1984: Thread

[grarpamp]

Humilitainment: How To Control The Citizenry Through Reality TV Distractions

This is mind-control in its most sinister form.

The following suggestions will help you better understand the nature of TV news.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/humilitainment_how_to_control_the_citizenry_through_reality_tv_distractions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

    “Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by
ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural
life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious
public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a
people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act,
then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear
possibility.”

    - Professor Neil Postman

Once again, the programming has changed.

Like clockwork, the wall-to-wall news coverage of the latest crisis
has shifted gears.

We have gone from COVID-19 lockdowns to Trump-Biden election drama to
the Russia-Ukraine crisis to the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation
hearings to Will Smith’s on-camera assault of comedian Chris Rock at
the Academy Awards Ceremony.

The distractions, distortions, and political theater just keep coming.

The ongoing reality show that is life in the American police state
feeds the citizenry’s voracious appetite for titillating, soap opera
drama.

Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman
Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged
television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the
political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into
a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize,
propagandize and control a population.

This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for
politics today: as long as we are distracted, entertained,
occasionally outraged, always polarized but largely uninvolved and
content to remain in the viewer’s seat, we’ll never manage to present
a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and
ineptitude) in any form.

The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back
in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active
participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold.

We don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter
becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers
(the corporate media).

“Living is easy with eyes closed,” observed John Lennon, and that’s
exactly what reality TV that masquerades as American politics programs
the citizenry to do: navigate the world with their eyes shut.

As long as we’re viewers, we’ll never be doers.

Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would
posit that it’s all reality TV, entertainment news included—the more
difficult it becomes to distinguish between what is real and what is
carefully crafted farce.

“We the people” are watching a lot of TV.

On average, Americans spend five hours a day watching television. By
the time we reach age 65, we’re watching more than 50 hours of
television a week, and that number increases as we get older. And
reality TV programming consistently captures the largest percentage of
TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.

This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through
masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the
issues of the day, whether it’s fake news peddled by government
agencies or foreign entities.

Those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the
“norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression
and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable and
entertaining but also mimic the medium.

This holds true whether the reality programming is about the antics of
celebrities in the White House, in the board room, or in the bedroom.

It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment.”

A term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker,
“humilitainment” refers to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure
in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain.

“Humilitainment” largely explains not only why American TV watchers
are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens,
largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around
them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions,
are being programmed to accept the government’s brutality,
surveillance and dehumanizing treatment as things happening to other
people.

The ramifications for the future of civic engagement, political
discourse and self-government are incredibly depressing and
demoralizing.

This explains how we keep getting saddled with leaders in government
who are clueless about the Constitution and out-of-touch with the
needs of the people they were appointed to represent.

This is also what happens when an entire nation—bombarded by reality
TV programming, government propaganda and entertainment news—becomes
systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of a
government that operates by fiat and speaks in a language of force.

Ultimately, the reality shows, the entertainment news, the
surveillance society, the militarized police, and the political
spectacles have one common objective: to keep us divided, distracted,
imprisoned, and incapable of taking an active role in the business of
self-government.

Look behind the political spectacles, the reality TV theatrics, the
sleight-of-hand distractions and diversions, and the stomach-churning,
nail-biting drama, and you will find there is a method to the madness.

We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully
orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a
population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from
the citizenry.

This is mind-control in its most sinister form.

How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the
words they use.

In totalitarian regimes where conformity and compliance are enforced
at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and
cannot be used.

In countries where tyranny hides behind a benevolent mask and
disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves,
policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the
mass mind.

Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of
societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism,
condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably,
the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination, infantilism,
the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run
counter to the cultural elite.

As George Orwell recognized, “In times of universal deceit, telling
the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Orwell understood only too well the power of language to manipulate the masses.

In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and
unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely
rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.” In this dystopian vision
of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big
Brother, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the
Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and
starvation), the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture
and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news,
entertainment, education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania:
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Orwell’s Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable
words, strip such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make
independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary.

Where we stand now is at the juncture of Oldspeak (where words have
meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that
which is “safe” and “accepted” by the majority is permitted).

Truth is often lost when we fail to distinguish between opinion and
fact, and that is the danger we now face as a society. Anyone who
relies exclusively on television/cable news hosts and political
commentators for actual knowledge of the world is making a serious
mistake.

Unfortunately, since Americans have by and large become non-readers,
television has become their prime source of so-called “news.” This
reliance on TV news has given rise to such popular news personalities
who draw in vast audiences that virtually hang on their every word.

In our media age, these are the new powers-that-be.

Yet while these personalities often dispense the news like preachers
used to dispense religion, with power and certainty, they are little
more than conduits for propaganda and advertisements delivered in the
guise of entertainment and news.

Given the preponderance of news-as-entertainment programming, it’s no
wonder that viewers have largely lost the ability to think critically
and analytically and differentiate between truth and propaganda,
especially when delivered by way of fake news criers and politicians.

While television news cannot—and should not—be completely avoided, the
following suggestions will help you better understand the nature of TV
news.

1. TV news is not what happened. Rather, it is what someone thinks is
worth reporting. Although there are still some good TV journalists,
the old art of investigative reporting has largely been lost. While
viewers are often inclined to take what is reported by television
“news” hosts at face value, it is your responsibility to judge and
analyze what is reported.

2. TV news is entertainment. There is a reason why the programs you
watch are called news “shows.” It’s a signal that the so-called news
is being delivered as a form of entertainment. “In the case of most
news shows,” write Neil Postman and Steve Powers in their insightful
book, How to Watch TV News (1992), “the package includes attractive
anchors, an exciting musical theme, comic relief, stories placed to
hold the audience, the creation of the illusion of intimacy, and so
on.”

Of course, the point of all this glitz and glamour is to keep you
glued to the set so that a product can be sold to you. (Even the TV
news hosts get in on the action by peddling their own products,
everything from their latest books to mugs and bathrobes.) Although
the news items spoon-fed to you may have some value, they are
primarily a commodity to gather an audience, which will in turn be
sold to advertisers.

3. Never underestimate the power of commercials, especially to news
audiences. In an average household, the television set is on over
seven hours a day. Most people, believing themselves to be in control
of their media consumption, are not really bothered by this. But TV is
a two-way attack: it not only delivers programming to your home, it
also delivers you (the consumer) to a sponsor.

People who watch the news tend to be more attentive, educated and have
more money to spend. They are, thus, a prime market for advertisers.
And sponsors spend millions on well-produced commercials. Such
commercials are often longer in length than most news stories and cost
more to produce than the news stories themselves. Moreover, the
content of many commercials, which often contradicts the messages of
the news stories, cannot be ignored. Most commercials are aimed at
prurient interests in advocating sex, overindulgence, drugs, etc.,
which has a demoralizing effect on viewers, especially children.

4. It is vitally important to learn about the economic and political
interests of those who own the “corporate” media.

There are few independent news sources anymore. The major news outlets
are owned by corporate empires.

5. Pay special attention to the language of newscasts. Because film
footage and other visual imagery are so engaging on TV news shows,
viewers are apt to allow language—what the reporter is saying about
the images—to go unexamined. A TV news host’s language frames the
pictures, and, therefore, the meaning we derive from the picture is
often determined by the host’s commentary. TV by its very nature
manipulates viewers. One must never forget that every television
minute has been edited. The viewer does not see the actual event but
the edited form of the event. For example, presenting a one- to
two-minute segment from a two-hour political speech and having a TV
talk show host critique may be disingenuous, but such edited footage
is a regular staple on news shows. Add to that the fact that the
reporters editing the film have a subjective view—sometimes determined
by their corporate bosses—that enters in.

6. Reduce by at least one-half the amount of TV news you watch. TV
news generally consists of “bad” news—wars, torture, murders, scandals
and so forth. It cannot possibly do you any harm to excuse yourself
each week from much of the mayhem projected at you on the news. Do not
form your concept of reality based on television. TV news, it must be
remembered, does not reflect normal everyday life. Studies indicate
that a heavy viewing of TV news makes people think the world is much
more dangerous than it actually is.

7. One of the reasons many people are addicted to watching TV news is
that they feel they must have an opinion on almost everything, which
gives the illusion of participation in American life. But an “opinion”
is all that we can gain from TV news because it only presents the most
rudimentary and fragmented information on anything. Thus, on most
issues we don’t really know much about what is actually going on. And,
of course, we are expected to take what the TV news host says on an
issue as gospel truth. But isn’t it better to think for yourself? Add
to this that we need to realize that we often don’t have enough
information from the “news” source to form a true opinion. How can
that be done? Study a broad variety of sources, carefully analyze
issues in order to be better informed, and question everything.

The bottom line is simply this: Americans should beware of letting
others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators
or media corporations—do their thinking for them.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the
American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair
Diaries, a populace that cannot think for themselves is a populace
with its backs to the walls: mute in the face of elected officials who
refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality,
powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat
us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of
government surveillance that sees and hears all.

It’s time to change the channel, tune out the reality TV show, and
push back against the real menace of the police state.

If not, if we continue to sit back and lose ourselves in political
programming, we will remain a captive audience to a farce that grows
more absurd by the minute.