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
