TV as an indicator...

[mmotyka at lsil.com]

> 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
> 
yup, $ not gas, but it is not necessarily wrong to be looking for subtle
themes that might inadvertently disclose a deeper illness.
 
> 
> 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.
> > 
> >[snip]
> >
> > 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
> >
Maybe these things exist as undercurrents in all societies and
occasionally they swirl a bit, setting loose a bit of swamp gas.
Sometimes the whole pond turns over bringing all sorts of stinking muck
to the surface.

Maybe it's disturbing to recognize these undercurrents in the smiling,
happy place you call home but they've been there all along.

Mike