The Power of Popular Culture Chapter 1 Television Culture Few people think about it very much, if at all, but most Americans lead lives that are intertwined with television. And television reflects nothing so much as the world of Popular Culture. For anyone who cares about what and by how much we are spellbound by broadcast media there is no choice but to reflect upon the nature of the Popular Culture that effects us every day, a culture that, in effect, we all live in. For example, what choice do you have when a case of influenza makes it impossible to do much of anything but nurse your feelings of misery while the illness runs its course, draining all motivation beyond that of minimal nutrition and watching television? Daytime television is nearly worthless; hopefully this proposition should not require copious footnotes or documentation. Usually I am daytime television averse; except when needing a short break for 15 minutes or so, I do not watch the medium during business hours. Now and then this is not true; sometimes the archaeology channel shown on local CTV offers genuine substance, and sometimes there is an interesting segment on one of the business news shows, but generally and overwhelmingly what it there to watch? However, under circumstances created by illness there was little option but to try and find something, anything, that might make my suffering less unpleasant. Television, for all of its limitations, is passive, all you need to do is select a channel, then sit back and relax. No need to learn a set of steps to program something, no need to dig into electronic files to find something. Even reading a book takes some effort and it certainly requires focus -concentration- on a subject. TV basically is effortless, which is ideal for the infirm, and anyone who has an illness even when it doesn't last, is infirm for the duration. Which is a long way to say that circumstances beyond my control led to watching a Ted Talk that raised an important question. That talk opened a window to reality that was invaluable. Not the way
that the Ted lecturer intended, however. Not at all. This is to discuss crowd sourcing, where a large number of people make collective decisions, maybe democratically but usually not. The lecture was notable for the point-of-view the lecturer exhibited, which was based on the assumption that by definition crowd sourcing necessarily is good. But is it? On what grounds? And who says that the preferences of a million people are "better" than those of a few people whom you actually respect? The point was inescapable that the million people are probably conditioned to think the way they do, to make decisions the way they do, because of their saturation in the values of popular culture, a culture that itself revolves around television. If we do not question the objective value of those values and the decision making processes based on those values, where are we? The answer is self-evident: We are mired in a morass of television culture which, in turn, is the product of popular culture. To understand exactly what this means let us look at television programming. After several weeks of virtually forced TV viewing at all hours, there is enough evidence now available to reach several plausible conclusions. There are those insipid morning news-tainment shows consisting of two or more sometimes frivolous females, rambling on about nothing of any objective value, who, along with one or two male news-perts, try to sound like they actually know somethng besides the latest pop culture trivia, or much of anything besides gossip about celebrities. Then there are re-runs. Not that the "Law & Order" shows aren't well written; au contraire, the writers are the best in the business and if you are at all interested in improving your writing skills, watching any of these shows is like watching a master class in classy drama writing. But, alas, the writers like some (nearly all) of the cast members, are politically correct in their views to such an extent that you'd think that all scripts were approved by the DNC. Or the New York Times editorial board. Consider a heinous crime that the show once was based upon. In reality it was committed by black hoodlums expressing specifically black grievances. But through the magic of politically correct screen writing that crime was recast "as if," since the problem surely is universal even when it is no such thing, the terrible crime was committed by white punks, now, after the fashion of black rioters in Ferguson, Missouri, with their hands in the air, proclaiming victimization. For the benefit of the uninitiated, the Ferguson episode was debunked by on-the-scene video evidence not released until later. Which did not deter others from making full use of street theater, avec hands in the air, to make more claims, in subsequent weeks, , about their supposed victimization. Then there is that Law & Order speciality, put downs of Christianity at every opportunity -along with the view expressed in all cases where the subject is relevant, that Muslims are misunderstood, Islam is really a peaceful religion, and Islam is to blame for nothing at all. And, mais oui, intransigent Muslim anti-Semitism (Judaeophobia) sanctioned by the Koran simply does not exist. All of which is reinforced by several actors who have a gift for Left-wing self-righteousness. There is also the show called "Criminal Minds." Each episode is worse than the last, the violence portrayed is utterly gratuitous, for shock effect, to no valid point except appealing to, shall we say, warped minds who watch an excess of television. The cast is quite good, but for what purpose? To promote the "thrill effect" of senseless violence? More might be said about other dramatic shows but surely the idea is reasonably clear. There also are comedy shows of various kinds. How can anyone listen / look at any of these productions for even 3 minutes? And 3 minutes is my approximate maximum. The gags are almost all juvenile, the level of intelligence involved is abysmal, grade school level. Except for Jimmy Kimmel; he is not too bad, but this is to discuss a show that isn't seen until after 11 PM. You can watch several "Judge Judy" type shows but who can stand these productions, either? Judge Judy herself is fair and honest, and likeable, but what is the point? Which is especially the case for the spin-off shows. One meaningless problem after another, of no significance to anyone except those directly involved in some petty crime. Or you can watch shows with audience participation, almost always including at least one grossly fat woman, at least one ridiculously ignorant male who apparently has never cracked a book in his entire life, plus some assortment of twenty-somethings who, to be clinical about it, wouldn’t know a productive idea if it bit them on the ass. And on it goes, into the evening hours. About "prime time" and late night programming, yes, you can find worthwhile substance to look at. Sometimes this "substance" is more than enough to make you happy. Sometimes a re-run of an episode of Columbo you had not seen before may catch your attention. Even after dark, though, what is available to watch isn't much. Unless your IQ is under water. But non-prime-time television is a disaster area. Added up, to count about 105 hours per week when audiences matter, possibly twenty-five hours have some kind of value. That means 80 hours per week of drivel or worse. And we allow this for programs which are broadcast on assigned channels owned by the public? In what way is this responsible public policy? What about news channels? Fox, for most of its daytime slots, is amateur in taste and content, mostly youthful news people who lack all gravitas and who could use at least a decade of homework before going on air. Fox certainly has top quality news analysts like Charles Krauthammer, and Chris Wallace is one of the best in the business, but mostly the network is a platform for gimmicks with little or no news value. CNN, except for Jake Tapper, a liberal but someone who actually tries to be objective, is the Democratic Party News Network, it is that biased. Could Wolf Blitzer be any more subjective in his Left-wing views? Yet he actually seems to think of himself as objective, as if any other outlook besides that of the political Left is completely beyond the pale. There also is Charlie Rose of PBS, et. al. That network's news people do make an effort to be fair-minded, as far as their Left-of-center values allow, but Mr. Rose is a special case, a shill for the Democratic Party who has pretensions of objectivity but who invariably falls short and never is the wiser; he cannot be. Mr. Rose habitually interrupts his guests so that he may sidetrack points that are intended to be critical of Democrats or even that are non-partisan but not supportive of Democratic Party positions. Which maybe is too excessive by way of criticism but to convey an impression that seems objectively fair. In other words, most television news or news analysis shows are unfit to watch. These characterizations are certainly unfair to C-Span even though the station's selection of features and authors it interviews may leave you wondering what is going on. Are these things really all that important? Yet at least here is one place to turn where there may be some substance even if that substance is not relevant to anything that matters to most people. Yet sometimes C-Span is absolutely first class, with guests or speakers who know their stuff, who are experts in their field, and who actually represent the full spectrum of American political thought from hard Left to rock-ribbed Republican, plus Independents of a variety of persuasions. Some network television shows are interesting enough, with their own fascination. As a red-blooded male in good standing it can be worthwhile to watch "Gas Monkeys" in Dallas rebuild vintage cars and make them look brand new; and the show discusses the dollars and cents dimension of the business to good effect. One of the few complaints anyone can make is that some of the diversions indulged in by the people in the show, like tricks burning rubber, are literally crazy; I mean, how many days or weeks are subtracted from the useful life of a meticulously restored classic car each time someone does a "burnout" in the parking lot for kicks? American Pickers is an offbeat look at American history told through artifacts that antique dealers shop for in back yards and garages. Antiques Road Show usually is quite good. The Vintage Vehicle Show may sometimes be a little arcane but for classic car aficionados, there is nothing else like it. "Alaska, The Last Frontier," takes viewers on a guided tour of life in the wilderness, as spirited men and women do everything the hard way of necessity simply to survive in the rugged far North. And who doesn't enjoy "I [almost] got away with it" ? Terrific show, at least when the escaped convict isn't a complete dunce while running from the law who gets recaptured all too easily. Also quite good is Hometime, a program hosted by a man and woman who share the surname "Johnson" but who are not related. Each are building contractors and skilled at construction trades. They remodel houses of all kinds and explain what they made the decisions they did. And did I mention NCIS or Foyle's War? There are three "education" channels available in Eugene, Oregon, which, now and then, telecast worthwhile material even if one of these channels killed a really good history lecture series by a USC professor to replace it with a far-Left history show that is so far to the sinister that it qualifies as Marxist in inspiration. Make that Cultural Marxist, to be more accurate. To be sure, this is a report on television as found in Eugene, Oregon. Still, my experiences during the month of January 2017 were consistent with other times during the past 30 years or so when I watched a good amount of TV while resident in the state of Washington, in Arizona, in California, and in Utah. There will be different mixes of shows depending on where you live. But the principle seems to be unarguably true. Most television is a disservice to the people who watch. Is religion an exception to the rule? Religion shows sometimes can be interesting, with special mention due to 3ABN, the Adventist channel. Not because of 7th Day theology, which is trapped in a 19th century mental universe which long ago became obsolete. But the people who run the network are trying everything they can think of to produce quality television and sometimes they hit it, as with "Tiny Tots for Jesus" and Hal Holbrook's lectures on Protestant history, which, when this series airs, is genuinely informative. There is the interfaith series broadcast on local CTV, which, every so often, offers something thoughtful -but which also espouses a theology that is all too easy to disagree with for its excessive universalism. That is, to cite a lecturer on C-Span from another context, if you want to be honest and objective about Islam, and not simply take on faith the latest religious-Left party line interpretation on Muhammad's religion, just ask Christians who of necessity live side-by-side with Muslims in Islam dominated countries. What the Eugene interfaith show does is to idealize each religion it features as if all believers are saintly types, have zero prejudices, and who should never need to answer for questionable beliefs or values. As a teacher of Comparative Religion you don't need to guess that on principle I favor an ecumenical approach to faith. Its just that unless this is based on a foundation of honesty the whole effort is worthless. What believers in any religion actually do must be the acid test of the worth of that faith. You would only be deceiving yourself if you accepted an idealized version as the "real" Islam or the real anything else. In other words, ask the Copts of Egypt what Islam is really like, especially in the days following a bomb blast at a church. Ask the Christians of Iraq in the days after a bomb blast at one of their churches. Ask the Christians of Turkiye, of Syria, of Iran, of Sudan, and on and on. And do not confuse the tame Muslims who are the pet believers at places like Eugene's First Christian Church, which hosts the interfaith TV show, who may more-or-less be representative of the 1% of the US population that follow Islam, with the 99% of Muslims globally who, anyone who is sane can tell you, are not tame at all and instead would kill you if they could get away with it. They would certainly kill every Jew if they could get away with it, this should not be in dispute. This characterization is exaggerated for effect. Given high rates of illiteracy in many Muslim nations, such that believers cannot read their 'sacred' text, many of these people have poor understanding of Islam. They, along with secularized Muslims, constitute the body of MINOs, Muslims In Name Only, who generally aren't much different than anyone else. They go along to get along. And there are sects like the Sufis, maybe 8% or 9% of all Muslims worldwide; with exceptions in places like Egypt or the Caucasus, these are people who are peaceful by the nature of their heterodox faith. There are others, such as Ibadis in Oman, like Ahmadis in Pakistan, plus indigenous groups in Indonesia, some of the saint venerating Shi'ah in India as well, who also are peaceful. But that still leaves the great majority of Sunni believers in most of Dar Al-Islam. There is a problem when they start to take their religion seriously. When they read the Koran with its 120 jihad verses, about 70 of which tell Muslims to behead unbelievers, to fight against non-Muslims and convert them or enslave them or kill them. Which is only to scratch the surface. By western standards the ethical code taught in the Koran counsels believers to commit crimes that are totally unacceptable in America or Britain or France and other nations. Which, alas, the political Left seems unable to fathom -for, when it comes to religion, the Left is approximately just as illiterate as illiterate Arabs in Yemen, illiterate Sudanese, or illiterate Somalis. They have no idea what the Koran says because they have never read it. They have no idea of the nature of Muslim practice now or historically because (1) they have no interest in it, and (2) because of what they assert about Islam without evidence, assertions that derive from modern-day Cultural Marxism, which is a fiction meant to define Muslims as victims of oppressors, hence are believed to be people who necessarily deserve to be thought of the same way we think of the European proletariat. Or what remains of the proletariat after 50+ years of essentially secular prosperity. Perhaps you can tell that I have written extensively about Islam, hardly a surprise for a teacher of Comparative Religion. There is much more to say, but to at least open the discussion... These considerations are somewhat far afield from the subject of television culture but there is a connection. For the misinformation that reaches millions of Americans every day and every night strongly conditions our views of Muhammad's religion. It is repeated continually by just about every broadcast journalist who comments on the issue. Most (most) of what any of us hears about Islam, in other words, is distorted, skewed, falsified, and otherwise consists of sanitized descriptions that color the story in ways that serve the interests of oil companies with investments in the Mid East such as Exxon-Mobil, the interests of the State Department which has been notoriously pro-Islam since the 1960s, the interests of the Democratic Party which seeks the votes of Muslims in the United States, the interests of the religious Left (think the United Church of Christ, etc.), and the interests of various multinationals like mega construction firms, hotel chains, international banks, and the tourist industry. The trouble is that the narrative in question is fabricated out of lies, there is no kind "alternative" way to say it. This is typical of television at large, not just with respect to Islam. Marie Osmond lost 50 pounds on a diet of lasagna and ice cream sandwiches; Nutrisystem makes that claim. Miss Osmond sure looks better since shedding all those pounds. But skepticism is in order, isn't it? Yet this is the least of problems. Is there someone who watches television who isn't impressed by the acting skills of Tom Selleck? However, he now is hawking one of the worst, most unethical, financial instruments ever devised: Reverse mortgages. Why? Is Selleck living on a minimum wage salary and needs the money? Reverse mortgages take advantage of the most vulnerable population of any American demographic except infants, the old and the very old. Yes, some senior citizens continue to function as intelligent adults well into their twilight years. Peter Drucker worked at his writing and business into his early 90s; so did Frank Lloyd Wright. But many of the oldest are mentally unfit, or not much better than minimally functional. For this reason they make easy prey. The institutions who make these "deals" know exactly what they are doing: Stealing from the senile, the desperate, or the befuddled. You have to see it to believe it, I suppose. But sometimes the very best thing for a senior is to forget about the house he or she lived in for several decades simply because it is financially unsustainable -and it is far better to be realistic about it than to indulge in a fantasy of perpetual comfort that you cannot afford. Television stations and networks don't care. What they do care about is maximizing every conceivable opportunity to make money; social values simply do not rate very high. About some things on television you cannot trust one word. Television culture is only the beginning of a necessary discussion of the problems of Popular Culture. TV is ubiquitous, however, it is everyone's frame of reference some of the time and often a lot of the time. It also is something anyone can understand. Unfortunately its contribution to Popular Culture is injurous, or no better than usually injurous. Any honest study of Popular Culture must start with the fact that we are conditioned by television in how we form our attitudes and what values we choose to make our own. To say the same thing, we are lied to day in and day out via televsion, many or most people are none the wiser, and nearly all opinions based on television as their ultimate source are opinions based on falsehoods. Not falsehoods and nothing but falsehoods, but ceaseless falsehoods, uncriticized falsehoods, and new and more decitful falsehoods all the time. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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