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421 lines
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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IS THIS AN UNTAMPERED FILE?
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This ASCII-file version of Imprimis, On Line was
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packaged by Applied Foresight, Inc. (AFI hereafter).
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Every AFI-packaged ASCII version of Imprimis is
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distributed in an "-AV protected" ZIP file format.
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"AV" is the authenticity verification feature provided
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to registered PKZIP users, which Applied Foresight,
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Inc., is. If you are using the MS-DOS PKUNZIP.EXE
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program written by PKWARE Inc. and do not see the "-AV"
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message after every file is unzipped AND receive the
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message "Authentic files Verified! # JAA646 ZIP
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Source: Applied Foresight Inc. (CIS 71510,1042)" when
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you unzip this file then do not trust it's integrity.
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If your version of PKUNZIP is not the PKWARE-authored
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program (for instance, you are running a non-MS-DOS
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version), then this message may not be displayed.
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Trust only genuine AFI-packaged archives ... anything
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else may be just that: ANYTHING ELSE.
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Imprimis, On Line -- February 1992
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Imprimis, meaning "in the first place," is a free
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monthly publication of Hillsdale College (circulation
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360,000 worldwide). Hillsdale College is a liberal arts
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institution known for its defense of free market
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principles and Western culture and its nearly 150-year
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refusal to accept federal funds. Imprimis publishes
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lectures by such well-known figures as Ronald Reagan,
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Jeane Kirkpatrick, Tom Wolfe, Charlton Heston, and many
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more. Permission to reprint is hereby granted, provided
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credit is given to Hillsdale College. Copyright 1992.
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For more information on free print subscriptions or
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back issues, call 1-800-437-2268, or 1-517-439-1524,
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ext. 2319.
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-------------------------
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"Television: The Cyclops That Eats Books"
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by Larry Woiwode, Best Selling Author
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-------------------------
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Volume 21, Number 2
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Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
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February 1992
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-------------------------
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Preview: Once, radio was called "the treadmill to
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oblivion." Novelist Larry Woiwode reminds us that
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television has even greater potential for harm. On
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campus last February for Hillsdale's Center for
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Constructive Alternatives seminar, "Freedom,
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Responsibility and the American Literary Tradition,"
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Woiwode, best-selling author of The Neumiller Stories
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and other contemporary fiction, vividly described the
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profound changes wrought by this modern "Cyclops."
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-------------------------
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What is destroying America today is not the liberal
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breed of one-world politicians, or the IMF bankers, or
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the misguided educational elite, or the World Council
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of Churches; these are largely symptoms of a greater
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disorder. If there is any single institution to blame,
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it is, to use the cozy diminutive, "TV."
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TV is more than a medium; it has become a full-
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fledged institution, backed by billions of dollars each
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season. Its producers want us to sit in front of its
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glazed-over electronic screen, press our clutch of
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discernment through the floorboards, and sit in a
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spangled, zoned-out state ("couch potatoes," in current
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parlance) while we are instructed in the proper liberal
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tone and attitude by our present-day Plato and
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Aristotle--Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw. These television
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celebrities have more temporal power than the teachings
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of Aristotle and Plato have built up over the
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centuries.
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Television, in fact, has greater power over the
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lives of most Americans than any educational system or
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government or church. Children are particularly
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susceptible. They are mesmerized, hypnotized and
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tranquilized by TV. It is often the center of their
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world; even when the set is turned off, they continue
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to tell stories about what they've seen on it. No
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wonder, then, that as adults they are not prepared for
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the front line of life; they simply have no mental
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defenses to confront the reality of the world.
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The Truth About TV
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One of the most disturbing truths about TV is that it
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eats books.
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Once out of school, nearly 60 percent of all adult
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Americans have never read a single book, and most of
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the rest read only one book a year. Alvin Kernan,
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author of The Death of Literature, says that reading
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books "is ceasing to be the primary way of knowing
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something in our society." He also points out that
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bachelor's degrees in English literature have declined
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by 33 percent in the last 20 years and that in many
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universities the courses are largely reduced to
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remedial reading. American libraries, he adds, are in
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crisis, with few patrons to support them.
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Thousands of teachers at the elementary, secondary
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and college levels can testify that their students'
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writing exhibits a tendency toward a superficiality
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that wasn't seen, say, ten or fifteen years ago. It
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shows up not only in the students' lack of analytical
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skills but in their poor command of grammar and
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rhetoric. I've been asked by a graduate student what a
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semicolon is. The mechanics of the English language
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have been tortured to pieces by TV. Visual, moving
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images--which are the venue of television--can't be
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held in the net of careful language. They want to break
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out. They really have nothing to do with language. So
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language, grammar and rhetoric have become fractured.
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Recent surveys by dozens of organizations also
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suggest that up to 40 percent of the American public is
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functionally illiterate; that is, our citizens' reading
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and writing abilities, if they have any, are so
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seriously impaired as to render them, in that handy
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jargon of our times, "dysfunctional." The problem isn't
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just in our schools or in the way reading is taught: TV
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teaches people not to read. It renders them incapable
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of engaging in an art that is now perceived as
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strenuous, because it is an active art, not a passive
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hypnotized state.
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Passive as it is, television has invaded our
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culture so completely that you see its effects in every
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quarter, even in the literary world. It shows up in
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supermarket paperbacks, from Stephen King (who has a
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certain clever skill) to pulp fiction. These are really
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forms of verbal TV--literature that is so superficial
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that those who read it can revel in the same sensations
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they experience when they are watching TV.
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Even more importantly, the growing influence of
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television has, Kernan says, changed people's habits
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and values and affected their assumptions about the
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world. The sort of reflective, critical and value-laden
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thinking encouraged by books has been rendered
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obsolete. In this context, we would do well to recall
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the Cyclopes--the race of giants that, according to
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Greek myth, predated man.
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Here is a passage from the well known classicist
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Edith Hamilton's summary of the encounter between the
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mythic adventurer Odysseus and the Cyclops named
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Polyphemus, as Odysseus is on his way home from the
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Trojan Wars. Odysseus and his crew have found
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Polyphemus's cave:
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"At last he came, hideous and huge, tall as a
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great mountain crag. Driving his flock before him he
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entered and closed the cave's mouth with a ponderous
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slab of stone. Then looking around he caught sight
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of the strangers, and cried out in a dreadful
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booming voice, 'Who are you who enter unbidden the
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house of Polyphemus? Traders or thieving pirates?'
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They were terror-stricken at the sight and sound of
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him, but Odysseus made shift to answer, and firmly
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too: 'Shipwrecked warriors from Troy are we, and
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your supplicants, under the protection of Zeus, the
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supplicants' god.' But Polyphemus roared out that he
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cared not for Zeus. He was bigger than any god and
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feared none of them. With that, he stretched out his
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mighty arms and in each great hand seized one of the
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men and dashed his brains out on the ground. Slowly
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he feasted off them to the last shred, and then,
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satisfied, stretched himself out across the cavern
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and slept. He was safe from attack. None but he
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could roll back the huge stone before the door, and
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if the horrified men had been able to summon courage
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and strength enough to kill him they would have been
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imprisoned there forever."
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To discover their fate, read the book, preferably
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Robert Fitzgerald's masterful translation, if you don't
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know Greek. What I find particularly appropriate about
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this myth as it applies today is that, first, the
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Cyclops imprisons these men in darkness, and that,
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second, he beats their brains out before he devours
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them. It doesn't take much imagination to apply this to
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the effects of TV on us and our children.
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TV's Effect on Learning
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Quite literally, TV affects the way people think. In
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Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
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(1978), Jerry Mander quotes from the Emery Report,
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prepared by the Center for Continuing Education at the
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Australian National University, Canberra, that when we
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watch television, "our usual processes of thinking and
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discernment are semi-functional at best." The study
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also argues "...that while television appears to have
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the potential to provide useful information to viewers-
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-and is celebrated for its educational function--the
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technology of television and the inherent nature of the
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viewing experience actually inhibit learning as we
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usually think of it." And its final judgment is: "The
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evidence is that television not only destroys the
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capacity of the viewer to attend, it also, by taking
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over a complex of direct and indirect neural pathways,
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decreases vigilance-- the general state of arousal
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which prepares the organism for action should its
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attention be drawn to a specific stimulus."
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We have all experienced this last reaction: "Dad,
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it's time to--"
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"Go on, get out of here!"
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"But Dad, Mom just fell down the--"
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"Leave me alone, can't you see I'm watching the
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Super Bowl?"
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How are our neural pathways taken over? We think
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we are looking at a picture, or an image of something,
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but what we are actually seeing is thousands of dots of
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light blinking on and off in a strobe effect that is
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calculated to happen rapidly enough to keep us from
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recognizing the phenomenon. More than a decade ago,
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Mander and others pointed to instances of "TV
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epilepsy," in which those watching this strobe effect
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overextended their capacities, and the New England
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Journal of Medicine recently honored this affliction
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with a medical classification: video game epilepsy.
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Shadows on the Screen
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Television also teaches that people aren't quite real;
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they are images--gray-and-white shadows or technicolor
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little beings who move in a medium no thicker than a
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sliver of glass, created by this bombardment of
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electrons.
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Unfortunately, the tendency is to start thinking
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of them in the way children think when they see too
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many cartoons: that people are merely objects that can
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be zapped. Or that can fall over a cliff and be smashed
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to smithereens and pick themselves up again. This
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contentless violence of cartoons has no basis in
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reality. Actual people aren't images but substantial,
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physical, corporeal beings with souls.
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And, of course, the violence on television
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engenders violence; there have been too many studies
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substantiating this to suggest otherwise. One that has
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been going on for 30 years, begun by the psychologist
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Leonard Eron, began research on 875 8-year-olds in New
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York state. Analyzing parental childrearing practices
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and aggressiveness in school, Eron discovered that the
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determining factor is the amount of TV parents permit
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their children to watch.
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Eron's present partner in this extensive on-going
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study, University of Illinois professor of psychology
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Rowell Huesmann, has written:
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"When the research was started in 1960, television
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viewing was not a major focus. But in 1970, in the 10-
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year follow-up, one of the best predictions we could
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find of aggressive behavior in a teenage boy was how
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much violence he watched as a child. In 1981, we found
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that the adults who had been convicted of the most
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serious crimes were those same ones who had been the
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more aggressive teenagers, and who had watched the most
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television violence as children."
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Where is this report? Buried in an alumni
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publication of the University of Illinois. In 1982, the
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National Institute of Mental Health published its own
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study: "Television and Behavior: Ten Years of
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Scientific Progress and Implications for the '80s."
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This report stated that there is "overwhelming"
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evidence that violence on TV lends to aggressive
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behavior in children and teenagers. Those findings were
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duly reported by most of the major media in the early
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'80s and then were forgotten.
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Why do such reports sink into oblivion? Because
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the American audience does not want to face the reality
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of TV. They are too consumed by their love for it.
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TV: Eating Out Our Substance
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TV eats books. It eats academic skills. It eats
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positive character traits. It even eats family
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relationships. How many families do you know that spend
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the dinner hour in front of the TV, seldom
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communicating with one another? How many have a
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television on while they have breakfast or prepare for
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work or school?
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And what about school? I've heard college
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professors say of their students, "Well, you have to
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entertain them." One I know recommends using TV and
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film clips instead of lecturing, "throwing in a
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commercial every ten minutes or so to keep them awake."
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This is not only a patronizing attitude, it is an
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abdication of responsibility: A teacher should teach.
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But TV eats the principles of people who are supposed
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to be responsible, transforming them into passive
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servants of the Cyclops.
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TV eats out our substance. Mander calls this the
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mediation of experience: "[With TV] what we see, hear,
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touch, smell, feel and understand about the world has
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been processed for us." And, when we "cannot
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distinguish with certainty the natural from the
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interpreted, or the artificial from the organic, then
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all theories of the ideal organization of life become
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equal." In other words, TV teaches that all life-styles
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and all values are equal, and that there is no clearly
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defined right and wrong. In his Amusing Ourselves to
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Death, one of the more brilliant recent books on the
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tyranny of television, the author Neil Postman wonders
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why nobody has pointed out that television possibly
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oversteps the injunction in the Decalogue against
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making graven images.
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In the 1960s and 1970s, many of the traditional
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standards and mores of society came under heavy
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assault; indeed, they were blown apart, largely with
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the help of television which was just coming into its
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own. There was an air of unreality about many details
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of daily life. Even the "big" moral questions suffered
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distortion when they were reduced to TV images. During
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the Vietnam conflict there was graphic violence--
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soldiers and civilians actually dying--on screen. One
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scene that shocked the nation was an execution in which
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the victim was shot in the head with a pistol on prime-
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time TV. People "tuned in" to the war every night, and
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their opinions were largely formed by what they viewed,
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as if the highly complex and controversial issues about
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the causes, conduct, and resolution of the war could be
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summed up in these superficial broadcasts.
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You saw the same phenomena again in the recent war
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in the Gulf. With stirring background music and
|
||
|
|
sophisticated computer graphics, each network's banner
|
||
|
|
script read across the screen, "WAR IN THE GULF," as if
|
||
|
|
it were just another TV program. War isn't a program.
|
||
|
|
It is a dirty, bloody mess. People are killed daily.
|
||
|
|
Yet, television all but teaches that this carnage is
|
||
|
|
merely another diversion, a form of blockbuster
|
||
|
|
entertainment--the big show with all the international
|
||
|
|
stars present.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
In the last years of his life, Malcolm Muggeridge,
|
||
|
|
a pragmatic and caustic TV personality and print
|
||
|
|
journalist who embraced religion in later life, warned:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
"From the first moment I was in the studio, I felt
|
||
|
|
that it was far from being a good thing. I felt that
|
||
|
|
television [would] ultimately be inimical to what I
|
||
|
|
most appreciate, which is the expression of truth,
|
||
|
|
expressing your reactions to life in words. I think
|
||
|
|
you'll live to see the time when literature will be
|
||
|
|
quite a rarity because, more and more, the presentation
|
||
|
|
of images is preoccupying."
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Muggeridge concluded:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
"I don't think people are going to be preoccupied with
|
||
|
|
ideas. I think they are going to live in a fantasy
|
||
|
|
world where you don't need any ideas. The one thing
|
||
|
|
that television can't do is express ideas....There is a
|
||
|
|
danger in translating life into an image, and that is
|
||
|
|
what television is doing. In doing it, it is falsifying
|
||
|
|
life. Far from the camera's being an accurate recorder
|
||
|
|
of what is going on, it is the exact opposite. It
|
||
|
|
cannot convey reality nor does it even want to."
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
------------
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Profiled recently by People magazine as one of
|
||
|
|
America's leading novelists, Larry Woiwode is the
|
||
|
|
author of What I'm Going to Do, I Think (Farrar, Straus
|
||
|
|
& Giroux, 1969), Beyond the Bedroom Wall (Farrar,
|
||
|
|
Straus & Giroux, 1975, reprinted by Avon and Penguin
|
||
|
|
Books), Even Tide (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977,
|
||
|
|
reprinted by Noonday), Poppa John (Farrar, Straus &
|
||
|
|
Giroux, 1981, reprinted by Crossway), Born Brothers
|
||
|
|
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1988, reprinted by Penguin
|
||
|
|
Books) and The Neumiller Stories (Farrar, Straus &
|
||
|
|
Giroux, 1989, reprinted by Penguin Books). Three of
|
||
|
|
these novels have been chosen as "Best Books of the
|
||
|
|
Year" by the New York Times Book Review. A former
|
||
|
|
college professor who lives on a working ranch in North
|
||
|
|
Dakota, Mr. Woiwode has also written numerous short
|
||
|
|
stories and poems for publications such as Atlantic
|
||
|
|
Monthly, the New Yorker, and Harper's. A new novel,
|
||
|
|
Indian Affairs, will be published in June by Atheneum.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
###
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
||
|
|
End of this issue of Imprimis, On Line; Information
|
||
|
|
about the electronic publisher, Applied Foresight,
|
||
|
|
Inc., is in the file, IMPR_BY.TXT
|
||
|
|
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|