Website design By BotEap.comThe common-sense observation that the tool is not responsible for the carpenter’s misuse of it has been included to great effect in political debates, such as that of gun control. Although the bumper sticker reductionism of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is both hackneyed and true, the notion that people are in fact responsible for their actions, as well as for The actions of hammers, electric drills, guns and SUVs are under your control, it seems nothing more than simple common sense.

Website design By BotEap.comOf course, common sense is now quite uncommon. And so we find a surprisingly large number of otherwise sensible “personal responsibility boosters” who reject this simple thinking when the target of their anger is the media, specifically television. Suddenly, one begins to hear the kind of all-encompassing generalizations and one-size-fits-all thinking that typifies the average politician: “TV is a wasteland, a cesspool, teaching our children violence and consumerism without sense”. There is no place for gray in this type of thinking; it’s just as black and white as the original Milton Berle series. And the chorus of voices grows.

Website design By BotEap.com“Offensive Contractions”

Website design By BotEap.comRecently, at his church’s weekly men’s meeting in Glendale, California, Jerry Bray listened as a traveling evangelist pleaded with the assembly to throw their TVs, CDs and other “offensive gadgets” in the trash. Apparently, it would be acceptable to recycle them into toasters or heaters, but they surely shouldn’t be sold at a garage sale. “You can protect your family from TV poison without selling it to someone else, bargain price or otherwise,” according to the brochure the evangelist hands out with cookies after his presentations.

Website design By BotEap.comIf you “get rid of the devices that bring that mess into your home,” the brochure goes on to say, apparently you won’t miss a thing. In this abolitionist vision, there is “no harm” in getting rid of the electronic multimedia funnels that funnel the sick and wild products of a “wicked and godless” entertainment industry into the home. That’s pretty heady stuff there.

Website design By BotEap.comSomehow, though, that sounds like some poor carpenter blaming the tools again. We don’t like what others are building with them, so let’s put down the hammers, screwdrivers and belt sanders. We don’t like some, or even many, of the shows, so turn off the TV. Wait a second!

Website design By BotEap.comChildish and perverted?

Website design By BotEap.comIn recent years, a growing number of concerned parents have opted to ditch the TV. Millions of well-meaning moms and dedicated dads have apparently decided that today’s American TV fare is 100% (im)pure, unalloyed trash. It’s a wasteland “out there,” the plot goes, but you don’t have to bring it “into the family sanctuary.” The operative word here is “it,” meaning all television programming, from pot-smoking Homer Simpson to Seurat’s impressionist masterpieces. “That” is all “worthless”.

Website design By BotEap.comOr is that it? Certainly the most popular sitcoms, cop shows, reality shows and game shows are puerile and perverted nonsense, if not pure propaganda of “the unreconstructed sensualists of Hollywood-on-the-Volga” (! that evangelist can convert a sentence!). But right there in tv guideSandwiched between channel lineups of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and a Marilyn Manson chant to the joys of demonic possession, is a terrific documentary about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Just change the channel and go.

Website design By BotEap.comAnd look, on the next page of the program listings, floating over the blurb for the hottest reality show of the day (cops and hookers living in one car?), along with the listing for an exposé of fascist cannibals in the Catholic Church. , there’s an invitation to watch “Jesus of Nazareth” and “Moses the Lawgiver” back-to-back later in the week. That’s quite a variety, isn’t it?

Website design By BotEap.compart time parents

Website design By BotEap.comA semi-doting father recently told me that he simply doesn’t have the time to control his 12-year-old son’s viewing habits. What occurred to me, of course, is that he might as well have said that he simply doesn’t have the time to raise his child, to instill values ​​in him, to teach him how to control himself. So the easy answer for this parent was to throw out the TV altogether, a classic example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as well as the soap, washcloth, towel, and tub. This young man will now be saved from “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” even as he loses the opportunity to learn about the US astronaut training program.

Website design By BotEap.comCertainly, I tell the father, there is a way to avoid the first and take advantage of the second, right?

Website design By BotEap.com“Too much work and it takes too long,” he said. “It’s easier to just get rid of it, everything.”

Website design By BotEap.comOh! With hundreds of channels, there really is something for everyone in the information age cafeteria of “custom” television, with the seemingly limitless options of cable and satellite receivers now complemented by a bevy of new technologies for recording, delaying, play, record, splice, slice and dice the programs. With capabilities comes a torrent of content; In my area, the cable company gives me high-speed Internet access and a TV package that includes all the channels I need, all for about $90 a month.

Website design By BotEap.comStill, I don’t watch much TV, and I never plop down in front of it and scan for channels. I get a Sunday paper mostly for TV listings, and if there’s something I want to watch over the next week, I can make time to watch it (rare) or set the DVR to record it (common). My wife and I will relax with cooking shows (God bless Emeril Lagasse – bam!); look at the various political squads turning, pushing, stopping and obfuscating on cable talk shows; and occasionally deduce along with Sherlock Holmes who did the dirty deed this time. These are not wasted experiences, I assure you.

Website design By BotEap.comacceptable alternatives

Website design By BotEap.comIt is too easy to simply relegate an entire technology to insignificance in one’s life, and dangerous too; you will miss a lot of what is happening around you. If you have children, you may be able to limit the harm caused to your children through television programming by throwing away the set, but it will also limit enriching experiences. They’ll watch Miley Cyrus’ musical soap opera or Shannon Doherty’s latest generation-X brat anyway, whether it’s at friends’ houses, the mall, or even at school; but they won’t see you with your play-by-play commentary, followed by a channel change to the acceptable alternative you’ve researched and provided.

Website design By BotEap.comYes, television is a continuous and pervasive influence in our society. But a television is just another tool; Getting rid of it in your home can be a powerful statement, but it’s ultimately counterproductive. The challenge, particularly for parents, but also for the rest of us who want uplifting and intellectual stimulation, as well as the occasional escapist meal (and that’s okay too!), is getting control of this enormously powerful technology. It’s so powerful, in fact, that George Orwell populated 1984 with as many big, propagandistic monitors as characters. Big Brother wouldn’t have been big without television.

Website design By BotEap.comInterestingly, though, it wasn’t the fear of television as a permanent promoter of an authoritarian state that stuck with people. No, it was television backwards, as a full-time silent snooper, that took hold as technology matured in the 1950s and beyond. With the proliferation of video surveillance cameras in the UK (there are over 4 million in London alone) and their gradual introduction in the US in the almost benign guise of “traffic cameras”, perhaps we shouldn’t be rushing to see the paranoia as overheated and unfounded.

Website design By BotEap.comUse vs. Abuse It is too soon to tell how the public use and abuse of television, video security systems and related technologies will develop. It is true that a tool can quickly become a weapon; some things, like axes, could be said to be both to begin with. It might be helpful to watch TV in this light. Ultimately, it is up to each of us, acting for ourselves and for our children, to use the trusted ax of our home to chop the wood that warms the home, warms the house, and lights the room, so that we can, with security. and comfort, read a story and look at the accompanying illustrations.

Website design By BotEap.comAn intruder, one who may even wish us harm, is always watching for us to let our guard down, so they can walk in and grab that ax and use it against us. You may want to sell sugar-coated nothing to our kids when we’re not watching, wearing a blue stripe in a cable movie, or littering our safe haven. But we are not powerless here. We are wide awake and diligent, and remember, when we go to sleep we can turn on the surveillance cameras and lock the doors, both figuratively and literally. Yet, as that traveling evangelist said, there are evildoers who are conspiring to attack you and your children through the airwaves and wired connection.

Website design By BotEap.comThere’s no good reason to miss out on DaVinci himself just because you want to keep going. The Da Vinci Code outside your home Sure, their “enemies” may try to take over the entire entertainment industry so that one day there will be no quality options at all.

Website design By BotEap.comBut whose fault is it if you let that happen? And why would you want to speed up the day? don’t do it Don’t help the wrong side.

Website design By BotEap.comDon’t throw away that TV.