Who knew: TV is worthless

I realized today that because I have no television, I have virtually no idea which movies are in theaters. Likewise, I have no idea or interest in which sports teams have made it to the playoffs or in other TV-related news. 

Am I a bummer or what? I was awarded “most serious” columnist by the editors this past semester and realized then that I haven’t written a funny column.

The fact is, I don’t even know how. I wish this could develop into something funny as I write aimlessly, but don’t expect it to. If it does, perhaps it’s a sign from the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Here’s the thing: Television doesn’t matter. It is an electrical source of entertainment that scarcely enriches culture in any significant way.

Television deadens culture, furthering habits of destructive consumption and social detachment.

Television viewers hate advertisements unless they are entertaining, such as Old Spice commercials (I was paid to put that in). Yet, regardless of their entertainment value or production quality, they all entice viewers to do something or another — often to buy things no one should ever need.

Consider 1-800 commercials that present the latest and greatest innovations in this or that, typically home or car accessories. These things, generally, are “created wants.” They are created to be desired and ordered from a distance online or on the telephone.

This distance from the consumer and the source of the product being consumed is one of the most significant problems with growth-based capitalism. The distance prevents us from seeing the violence we cause.

Detachment in the opposite direction, which is the waste stream, acts similarly. These distances create such enormous amounts of waste that I find it hard to understand why anyone could consider capitalism the most efficient economic model available.

According to a 2004 study from the University of Arizona, Americans waste about 50 percent of food ready for harvest. Hell, consider all the disposable materials we use daily for packaging foods at the store, in restaurant carry-out containers and in shipping en masse.

Television contributes to this removal and careless disposal as a hugely significant catalyst of consumption via advertisements and demonstrations in the regular programming.

Social detachment invariably arises from TV. To watch a video screen is to take in what is being presented. Viewers constitute the audience, and audiences engage in little more than interpretation or the search for meaning.

But television programming flashes in front of one’s eyes rapidly and steadily, so analysis of everything thrown on the screen is nearly impossible. Consider the rapidity of the video editing for some commercials and programs. Who can examine each frame and grow from it?

So, we are fed advertisement-infused entertainment for hours upon hours of passivity during which there is frequently no need to talk to anyone. We see violence regularly, whether real or fictional, and are numbed to it.

Television numbs culture by making human interactions distanced, distancing and generally gelatinous.

­— proren@indiana.edu