Steven Johnson makes the daring assertion in his essay "Watching TV Makes You Smarter" an excerpt from his book Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (2005) that TV is getting more intellectually challenging. According to him, modern TV now challenges the mind in ways similar to reading. He argues that even "trash" TV has improved over the years. If one compares the "trash" of today to that of thirty years ago, he asserts that current TV shows are more complex than older shows. TV has introduced more complex narratives, interweaving plot threads, and more complex character schematics. This complexity, he claims, makes TV watching a rewarding and mentally healthy activity. He further states that a parent should “encourage '24' over 'Law and Order'” for his or her child because 24 is a more intricate show. Johnson concludes that parents should judge their children's TV viewing not by the violent content or moral depravity but rather by the complexity of the show.
I argue that TV watching is not mentally healthy solely because it is now more complicated. If TV watching is mentally healthy now then it would be true that it has always been. Intellectual stimulation can occur in all facets of life. The stimulus does not matter to the intellectual for the intellectual can sometimes gain more from the back of his or her eyelids than from a complex novel. Johnson makes a logical fallacy when he assumes that complexity will lead to mental nourishment. When it comes to TV watching it is not what you watch but how you watch. A parent cannot justify allowing his or her child to watch numerous hours of TV because the TV show is complex. I am not arguing here that TV is not complex and intricate. I am not comparing TV to literature as that would be comparing two completely different mediums of entertainment. TV can be mentally stimulating, but that is not because it has multiple plots and more subtle narratives. It is not because it has complex character networks or uses technological jargon. All media types can be compatible with learning and any TV show can be compatible with learning.
Johnson is right that TV can be very content heavy but he overlooks a critical problem: TV takes more time to watch. One of the benefits of TV that Johnson points out is that often times the show will have plot lines that continue through numerous episodes. I am a fairly active viewer of the TV show Doctor Who. I've seen how that show has been able to combine a single plot each episode with a longer plot that typically gets started and resolved within a season, or about 12 episodes. The seasons themselves have plot lines that weave through. Often times a character that the viewer hasn't seen in quite a while will come into a new episode and deliver a critical plot development. I, as a viewer, enjoy this; it rewards me for my show loyalty. Johnson points out that TV is now often sold as anthology collections on DVD. I can now buy the last season of Doctor Who to watch again on my own time. Both of these developments, the long plot lines and the DVD sales, have clear economic incentives. TV producers make money off my now intense loyalty. Johnson critiques simple TV shows that follow a similar plot format every episode. But the beautiful thing about those simple shows is that the viewer does NOT have to watch every episode, or re-watch episodes. I can sit down and watch a single episode of, for example, “Friends” and enjoy it and then never watch another episode ever again. This is not possible with many modern TV shows; if I was to watch a single episode of “The West Wing” I would be lost and confused (I assume based on how complex Johnson says it is). Modern technology has given TV the economic incentive to become more complex, but it also demands consumers to be more loyal to their favorite shows. The viewer needs to balance his or her time watching TV with other activities. I have a friend who told me in great detail the overall theme of the works of Woody Allen. I’m a big fan of Allen’s movies and I was agreeing with my friend’s statements. It turns out he had only ever seen one of Allen’s movies, and only the first half of it! He had given it enough thought that he was able to discover Allen’s themes, recurring elements, characters, symbolisms, and so on . The viewer shouldn't have to spend hundreds of hours watching “Doctor Who” to get mental stimulation from it.
Johnson assumes that viewers will exercise their minds due to the complexity of modern TV. I do not think this is a fair statement. Just because modern TV is harder to follow does not mean that the viewer will put more effort into the show. I am sure that there are a lot of very attentive and active viewers of TV but I am not alone when I say that I typically put on the TV to relax. TV gets turned on at the end of a long day of school or work, it’s a mental spa. The viewers that follow this behavior would be wrong to claim, in any way, that TV is making them smarter. It is up to the individual to participate in the story and to decide whether or not the TV is beneficial. The issue with children watching TV is in the hands of the parents. I would allow my child to watch Doctor Who with me, if afterwards we discussed the plot and the characters; thus proving that the child did pay attention and analyzed the content. It’s the discussion and the thought after the watching that makes the difference between being a passive TV slug and an intellectual mental live-wire.
TV can be an intellectually stimulating activity, Johnson is correct in that regard. The viewer must still be cautious about the amount of time spent watching TV. The viewer should take action as to not become a modern day Don Quixote. By this I mean that even healthy activities, like reading or watching TV, can be harmful if they take up too much of your life. The viewer also needs to be a good judge of the amount of cognitive thought going in to the activities. Literature has an advantage in that regard, it’s much harder to sleep through a book than a TV show. In conclusion, TV watching is a nutritious activity if the viewer has the right attitude.
James Thumb
Watching smart people TV in Penticton, BC
December 2013
Read Johnson's essay here
Apr 4, 2014
Positive and Negative Freedom, an Introduction by Isaac Snow
The classic notion of negative freedom comes from Hobbes and means that a person is free when he can do what he is able to do without human interference. Outer blocks that arise as a result of human arrangements take away this freedom. Isaiah Berlin uses Hobbe’s notion of freedom with some added elements to create a definition for negative freedom. He believes that there is more to freedom than Hobbe's freedom; for example, coercion, which is allowed under Hobbe's notion, is not compatible with Berlin's negative freedom.
Berlin defines positive freedom as concerning the question, “what, or who, is the source of control or interference, that can determine someone to do, or be, one thing rather than another?”. Positive freedom only occurs when the individual takes control of his life and realizes his fundamental purpose. This definition of freedom actually allows for some restriction to negative freedom; for example, a child can be restrained from doing something that may hurt him by an adult assuming that the adult is helping the child to achieve his true will. The child is now acting the way he would if he were in full control of his mind and the scenario.
Berlin believes that positive and negative freedoms are in direct conflict with each other. Positive freedom in Berlin’s sense can lead to external control being compatible with freedom. Freedom can be made to mean whatever the manipulator wishes. Society can be ruled in a totalitarian way based on the idea that a doctrine can be written that gives the power to the people in control to determine the way the individual should live his or her life. The interests of the individual, in this society, are no longer related to the individual but to the society as a whole; individuals are free in the positive sense if they are coerced into acting out these interests. Ultimately, what is best for the child in our example is defined by the parent.
The Canadian Philosopher Charles Taylor has a slightly different understanding of positive and negative freedom. He defines negative freedom as an opportunity concept of freedom; freedom is a matter of what we can do. He examines two countries, Albania and England, using negative freedom and comes to the disagreeable position that Albania is more free than England due to England's mass amount of traffic lights; thus concluding that negative freedom is an indefensible view of freedom. Alternatively, positive freedom contains an exercise concept; freedom includes the idea that one needs to be able to realize himself in his own way, thus the free man exercises control over his life.
Taylor believes this later concept of freedom is superior because it allows the discrimination among motivations. Taylor's positive freedom also takes into account the fact that humans experience some desires and goals as intrinsically more significant than others; negative freedom does not allow for any notion of significance. A man is not free if he is motivated by fear, inauthentically internalized standards, or false consciousness, as these elements serve to thwart his self-realization. Taylor does not allow positive freedom to lead to justified totalitarianism because the individual is the final arbiter on his self-realization, and no rulers can define what is best for the individual.
In the end I believe that Taylor does have the stronger argument. I definitely believe that the notion of freedom is much more than simple external blocks. For example, I do not feel free if I am psychologically forced to fuel my drug addiction; even if I have plenty of money to afford it. I think that freedom can be compatible with governance. For example, The British Columbia Lottery Corporation offers a voluntary self-exclusion program. This program gives addicts an opportunity to restrict their own freedom of gambling. The man who joins this program willingly restricts his opportunity to go into casinos, but he gains freedom from his addiction. The man is more free than he was before. Ultimately, the concept of freedom needs to move away from the allowance of instinct into the allowance and drive towards self-realization. Defenders of negative freedom need to be more willing to adjust their views in order to take into account higher order desires, motivation, and significance. Freedom consists of the absence of external blocks caused by human intervention and the absence of internal mental blocks that prevent the man from realizing his potential.
Berlin defines positive freedom as concerning the question, “what, or who, is the source of control or interference, that can determine someone to do, or be, one thing rather than another?”. Positive freedom only occurs when the individual takes control of his life and realizes his fundamental purpose. This definition of freedom actually allows for some restriction to negative freedom; for example, a child can be restrained from doing something that may hurt him by an adult assuming that the adult is helping the child to achieve his true will. The child is now acting the way he would if he were in full control of his mind and the scenario.
Berlin believes that positive and negative freedoms are in direct conflict with each other. Positive freedom in Berlin’s sense can lead to external control being compatible with freedom. Freedom can be made to mean whatever the manipulator wishes. Society can be ruled in a totalitarian way based on the idea that a doctrine can be written that gives the power to the people in control to determine the way the individual should live his or her life. The interests of the individual, in this society, are no longer related to the individual but to the society as a whole; individuals are free in the positive sense if they are coerced into acting out these interests. Ultimately, what is best for the child in our example is defined by the parent.
The Canadian Philosopher Charles Taylor has a slightly different understanding of positive and negative freedom. He defines negative freedom as an opportunity concept of freedom; freedom is a matter of what we can do. He examines two countries, Albania and England, using negative freedom and comes to the disagreeable position that Albania is more free than England due to England's mass amount of traffic lights; thus concluding that negative freedom is an indefensible view of freedom. Alternatively, positive freedom contains an exercise concept; freedom includes the idea that one needs to be able to realize himself in his own way, thus the free man exercises control over his life.
Taylor believes this later concept of freedom is superior because it allows the discrimination among motivations. Taylor's positive freedom also takes into account the fact that humans experience some desires and goals as intrinsically more significant than others; negative freedom does not allow for any notion of significance. A man is not free if he is motivated by fear, inauthentically internalized standards, or false consciousness, as these elements serve to thwart his self-realization. Taylor does not allow positive freedom to lead to justified totalitarianism because the individual is the final arbiter on his self-realization, and no rulers can define what is best for the individual.
In the end I believe that Taylor does have the stronger argument. I definitely believe that the notion of freedom is much more than simple external blocks. For example, I do not feel free if I am psychologically forced to fuel my drug addiction; even if I have plenty of money to afford it. I think that freedom can be compatible with governance. For example, The British Columbia Lottery Corporation offers a voluntary self-exclusion program. This program gives addicts an opportunity to restrict their own freedom of gambling. The man who joins this program willingly restricts his opportunity to go into casinos, but he gains freedom from his addiction. The man is more free than he was before. Ultimately, the concept of freedom needs to move away from the allowance of instinct into the allowance and drive towards self-realization. Defenders of negative freedom need to be more willing to adjust their views in order to take into account higher order desires, motivation, and significance. Freedom consists of the absence of external blocks caused by human intervention and the absence of internal mental blocks that prevent the man from realizing his potential.
“There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail”
Erich Fromm
Isaac Snow
With the freedom to publish in Vernon, BC
With the freedom to publish in Vernon, BC
January, 2014
Further Reading:
Further Reading:
The Stanford Encyclopedia has a nice article discussing these two types of freedom. I recommend reading it for a more thorough discussion than what is presented here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/
Mar 14, 2014
Homeless People and Empty Churches by Sandra Turner
 |
| Painting by Jason |
Of course simply allowing homeless people to sleep in churches won't work for many reasons.
- Additional liability issues regarding housing people
- Community issues regarding increased homeless populations, as any incentive will bring in homeless people from neighboring communities
- Churches will need to acquire special permits to get legal permission
- The users of the facilities could abuse the privilege in a number of ways including drug use and property damage
- There would be an increased expense for the church to provide sleeping materials and heating during cold months
- There is an incentive for non-homeless people in the community to use the facilities - for example, I may use the church instead of paying rent on my own place
Each one of these issues will need to be addressed before churches can open their doors.
In the mean time there are other ways to address the issue of homelessness, such as raising money for organizations that provide shelter and other resources for the homeless.
A local homeless shelter, Inn From the Cold, promotes fundraising programs such as "Push to End Homelessness". In this event, well-to-do people organize teams that decorate shopping carts (probably not stolen) and race them through the city. Each team is expected to raise at least $1000, which supports one homeless person to go to the Inn from the Cold for one and a half months. This program seems to be just a fair bit patronizing to the people it is trying to help. It'd be like living in a trailer park and the rich guys down the street organize teams and decorate trailer homes and proceed to race them down a hill... and then give an organization a thousand dollars to help you buy groceries. Of course, no one presumed to get the involvement of the homeless.
 |
| How pissed would you be, as a homeless man, watching these ladies run past you? |
I'd propose an event or activity that includes both well-to-do people and the homeless. There seems to be an arbitrary gap of association between the two groups of people. This event would have the goal of bridging this gap and creating communication between the groups.
In the end, I believe members of the community should work together to help to worse off members. This help should not simply be voluntary donations or even non-voluntary taxes (and subsequent government spending on the issues), but rather it should be addressed in a personal manner. By engaging with homeless people in a personal matter we can discover the true causes of their situation and be better able to help them instead of simply throwing money at the matter and buying them a month out of the rain here and there.
"Broadly, homelessness is viewed as either the result of individual choices and/or a poor work ethic, or as a symptom of, or response to more complex social problems." Research Starters Sociology, 2009
Sandra Turner"Broadly, homelessness is viewed as either the result of individual choices and/or a poor work ethic, or as a symptom of, or response to more complex social problems." Research Starters Sociology, 2009
Writing from her home in Penticton, BC
June 2014
Feb 14, 2014
Ethics: A Possible Origin by Samuel Bucker
Ethics and morality are rules or guides on what is right or wrong; good or bad. In this essay I would like to examine the origin of the dominant morality in our society today.
Morality is a type of ideology that is developed over time since birth and comes from a variety of sources including parents and society (teachers, friends, the media). As such, it is not a concrete concept; it changes over time and varies between different cultures and societies. For example, even within Canada some believe it is immoral to have extra-marital sex, and other believe that this kind of activity is perfectly fine. Anyone that has studied history knows that morality changes over time, and anyone that has traveled extensively knows that it changes between cultures. Morality is not law, although some laws do reflect the dominant morality of the society it governs. Morality is defined by the society that you associate with. If you are a church goer church will form a major basis of your morality. Your career, the friends you associate with, and any other influence you allow forms your morality. Morality as such appeals to no logical system, it just simply exists and can provide illegitimate reasons for action or inaction.
Ethics, to make a distinction from morality, is something that should be more applicable throughout various times and societies; it takes the form of a system. Ethics appeals to some sort of logic; an explanation of its reasoning. An example of an ethical system is utilitarianism, which states that which is acceptable is that which provides the most good for the defined society. These broad-form systems often do not provide a practical guide in everyday life; no one is expected to measure the impact of each of their actions throughout the day. Another system of ethics is to determine the best action by reference to a 'rule-book'. The most obvious example in our society is the Bible. This is also unsatisfactory because there are situations that are not covered at all by the Bible, and people can interpret the Bible differently. Our dominant morality originates from appeals to ethical systems and cultural tradition.
One theory on ethics is that ethics is sourced from biological desire mixed with intellectual evaluation. To illustrate what I mean by this let us imagine a single agent: A man alone with himself trapped on an island. The man may have numerous desires but foremost in his mind right now are fatigue and hunger. It would be considered 'good' if he were able to satisfy any of these desires, but his intelligence will tell him that he should post-pone rest in order to catch a rabbit because he knows that if he sleeps now he may starve to death (Russell, 1927). We see this kind of dominance of desire take place between two agents as well, I may very well want to murder a man but society has a stronger desire to have me not commit murder. The origin of ethics is in this internal as well as external judgement. The external judgement, over time, is internalized by the original agent. I believe that it is unethical to commit murder because my society has convinced me it is.
This brings the discussion back around to the legitimacy of morality. The original ethics was sensible, but morals are extraneous and possibly destructive. A young man has the desire to have sex, and decides that this desire can be overcome by masturbation. But, if the young man is a Christian he has been taught that masturbation is "immoral" and he internalizes this opinion and it factors into his internal evaluation of desire. Thus, when our young man does decide to masturbate he can not help but feel 'bad' about his actions.
So where do these seemingly irrational moral values, such as the "no-no" to masturbation, come from? A possible answer is that these values are illegitimate; they have been implanted in our social consciousness as a form of control. Nietzsche's analogy of the lambs and eagles could help to support this hypothesis:
We should govern our actions by listening to our higher order desires (the one that tells us to put off sleep to chase that rabbit), which requires dedication and self-control. Society restricts our actions by putting in laws that reflect its higher order desires; which is, hopefully, to increase the welfare of its people. Unfortunately, often one of our higher order desires is to simply fit in to society and have social relations; unfortunate because it often requires conforming to pre-existing moral values that may interfere with our other desires, such as the religious boy who desires to follow his church and fulfill his sexual desires. The bird of prey, with all of his strengths, will be forced to not express them and assimilate into society.
Samuel Bucker
Reconsidering his values in Kelowna, BC
April 2014
Bertrand Russell, Outline of Philosophy
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic
Morality is a type of ideology that is developed over time since birth and comes from a variety of sources including parents and society (teachers, friends, the media). As such, it is not a concrete concept; it changes over time and varies between different cultures and societies. For example, even within Canada some believe it is immoral to have extra-marital sex, and other believe that this kind of activity is perfectly fine. Anyone that has studied history knows that morality changes over time, and anyone that has traveled extensively knows that it changes between cultures. Morality is not law, although some laws do reflect the dominant morality of the society it governs. Morality is defined by the society that you associate with. If you are a church goer church will form a major basis of your morality. Your career, the friends you associate with, and any other influence you allow forms your morality. Morality as such appeals to no logical system, it just simply exists and can provide illegitimate reasons for action or inaction.
Ethics, to make a distinction from morality, is something that should be more applicable throughout various times and societies; it takes the form of a system. Ethics appeals to some sort of logic; an explanation of its reasoning. An example of an ethical system is utilitarianism, which states that which is acceptable is that which provides the most good for the defined society. These broad-form systems often do not provide a practical guide in everyday life; no one is expected to measure the impact of each of their actions throughout the day. Another system of ethics is to determine the best action by reference to a 'rule-book'. The most obvious example in our society is the Bible. This is also unsatisfactory because there are situations that are not covered at all by the Bible, and people can interpret the Bible differently. Our dominant morality originates from appeals to ethical systems and cultural tradition.
One theory on ethics is that ethics is sourced from biological desire mixed with intellectual evaluation. To illustrate what I mean by this let us imagine a single agent: A man alone with himself trapped on an island. The man may have numerous desires but foremost in his mind right now are fatigue and hunger. It would be considered 'good' if he were able to satisfy any of these desires, but his intelligence will tell him that he should post-pone rest in order to catch a rabbit because he knows that if he sleeps now he may starve to death (Russell, 1927). We see this kind of dominance of desire take place between two agents as well, I may very well want to murder a man but society has a stronger desire to have me not commit murder. The origin of ethics is in this internal as well as external judgement. The external judgement, over time, is internalized by the original agent. I believe that it is unethical to commit murder because my society has convinced me it is.
This brings the discussion back around to the legitimacy of morality. The original ethics was sensible, but morals are extraneous and possibly destructive. A young man has the desire to have sex, and decides that this desire can be overcome by masturbation. But, if the young man is a Christian he has been taught that masturbation is "immoral" and he internalizes this opinion and it factors into his internal evaluation of desire. Thus, when our young man does decide to masturbate he can not help but feel 'bad' about his actions.
So where do these seemingly irrational moral values, such as the "no-no" to masturbation, come from? A possible answer is that these values are illegitimate; they have been implanted in our social consciousness as a form of control. Nietzsche's analogy of the lambs and eagles could help to support this hypothesis:
…That lambs bear ill-will towards large birds of prey is hardly strange: but in itself no reason to blame large birds of prey for making off with little lambs. And if the lambs say among themselves ‘These birds of prey are evil; and whoever is as little of a bird of prey as possible, indeed, rather the opposite, a lamb – should he not be said to be good?’, then there can be no objection to setting up an ideal like this, even if the birds of prey might look down on it a little contemptuously and perhaps say to themselves: ‘We bear them no ill-will at all, these good lambs – indeed, we love them: there is nothing tastier than a tender lamb.’ To demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a will to overcome, overthrow, dominate, a thirst for enemies and resistance and triumph, makes as little sense as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength.In this analogy the lambs want to assimilate the birds of prey into their ideology and to take control of their actions by denoting them as 'evil'. Once the birds of prey accept that their actions are evil, when they internalize the judgment, they will either cease to commit the actions and become lambs or despair in their inability to. This type of morality argues that birds of prey can become lambs and blames the birds of prey for failing to do so. In our on-going example, the man is wrongly told that masturbation is bad, and then is further demonized for his inability to curb his sexual desire. The judged person could, however, be more like the contemptuous bird of prey who refuses to admit the legitimacy of the lambs' claim.
We should govern our actions by listening to our higher order desires (the one that tells us to put off sleep to chase that rabbit), which requires dedication and self-control. Society restricts our actions by putting in laws that reflect its higher order desires; which is, hopefully, to increase the welfare of its people. Unfortunately, often one of our higher order desires is to simply fit in to society and have social relations; unfortunate because it often requires conforming to pre-existing moral values that may interfere with our other desires, such as the religious boy who desires to follow his church and fulfill his sexual desires. The bird of prey, with all of his strengths, will be forced to not express them and assimilate into society.
Reconsidering his values in Kelowna, BC
April 2014
References
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)