Subject: Turn Off Your TV: part 6
Turn Off Your TV Set--Part VI
Television's Killing of God
by L. Wolfe
One of the fundamental relationships that defines our civilization
is that of man to God. That relationship is mediated through
organized religion. It is religion that teaches the values and
{axioms} of western Christian civilization, which creates in
the individual the capacity for moral judgment that must inform
our reasoning processes.
As we have explained in another section of this report,
the evil Sigmund Freud, whose mass psychology became the basis
for theories of mass brainwashing, hated all religious belief,
precisely because it told man that he was endowed with divine
powers to perfect his existence; according to Freud, this belief,
the root of our moral conscience, brought man into conflict
with his more infantile desires, thus causing neuroses.
Freud's system and its variants in social psychology must
deny the perfectability of the soul, as described by Dante
as the passage of man from the Inferno, through Purgatory,
to Paradise; man, the two-legged animal, must not aspire to
be any more than he is, a beast, at war with himself, whose
base emotions must be repressed and controlled.
In the early 1950s, the majority of Americans still actively
worshiped God in churches and synagogues. The practice of religious
belief was an {axiomatic assumption} of American life, even
if Americans did not always act according to those beliefs.
Television could not {actively and openly} attack this; to
do that would bring down the wrath of an angry nation on the
new medium, and lose its potential hold over the population.
So the programmers took another tact: {Television shows
made organized religious belief, invisible, made it disappear
from the screen.} Studies of the content of television shows
in the 1950s show almost no references to church-going or religious
activities.
Think about such shows as {Leave It to Beaver} or {Father
Knows Best}. Do you ever remember those families going to
church or discussing religious beliefs? Do you even know what
faith those families were? You don't because they never told
you: They never discussed such matters.
Most importantly, when these families had problems, did
they ever turn to their church or their religious leaders as
resources to help solve them? Never. They were all worked out
within the family--in the absence of organized religion or
religious beliefs. The family and its values were thus {secularized}
and what were once called moral and religious values became
known as {family values}--a secular belief structure that has
nothing to do with fundamental values of western Christian
civilization.
This was the {hidden message} of those so-called wholesome
family shows of the 1950s, the ones that some Moral Majority-types
and people like Tipper Gore now hold up as examples of a golden
era of television!
The {playback} came in the late 1960s, with the nation convulsed
in generational battles over values, triggered by the Vietnam
conflict. Tavistock brainwasher Fred Emery noted at the time
that, unlike previous periods of social chaos, in the late
1960s no one was turning to organized religion to help find
a way out, to seek more fundamental values that could bind
together society and troubled families alike. Instead, he describes
the rise, especially among the television-weaned baby boomers
of a {mystical anarchism}, that rejected all organized religion
as false and ``sought a new definition for God.'' This is the
``New Age,'' the ``Age of Aquarius,'' preached by Frankfurt
School gurus like Herbert Marcuse.
More recent surveys taken by Tavistock's population profilers
show that fewer people than ever before say that they hold
{strong religious beliefs} of any kind. A standard answer has
a person saying that he was brought up religiously, ``but no
longer practices any organized religion.''
We're All Animals
Now, let us turn our attention to how the programmers created
an identity between man and the animal.
One of the earliest forms of children's programming was
cartoon shows; often those shows had human hosts, such as {Bozo},
or {Terrytoon Circus's} Claude Kirshner. But the majority of
the content of the half-hour shows was the five to six minute
cartoons. Much was made in those early days about how silly
and innocuous the cartoons were, with some parents' groups
complaining that there should be more ``content'' in children's
programming.
But they weren't innocuous. Almost every cartoon portrayed
{animals} acting as if they were human beings. Studies of
children who had a daily, steady diet of television cartoons
show that the kids lost their ability to see the difference
between most animals and human life: The animal kingdom appeared
to mirror human society. The children identified with certain
animals as ``heroes'' and feared others as dangerous ``bad
guys.''
The same kind of cartoon fare had been available to Saturday
matinee and other movie audiences. But children went to the
movies at most once or twice a week, for an hour or two. During
the first 10 years of television, children aged 2 to 10 watched
more hours of cartoons than they spent doing any other activity.
They received more than an hour and a half a day worth of cartoon
brainwashing.
Toward the end of THE decade, the cartoon shows started
to mirror adult television: {Yogi Bear} and other Hanna-Barbera
features were put in the weekly series format, to create a
regular, habituated audience. As some of the programmers predicted,
this format also drew adult audiences to the cartoon series.
That Lousy Mouse
The most powerful of the children's shows were produced
by Walt Disney Studios, which had years of experience in producing
a mass brainwashing product directed at children. Walt Disney
and his brother Roy were both involved in the production of
propaganda films during World War II, overseen by the Tavistock-dominated
Committee for Morale. His studio was the first to produce feature-length
cartoons that incorporated human and animal characters; Disney
recognized that the cartoon, with its color and larger-than-life
imagery, was the perfect vehicle for carrying ``messages''
to children. His films, such as {Sleeping Beauty} and {Snow
White}, were all aimed at becoming universal experiences for
generations of children and their parents, containing {moral
messages} that would stay with a child through most of his
or her life.
Thus, it was not surprising that the most popular children's
show of the first television decade was the ``Mickey Mouse
Club'', which mixed cartoon, movie and live interaction between
human and animal characters.
The ``Mickey Mouse Club'' was {an experiment in mass brainwashing
of children through television}. Around the show was built
an actual club organization, which by the end of the decade
had more members than the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts combined.
Along with membership came a club magazine and other items,
which, in turn, suggested other group activities, which usually
meant the purchase of some Disney-licensed toys and paraphernalia.
Each child at home was ``indoctrinated'' in a membership
ritual, with prompting from the television, and was urged to
sing-along with songs, with words flashed on the screen, and
chant things as instructed by their television group leader.
They did so while wearing their ``mouse ears,'' which were
designed to make them identify with an animal figure, Mickey
Mouse.
At the end of each show, there was a sermon by the ``group
leader,'' a young adult male, whose preaching was reinforced
by statements from the ``live'' Mouseketeers in the studio,
each of whom was known only by his or her first name. The sermon
usually spoke of the need to honor parents and other family
members, and to do ``good'' things for little creatures and
other little children. All of this was done while children
at home and on the stage wore their ears and gave their ``club
salute.''
There had been other children's clubs before, around radio
shows such as ``Captain Midnight,'' and around television figures
like Roy Rogers or ``Howdy Doody,'' but nothing on the scale
of Disney's Mickey Mouse Club, and nothing organized around
identification with an animal. American children had been given
a new pagan-like religion, and its god was a mouse!
The parents saw nothing wrong in this. The mouse, through
his surrogate, his human spokesman on the show, Jimmy, supported
``American values.'' Children were being ``taught'' to respect
their parents, to be ``patriotic'' and to act well-behaved.
The parents were happy to let a mouse, or rather television,
through a mouse, give those values to a generation of children.
Reflect for a moment on a different time and a different
place. There was another generation of children whose values
were given to them in an organized form from someone other
than their parents. The {Hitler Youth} of Nazi Germany. They
too had their rituals, their uniforms and symbols, and their
songs. They too had their leaders, who preached sermons. And
they too were ``taught'' to be ``patriotic'' and respect their
parents, and to always be polite and well-behaved. Remember
what we said: the Nazi state and values without the Nazi baggage.
Mickey Mouse, the Fu@auhrer? Makes you think for a moment,
doesn't it?
Those Murderous Animals
One of the ``values,'' that was inserted into the various
serial adventures within the ``Mickey Mouse Club's'' format
was the need to protect ``little creatures'' and ``nature''
against greedy man, who would destroy them to make money. Similar
themes were contained in the prime time ``Walt Disney Presents''
series.
Meanwhile, other more ``standard'' format shows, such as
``Lassie} and ``Rin Tin Tin} created further identification
between children and the animals. In these shows, the animal
was the ``hero,'' who often defeated bad people, sometimes
without the help of any human intervention. In each case, the
shows featured a young boy or girl, who was protected by the
animal (in the two cases cited, dogs). As later brainwashers'
studies found, this made the images on the screen easier for
the children viewers to identify with.
All of this identification with the animal, and the blurring
of the distinction between what is human and what is animal,
{played back} a generation later in the lunacy of the environmental
movement.
Now, it's 1990. Those nice stories about ``cute little animals''
have turned a bit gruesome. The average nature show, whether
it be on cable, on the networks, or on public television, shows
animals killing each other and copulating. Some of the Moral
Majority-types are a little squeamish about the copulation,
but they apparently find little wrong with the violence.
The new shows have the blessing and the guidance of various
psychologists, who have profiled children's responses to the
animal gore and sex. They openly state that the shows provide
lessons for children about {human behavior}, since the animals
merely reflect the darker side of man's own nature. Eli Rubinstein,
a psychologist working on the American Psychological Association's
task force on television and society, claims the violent nature
documentaries ``puts human behavior in context.'' He says that
parents should watch such shows with kids so that they can
use them constructively to ``reinforce positive human behavior.''
Such shows are especially good at explaining to children
why it is bad to create large populations. The children can
see that unregulated population growth leads to death and suffering,
these brainwashers say.
Thus, the next generation of children are to be told that
they are to mimic ``good'' animal behavior and avoid the more
nasty stuff. We don't want too many children, now, do we? And
you tolerate this brainwashing and may even participate in
it, as the psychologists ``recommend.'' This is where those
cartoons and Mickey Mouse have led us.
Next time you're around an environmentalist over 35 years
of age, ask him if he still has his ``mouse ears.''
And Justice For All
Now, let's take a look at another brainwashing message,
{justice, as carried out by law enforcement officers}, and
see how television handled it. Here we will see how the hidden
message shifts to an increasingly more fascist outlook.
In the first decade of television, the image of law enforcement
was conveyed in both the westerns and the so-called ``cops
and robbers'' shows. Children watched both, since they were
on during prime time and were among the most popular viewing
for families.
Usually, the law enforcement officers were either the heroes,
or major secondary characters, who worked with the heroes to
solve problems. The sheriff or the detective or police officer
was the ``good'' guy, who risked his life to protect citizens
from ``bad'' criminals.
The simple message delivered was ``crime doesn't pay.''
What was crime or criminal activity? Anything that violated
the law. And what determined the law? On what principles was
a society governed by law founded? Certainly not on the concepts
of charity and justice contained in the Bible or on the concepts
of Natural Law embodied in our Constitution. At best, what
was shown was that the law was based on a {social contract}
to control the worst elements in society. At worst, it was
shown to be based only on retributive justice--``an eye for
an eye.'' As studies of the program content of such shows as
``Gunsmoke,'' ``The Untouchables,'' or ``Dragnet, show often
such ``justice'' was swift and final: More often than not the
``bad guy'' wound up dead, without any trial.
As television entered its second decade, the brainwashers
altered the programming content. With the baby boomers approaching
adolescence, new shows started portraying the {corruption}
in society and the legal system. The series ``The Fugitive,''
for example, featured as a hero a man wrongly convicted of
murder, running from the law while trying to find the person
who framed him. Each episode showed the corruption in the society
around him, including corrupt lawyers and police officers.
Other shows had plot lines with the message that crime was
a {sociological problem} and that {justice could not be found
inside the ``system.''}
Such images, imprinted on the minds of impressionable adolescents
and children growing up, {played back} during the ``revolution''
against the social order in the late 1960s.
More recently, television provided new messages telling
viewers that the ``system'' had become so corrupt, that the
corruption was everywhere: Judges were crooked, law enforcement
officials were crooked, etc. The heroes of shows are now people
who operate outside any law, who bring people to justice one
way or another Rambo-style. A new fascist vigilantism is being
organized by such shows as ``Dark Justice'' about a judge,
who seeks to destroy people whom he cannot convict in his courtroom.
The brainwashing message: {Constitutional law is itself a means
to protect only the criminals and must be side-stepped to achieve
``justice.''}
This message finds no contradiction in the images from 35
years ago that lie in the recesses of the minds of the baby
boomers. The westerns and ``cops and robbers'' shows told you
that justice is defined by the ``eye for an eye'' dictum, and
that most often it was found at the barrel of a gun.
The Sexual Revolution
Finally, let's turn our attention to one of the most discussed
questions about television programming: the wiedspread sexual
content of shows. A flip through the dial makes it obvious
that there is plenty of every kind of sex one could imagine
on the tube, and what isn't shown explicitly in network prime
time, is implied in dialogue. But it wasn't always that way.
Again, we will see how the images have shifted, to an increasingly
debased level.
Let's go back to the 1950s again, when the brainwashing
of the baby boomers started. In the early television shows,
there was no depiction of any sexual activity and almost no
discussion of the matter. Those early shows supposedly featured
``wholesome'' family situations, at least if you believe what
some of today's television's critics now tell us. But the brainwashing
message was more subtle. It didn't rely on visual image or
dialogue.
It is important that we make some distinctions about ``love''
and ``sex.'' The very fact that people focus on ``sex'' or
``sexual activity'' already reflects a debasement of fundamental
human emotions into their most carnal. We must draw a distinction
between what is commonly called ``sex'' or ``love,'' and the
concept of Christian love, known as {agape@am}. Man, as distinct
from the beast, can experience love, in its most profound sense,
as separated from instinctual cravings of animals, and to experience
such love is joyful.
There is no separation of the mind from such emotion, no
split between emotion and reason, in this most fundamental
sense of the concept of love or agape@am. It is this concept
of love, as in man's love of God, that is the fundamental emotion,
that truly makes man human. To say that all human society is
fundamentally based on man's love of God and his fellow man
is not incorrect.
To reduce love to simple emotion, and to further reduce
it to a sexual attraction, is a degradation of man. The Freudian
paradigm and all its derivatives deny the existence of a love
that is anything different than carnal or romantic. Any other
kind of love is defined as {neurotic,} the product of a denial
of man's basic {animal} instincts. In the Freudian system,
agape@am has been replaced by eros, whose carnal cravings must
determine all human relationships.
There is no better example of agape@am than the love and
joy that a parent feels in seeing his or her child develop
into a reasoning, human being. The tears of joy that come
to parents' eyes when they see a child understand something
for the first time are indicative of a profound emotional experience.
This {fundamental} emotional experience puts man in touch with
his human identity.
The goal of the brainwashers was to destroy agape@am, using
television as their weapon. Over a period of several generations,
television would steer man away from agape@am, and place him
under the thrall of eros.
As we have stated, the earliest television was in no way
sexually explicit or even implicit: The prevailing morality
within the society, though weakened by hedonistic pursuits,
would still not tolerate that. Instead, what was presented
were simple {romantic} notions or no notions of love at all.
Further, studies done during this early period revealed that
early television reinforced infantile concepts about ``boy
meets girl'' and ``infatuation,'' which, in turn, reinforced
``common knowledge'' among children and adolescents about human
relationships. The Frankfurt School crowd realized that by
presenting no {positive} concept of loving, they were helping
to ``wipe the slate clean,'' leaving the door open for more
debased images at a later point.
But there was another flank to the attack on agape@am, one
with a more {hidden} message. Emery and others studying early
television found that such shows as ``Father Knows Best,''
``Ozzie and Harriet}, and ``Leave It to Beaver,'' had a secondary
effect on the children viewing them. The fictional parents
were portrayed as ``perfect,'' without flaws.
No real world situations were actually solved so perfectly.
Tension was thus created between the {image} of the ``perfect
parents'' that appeared on the screen and the {real} parents
who lived in the children's homes: The latter could never measure
up to the former.
Meanwhile, the parents, who watched these shows with their
children, were being shown television images of kids who were
nothing like the real thing: They were too ``good,'' too well-behaved,
too respectful. When they tried to measure their own kids against
the tube's images of children, they found their own wanting.
The brainwashers noted that this was the first generation
whose images of parents and children were coming into conflict
with reality. An obvious conclusion can be drawn: the early
television programming message {played back} in the generational
war of the late 1960s, when the tension exploded into anger
and rage.
As the baby boomers reached adolescence, they were bombarded
with new, more degraded images of ``love,'' and ``love-making,''
which were to prepare the way for the next phases of the ``sexual
revolution.'' Only ten years earlier, the images and situations
of ``Love, American Style'' or ``MASH'' would have been unthinkable
to put on television.
A new image started to enter the scene: the shattering of
the nuclear family, the fundamental unit by which society is
reproduced. In the early 1970s, shows featuring unwed mothers,
extramarital affairs, adultery, people ``living together''
out of wedlock were widespread. Sex and sexual references were
everywhere on prime time.
A study was done comparing a week of prime time shows during
1975, 1977, and 1978, which shows how fast this {carnalization
of America} was spreading: ``[C]ontextually implied intercourse
increased from no weekly occurrences in 1975 to 15 in 1977
and 24 in 1978; sexual innuendoes increased in frequency from
about one reference per hour in 1975 to 7 in 1977 to 11 in
1978. Most dramatically, verbal references to intercourse increased
from 2 occurrences in 1975 to 6 references in 1977 to 53[!]
in 1978....''
It isn't just the amount of sex being shown and referred
to on television, but the {messages} that accompany it. For
example, in the early period of television, which we will define
for our purposes as prior to the 1969 season, a study done
by a research team and published in the excellent source book
{Watching America}, showed that 38 percent of shows ``presented
extramarital affairs as wrong. The proportion dropped to 7
percent after 1970. Before 1970 none of the shows ever portrayed
recreational sex as acceptable without qualification. In prime
time's passionate world of the 1970s and 1980s, 41 percent
of the shows viewed portrayed recreational sex as acceptable
without qualification, and 33 percent made no moral judgement.''
The same book notes: ``On the TV screen, sex is usually
without consequence, without worry and with rarely a bad experience.''
The images of the 1970s are {playing back} with a vengeance
in the 1980s and 1990s. There is an important point to be made
here. While changes in values do not occur overnight, they
are occurring at an increasingly rapid pace. This has to do
with the cumulative effect of television brainwashing on an
increasingly amoral and immoral population. {As morality collapses
and breaks down, there is less resistance to suggestion in
the individual.}
The authors of {Watching America} sum up television's view
of eros, and what the message is that television delivers to
its brainwash victims: ``Today television is both willing
to talk about sex and tell the truth about it as the Hollywood
community sees the truth. That truth is roughly, that sex is
important, it needs to be dealt with, in all its diverse expressions,
and those who would suppress it from popular entertainment
are doing the mass audience a disservice. Indeed the real villains
on programs that deal with sexual issues are ... the Moral
Majoritarians who would deny romance its natural physical expression,
restrict free expression and much-needed information, or condemn
`deviant' social victims like gays and prostitutes who are
no different than the rest of us except in one minor regard--their
sex lives. As for extramarital sex, it's a fact of life, which
popular entertainment would be foolish to ignore or treat moralistically
according to outmoded standards.''
They note that television, with its power, need not be direct
in its advocacy: ``As a leading form of mass entertainment
television rarely mounts the barricades. Instead it breaks
down barriers one by one, gradually extending the limits of
social acceptability.''
How well this brainwashing has worked is reflected in some
new reports from the Census Bureau, based on 1990 data.
@sb|some 61 percent of all adults are wed, compared with
72 percent in 1970.
@sb|In 1970, 85 percent of all children under the age of
18 lived with two parents; now only 72 percent do. Divorce
caused 37 percent of the single-parent homes. In 33 percent
of the single-parent homes, the parent has {never} married.
In a reflection of the infantilism that now grips society,
these reports also show that a larger number of youth aged
20-30 continue to live at home with their parents than at any
time in recent history, be they single or married and {regardless
of economic circumstances}.
Brainwashing by Remote Control
In the early days of television, the Hollywood-based programmers
were {directly} influenced by Frankfurt School operatives.
Now, most of the people in charge of programming, both in writing
and producing shows and determining which of those produced
make it on the air, are in the approximate 35- to 45-year-old
age range. In other words, the programmers themselves have
been brainwashed by 40 years of television programming! To
use a television metaphor, {the brainwashing is now taking
place on remote control}.
This is confirmed by a profile made by the authors of {Watching
America}. Their survey of a random sampling of the top 350
people involved in television programming reveals the debased
moral value structure that now determines what you watch:
@sb|some 73 percent of this crowd comes from either the
Boston-Washington corridor or California.
@sb|Although 93 percent had a religious upbringing (59 percent
were Jewish), 45 percent claimed no relgious affiliation or
belief in God; those who said that they had retained some religious
faith, said that their religious affiliations were nominal;
93 percent said they seldom or never attended religious services.
@sb|some 75 percent described themselves as ``left of center''
politically and ``liberal.'' These ``liberals,'' however, are
strong believers in ``free enterprise,'' and almost all support
the ``free market system of economics.''
@sb|some 43 percent think that the American system of government
and the Constitution need a ``complete restructuring.''
@sb|some 91 percent are in favor of unrestricted rights
to abortion; 80 percent believe that there is nothing wrong
or abnormal about homosexuality, with 86 percent supporting
the rights of homosexuals to teach in public schools. More
than 83 percent think that extramarital affairs are okay, while
51 percent do not think that there is anything wrong with adultery.
In addition, nearly all support a radical environmentalist
agenda to one degree or another. No question was asked about
whether they believed that man was a beast, but their other
answers reveal that their answer would have been a resounding
``yes.''
Finally, asked which groups should influence American society
the most, they listed consumer groups and intellectuals at
the top and religion at the bottom. Two-thirds believed that
it was their role to program television entertainment to promote
``their'' social agenda.
Think back a moment to those figures from the Census Bureau
on the American family, which showed in statistical form the
collapse of the nuclear family. Can't you see the correlation
between those figures and the degenerate values of the television
programmers?
Remote Control
Let's go back to the {remote control} concept for a moment.
Back in the early days of television, you had what you could
appropriately call some ``hands on'' brainwashing--you had
that crew from the Frankfurt School operating out of Hollywood,
designing the programmed brainwashing messages. But such people
as Theodor Adorno realized that this tight control would not
always be necessary to accomplish the task. The brainwashing
messages of the 1950s and 1960s were conditioning responses
in a new generation of programmers who would start having impact
on programming content in the 1970s and 1980s.
The operative concept is similar to what Adorno describes
with his ``forced retardation.'' You create a society based
on the infantilism of the majority of its members; that society
bombarded with television, becomes increasingly more infantile,
more {dissociative}, as we learned from Emery and and his fellow
Tavistockian Eric Trist. Under such conditions, the so-called
creative individuals, operating within the infantile geometry
of the society as a whole, produce new ideas that further feed
the infantile, carnal impulses of the individual. This in turn
plunges the society to a new, {lower} level of thinking: People
become more stupid, led by their stupid ``creative leaders.''
The oligarchical elite, through their control over the television
and cable networks, as well as the Hollywood studios, and the
advertising funding conduits, keep this entire crew of ``creative''
people in a {controlled environment}. It is in that {indirect}
way that they exert a veto authority over what is being broadcast.
The New York-Hollywood social community of ``creative''
people functions in what the brainwashers call a {leaderless
group}: They are unaware of the real outside forces that control
them, especially unaware of their own brainwashing by 30-40
years television viewing. They believe themselves free to create,
but they can lawfully only produce banality.
Ultimately, these creators of our television programming
turn to their own brainwashed experience and values for their
``creative inspiration.'' One producer was asked by an interviewer
how he determined what was in his shows. ``I think of the audience
constantly,'' he replied. But when asked to elaborate on how
he knows what would appeal to them, he replied, ``I think of
myself as the audience. If it pleases me--I always think that
it is going to please the audience.''
The authors of {Watching America}, who interviewed numerous
producers, agreed with the conclusion, ``What you see on any
television show reflects the morals and conscience of the people
on those shows who have influence.''
The Invisible Government
The power that such people have over our minds and the way
they function as a ``leaderless group'' was understood by the
original theorists of mass brainwashing. Eduard Bernays, Freud's
nephew, who was trained with Walter Lippmann at the Wellington
House psychological warfare unit in World War I, wrote in a
1928 book {Propaganda}:
``The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized
habits of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling
power in our country.
``We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes are
formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard
of.... Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware
of the identity of their fellow members of the inner cabinet.
``Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition,
it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives,
whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social
conduct or ethical thinking, we are dominated by a relatively
small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes
and social practices of the masses. It is they who pull the
wires which control the public mind, who harness the social
forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.''
{An invisible government} acting through the power of the
television brainwashing medium to control our world! Sounds
fantastic, but after what we have shown you, it is impossible
to deny. It is important to keep that in mind: Somebody is
responsible for what is happening to you, for how your morals
and society have degenerated. {And they planned it to be that
way!}
Decoding Some Messages
Now we are ready to apply what we have learned. It's time
to take a look at a few more recent shows to see if we can
discover how you are being brainwashed. We'll see if we can
uncover the ``hidden messages}.
Let's start with an easy one. Let's take one of the most
popular children's television show, the one that everyone says
that your kid has to watch to successfully adjust to society:
``Sesame Street.'' Did you ever really watch it? Given what
we have been talking about, what's the first thing that you
see: The show is dominated by animal-like creatures with human
characteristics, the famous Muppets. It's symbols are ``Big
Bird'' and ``Miss Piggy.'' A child relates to these puppets
as real objects, thereby creating a bond between the child
and the beast-like creatures. The {hidden message} is not all
that different from some of the early children's programs we
have already discussed.
That would be bad enough, but, governed by a new bunch of
programmers and child psychologists, ``Sesame Street'' seeks
directly to preach to the children its brand of amorality.
The Muppets talk openly about environmental questions, while
also infusing a heavy dose of ``be good to Mother Earth'' in
the ``teaching'' of the alphabet and reading skills. The show
also is infused with rock music, or ``kid rock'' as it is called.
More recently, it has used ``rap music'' as a ``teaching device.''
All of this is sold to people in an advertising package
that tells parents that ``Sesame Street'' is a ``great teaching''
institution. It has been incorporated into the classroom experience
for kids from pre-school to day-care to public school. But
studies demonstrate that the show does not enhance learning;
in many cases, it appears to inhibit their ability to understand
more complicated ideas. More importantly, the studies indicated
that the children appear ``addicted'' to the show, and by that
``addiction'' to become addicted to television viewing in general.
As Neil Postman, a New York University professor, wrote
in his book {Amusing Ourselves to Death,} ``If we are to blame
`Sesame Street' for anything, it is the pretense that it is
an ally of the classroom.... `Sesame Street' does not encourage
children to love school or anything about school. It encourages
them to love television.''
Some of ``Sesame Street's'' biggest defenders are those
very same critics of television from the so-called radical
right. They defend it because it doesn't show violence or sex,
and upholds ``family values.'' In the most recent debate over
funding for public television, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) rose
to defend ``Big Bird'' on the Senate floor: ``If anyone wants
to know whether Jesse Helms of North Carolina votes for Big
Bird, I do. And I vote for `Sesame Street}!'|''
The majority of America's brainwashed parents agree with
Sen. Helms. They see nothing wrong with the show because it
``sounds'' right to them--it contains the same cacaphony of
ugly noise that permeates every aspect of their lives. And,
most importantly, it keeps those kids ``occupied,'' as they
sit staring at the tube. They even find some of the little
scenes mildly amusing--as they are intended to be by their
producers, who claim that a good third of their audience are
adults. Together with their children they have made ``Sesame
Street'' goods and services a {$1 billion} industry, one that,
unlike the rest of the economy, is expanding each year!
And you don't even think it's odd that your three-year-old
daughter wants to grow up to be just like Miss Piggy! Look
into those blank stares the next time they watch: See your
child being brainwashed.
Okay, we'll try another one. Let's take one of those ``deeper''
shows, the ones the so-called critics tell you are ``socially
relevant.'' How about ``The Wonder Years''}? Here we have a
series about growing up in the 1960s, from the perspective
of an adolescent.
Does the show focus on any of the real horror of that period?
Does it show the chaos, the drugs, the destruction, the collapse
of social values, that we talked about? No siree. It was all
a good time back then, or so we are told. It was full of simple
problems, like how to relate to the girl you had a crush on
or your sister's hippy life style or how to make your parents
not act so ``square.'' And when some social issue enters into
the show, it is handled with the kind of sugary-sweet moralism
that has more to do with the current degraded moral values
of its producers than it does with the confused history of
the 1960s.
``The Wonder Years'' is a controlled {flashback} for baby
boomers to what they would {now} like to ``think} the 1960s
were like. By so doing, the producers have put you in touch
with your most infantile and banal emotions, and made you feel
nostalgic for them. The {hidden message}: In these difficult
times, one had best cling to memories and values of one's infantile
past.
The show bonds a 40 year-old infant to a romanticized view
of his adolescence, making him that much more infantile. It
might even make him pull out one of those old Jimi Hendrix
albums.
``The Wonder Years'' is part of a genre known as ``nostalgia''
shows and movies. They made one for the 1950s adolescents,
called ``Happy Days'' which aired in the 1970s, and they will
no doubt make one for the 1970s teenagers later this decade.
Try to think of them in another way. Think of television
as a big eraser, wiping away your real memories of the past,
the reality of the way things really were. With ``the slate
now clean,'' the tube superimposes a twisted and distorted
view of that reality through an appeal, not to your mind, but
to your infantile emotions. If they can make a majority of
people believe that the 1960s were whatever they depict them
on the screen, then television has created a {new reality,
a new history}.
We'll take one final example, one of the most popular shows:
``The Simpsons.'' A cartoon series about a family with three
kids, the older one being especially obnoxious and manipulative.
The parents are depicted as self-centered and stupid, and extremely
banal. The obnoxious kids, especially Bart, are the heroes
of the show, around whom the plot develops. This then is the
brainwashers' image for the family of the 1990s: one dominated
and effectively run by obnoxious, almost devilish children,
which causes some conflict with the banal parents.
``The Simpsons'' family life both mirrors and shapes perceptions
of the real, banalized life of families outside the tube: The
experience is mediated through television, which explains what
is happening to them. In a famous episode, the father, Homer,
sees a television report that an accident has happened to him,
which causes him and his family to try to find out whether
it did indeed happen; in the end, they bring their lives into
conformity with the screen's image. As Homer, says, ``The answers
to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle. They're
on TV.''
The show is popular with all age groups, but has a cult
following among children and adolescents. Bart Simpson is the
hero of their generation, whose face appears on their tee-shirts,
whose mannerisms and whose slang expressions they have adopted
as their own. But not just the kids; the whole society has
accepted Bart Simpson as a role model, so much so that he is
used by the government to preach an anti-drug message. President
Bush quotes him. So does Bill Clinton.
``The Simpsons'' hidden message: There exists no real moral
or adult authority in this world, save the television; in such
a world, it is the children who must assert themselves, assert
their right to be infantile; parents are powerless, save for
occasional brute force, to do anything but assent. It is the
image of the {Clockwork Orange} society packaged in a more
palatable fashion; Bart Simpson is the brutal Alex's alterego.
It's Your Turn
Now, if you remember way back when we started this section
on programming, I said that I would ask you at some point to
turn on your television sets. Well, we've reached that point.
I want you to turn on your set during prime time for an
experiment. I want you to see if you can find the hidden messages
in prime time series. Exclude the news and newsmagazine shows;
we'll be dealing with them in our next section. But take some
other series and see if you can pick up the brainwashers' hidden
message. Try this with a few shows.
Don't worry if you make some mistakes. Think about what
we have learned in our study of television so far and take
a stab at it.
It's a form of therapy: Once you realize that {you are being
brainwashed}, your mind still has the power to discover the
means by which it is being accomplished. Use your mind and
you have started to make yourself less capable of being brainwashed.
But be careful: Don't leave that set on for too long! Remember,
watching it for any length of time--for a few hours--will make
you stupid. So shut it off after trying your hand at a bit
of {deprogramming}.
When we talk again, we'll explain how television news and
opinion polling prevent you from understanding the world.
--
John Covici
[email protected]
