elitism, "survival of the fittest", etc -- shows that present the "elimination" of the weak as a virtue, and where game-show hosts masquerading as intellectuals intentionally humiliate contestants. We are seing a separation of moral responsibility from action and being conditioned to accept viciousness in authority figures. We are also being conditioned to accept the idea that some form of pseudo-intellectual "correctness" excuses viciousness.
The tone is very similar to "entertainment" or "public education" films that were produced by the propaganda arm of the german National Socialist party in 1936-1938, which I remember from school but which folk in Germany, or those who attend current-day American schools, will not recognize due to censorship. We forget history, believing that this will prevent us from repeating it rather than the other way round....
The progression was reasonably simple, as I recall.
First, the people are conditioned to accept "harsh reality", survival of the fittest, etc. Second, the people are conditioned to accept that, these things being inevitable, hurrying them along is a virtue. Third, some class of people are identified as being "inferior" and pseudoscience upholding the claim is advanced.
The shows I saw last night were deep into the second stage, and universal public monitoring is now more pervasive here than it was then and there, and our schools are raising a generation of people who think monitoring and draconian weapons laws are normal, and ideas not "politically correct" are being persecuted as vigorously here as they were in Nazi Germany.
The parallels continue... The "new media must be controlled" of that era was radio and television -- now it's the internet. Same basic debates going on -- most of the same outcomes happening.
I am scared.
Bear
At 9:20 AM -0700 7/9/01, Ray Dillinger wrote:
I turned on a television set last night, for the first time in many months. I was watching videotapes, but I caught fragments of shows while tapes were rewinding, etc.
American TV has taken a definite turn for the vicious since I last watched. It's still pablum-and-opiates, but someone has spiked it.
"Let's kick it up a notch!"
We're seeing an increasing focus on elitism, "survival of the fittest", etc -- shows that present the "elimination" of the weak as a virtue, and where game-show hosts masquerading as intellectuals intentionally humiliate contestants.
Yes, quite a refreshing trend.
We are seing a separation of moral responsibility from action and being conditioned to accept viciousness in authority figures.
That British woman who says "You ARE the weakest link. Good-bye!" is not an authority figure by any sense of being a state functionary. People compete in the show, as in all of the other shows you are presumably catching snippets of, on a voluntary basis. (Note: I have never seen an episode of "Survivor," "Boot Camp," or "Weakest Link." I did watch the first episode of "Big Brother" last summer, figuring it might be germane to my interests in privacy and surveillance, but it was too boring to watch for a second hour.)
The tone is very similar to "entertainment" or "public education" films that were produced by the propaganda arm of the german National Socialist party in 1936-1938, which I remember from school but which folk in Germany, or those who attend current-day American schools, will not recognize due to censorship. We forget history, believing that this will prevent us from repeating it rather than the other way round....
Calling these shows comparable to what the Nazis did is ludicrous.
The progression was reasonably simple, as I recall.
First, the people are conditioned to accept "harsh reality", survival of the fittest, etc.
Teaching people this fact might do wonders for getting ten million leeches off the welfare rolls and state subsidy scams, so I applaud it.
Third, some class of people are identified as being "inferior" and pseudoscience upholding the claim is advanced.
The dull are just that, dull. Not pseudoscience, but fact.
I am scared.
You ARE the weakest link. Good-bye! --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
The progression was reasonably simple, as I recall.
First, the people are conditioned to accept "harsh reality", survival of the fittest, etc.
Teaching people this fact might do wonders for getting ten million leeches off the welfare rolls and state subsidy scams, so I applaud it.
No argument there. But:
Third, some class of people are identified as being "inferior" and pseudoscience upholding the claim is advanced.
The dull are just that, dull. Not pseudoscience, but fact.
That depends on how characteristics one uses to classify people. If it is on the basis of "Dullness" (mental or otherwise), then it is not pseudoscience. If one were, however, to classify all gun owners as ignorant rednecks, white supremacists or gang bangers based on a "fully scientific study" carried out under the auspices of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and that these individuals needed re-education in order to be fully reintegrated into modern society, would you say the same thing? -- http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense.
participants (4)
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Declan McCullagh -
petro -
Ray Dillinger -
Tim May