134-06-29-2009

A Call for the End of Reality Television Programs
By W. Owen Thornton

So because that which we take inside of us registers in our unconscious thought … and because we do seem to decide to do things based not on conscious thought but on unconscious ones, I am calling for an end to reality television programming because I believe it hinders us from practicing human kindness. 

I’m not sure how to begin this essay because much of it stems from article 133: do I repeat myself and make this a long entry, or do I assume you have read 133 and move on? 

Philosophy has much to say about the responsibility of our actions.  If we have Free Will, then we are directly responsible for our actions.  Free Will is clear: I am free to choose that which I do.  However it is odd to consider that for some that even if we are Determined by our actions we may still be held responsible for them.  Being Determined suggests that I do not choose my actions freely but that they are a combination of events and conditions of things that have happened from before I was born that make me act this way.  So if I have no choice in what I do, can I be held responsible?  Some STILL say yes.

In the wake of the thinking in regards to whether or not we have free will or if we are determined to act the way we do research experiments are conducted.  Some results are in.  It has been discovered that many of the decisions we make may depend on unconscious thought … NOT conscious thought.  So our decisions on how we live may be ‘victims’ of what kind of information we have taken up inside ourselves moments before.  A question we need to ask ourselves is: do we want to make decisions after having watched two people yelling and screaming at one another about how incompetent they are when we know that these words and images will help us to unconsciously decide our own actions?

Here are three experiments in a nutshell.

In one experiment people were given a series of mixed up sentences to fix.  What I mean is, they were given a series of words that could form a sentence and from those words the participants were to make sentences from them.  In this test one half of the group was given trigger words that have been known to make people think of senior citizens, such as grey, wrinkled, bingo and Florida.  The other half of the group made up sentences without these trigger words in them.  After completing the test by building dozens of sentences, the real experiment began.  The people were timed on their walk to the elevator as they left the building.  Those who had worked with the key words that trigger thoughts about seniors took longer to walk to the elevator than those who did not work with those words.  When asked if they knew why they took so long to walk to the elevator, they had no clue that they had been working with words that would make them think of senior citizens.  This experiment was informative, but no actual decision had been invoked … so more research was required.

In a similar vein, in another study one half of a group was asked to think about a professor.  Another half of the group was asked to think about a thug.  Then they played trivial pursuit.  Those who had been thinking about a professor did better than those who had been thinking about a thug.  So, a tip: if you want to do well at Trivial Pursuit, think about the characteristics of a University Professor before you play.  Or if you want to do well in life, think about the characteristics of a university professor before going out into the world … because these brainiac thought waves do seem to make a difference in our minds.  Still, no active decisions had been made here.  That is, after being exposed to a series of thoughts or words people’s behaviour was modified, but there was no proof that their actions would be different had they deliberated and decided to do something.  Enter experiment three.

The big pay-off in regards to this kind of testing is still to follow.  This time there were three groups.  One group was given words that could comprise sentences with words around the subject of rudeness.  Another third were given neutral words.  The last third were given words around the subject of politeness.  After working on a host of sentences, the real part of the experiment began.  Once people were done creating their unscrambled sentences they were instructed to ask the experimenter a question.  However, the experimenter was supposed to then be engaged in a conversation for 10 minutes.  Of those who worked with the rude words 63 per cent interrupted the conversation.  Those working with the neutral words? Thirty-four percent interrupted.  And those working with the polite words interrupted only 17 per cent of the time.  This test proved that thoughts on the unconscious mind helped people to make a decision based on those unconscious thoughts.  We actively go out and live our lives reflecting what happened and what kinds of things we were actively engaged in moments earlier.

Conclusion:  It is easier to be rude to one another after having worked with words around rudeness … and the key is … we don’t know nor do we acknowledge that we have been working with rude words previously.  What goes into our minds and lodges into our unconscious minds makes a difference!

When these folk were later asked if they were cognizant of the words they had worked with and whether or not they thought those words influenced their decision to interrupt or wait patiently, not one person identified that they thought the words they worked with influenced their decision.  The point the experimenters are attempting to prove here is that we are not consciously aware of the things that form our decision-making processes.  Have a bad day or a bad series of events and we’re much more likely to make a bad decision.  So knowing this … why would we deliberately want to observe television that would negatively impact our decision-making process.

First, let me say that there was no test considered in regards to how long these effects last.  Nor do we know if repeated tests of this nature make people more susceptible to being rude longer each time they are exposed to a host of rude words or a series of rude events.  However, we do know that when we are attempting to form a positive habit, that we do get better at things the more we do it.  It has been suggested that perfection and promise for people happens with 10,000 hours of practice at a specific task.  Hence, the hours that the Beatles spent performing in a German Night Club gave them a much-polished presentation that helped them to excel to the top of the music charts upon coming to America.  So it would seem to suggest that the more we are exposed to something, the more we will act in that way habitually.

Enter reality television programs.  Here people nightly watch as Simon slags people to the point of making them break down in tears on stage.  On another channel people watch how Survivor players lie, steal, cheat and connive their way towards a million dollars (and fame and notoriety).  On Big Brother we watch two people fight about how incompetent one of them is in the competitions.  Across television people compete for relationships, money, fame all the while they behave despicably towards their fellow contestants, slagging fellow competitors behind their backs: talking directly to the camera about off-scene events that prove how awful Bob or Samantha really are and how they don’t deserve to win … but I deserve to win.  (And I know these things only in the few moments I watch as I flip past.)

So in the moments after we cease watching this kind of programming, who do we think we become?  How do we think we act?  Does our unconscious take over … going on autopilot, making us all a little more nasty, a little more manipulative, a little more willing to stab someone in the back to gain position for ourselves?  Do we think we do that which casts us in a good light while trying to score points with the people around us?  Do we see no harm in doing things to people at work that make them look bad and make us look good?  The evidence of the above tests would indicate to us that even temporarily after watching these shows, that we would be really rather unkind people.  And I don’t think I’m making a stretch by saying that our degree of respect for others is diminishing.  And if that’s happening, our overall human kindness must also be diminishing.

I don’t think we need to know if repeated exposure escalates the problem – which I believe may be the case, but I have seen no evidence for this fact … yet.  But that doesn’t really matter, does it.  There is so much reality television programming on the air that we are constantly being re-indoctrinated to nastiness several times a day.  We will unconsciously be nastier people moments after watching this programming regardless of whether or not repeated exposure to this kind of television makes us worse over all. 

So I would ask all of our networks to save us from ourselves and to cease programming that teaches us all to be nasty … that allows us all to be a little worse today than we were the day before.  This is the moral thing.  This is the right thing.  But media cannot stop.  It cannot stop because at the end of the day benefit to humankind does not matter.  Media exists to sell advertising in order to make money for the owners and shareholders.  And reality programming is one method of turning a profit that the media is hooked on.

As a society we would like to think that the powers that be should control this kind of hidden evil; that politicians should legislate better, kinder programming so that we live in a better, kinder world.  But we live in a world of freedom where we are loath to dictate what should be televised.  And besides, this kind of soft proof can be massaged in any manner of ways to say that reality programming is not harmful to us and our society.  (Though I ask you what would you rather have people experiencing regularly: People working with rude people using rude words or people working with polite people using polite words?)

So the politicians cannot … will not … do not have the will to legislate programming that builds a better society.  This may even smack of paternalism!  That ‘government’ knows best what is good for us.  Or should government move in this direction, we might see terrible, evil powers create programming that control us and direct us in other ways we would not see as beneficial: we could be brainwashed in another direction … instead of the direction we’re being brainwashed today.

So the media has to self police itself.  It must decide to do the right thing.  But it cannot.  Because in the end television networks are businesses created to make money.  And in the recently fractured market-place of thousands of channels, programmers have to compromise between what they can afford to produce in relation to that which people will watch.

And we do watch reality programming don’t we?  We watch it like we drive slowly beside a train wreck, slowing traffic down for miles.  I liken this kind of programming to train wrecks.  A train wreck is startling … surprising … saddening.  It draws out emotion from us.  It conjures up worries about the lives of the people involved and the expense of the loss property.  We know that we sometimes take the train: that one of the people inside could have been me!  And when it comes to reality television well it too plays upon us doesn’t it?  We see train wrecks of relationship and we know we’ve all been in them.  Maybe it’s good to watch someone else go through that rather than ourselves.  Maybe we can feel a little better knowing that it just isn’t us who can’t seem to get along with ‘everyone.’  Combine this factor with the fact that we all want to be wealthier … certainly if someone were dangling a million dollars in front of us we’d be considering which parts of our ethics we can temporarily part with in order to win the money.

And it certainly seems like nice guys and gals finish last in these programs, doesn’t it?  So we have to be a bit corrupt, a bit deceitful in order to win.  (And we must win, regardless of the cost, eh?)  And … I think we all think that that’s how the rich got their wealth: through a little deceit and corruption now and then, so we’d better learn to play the game if we’re going to get our money.  We need to become lean and mean … human kindness plays a very small role in getting the dreams called wealth or fame.

We watch train wrecks because it evokes something in us.  We watch reality television programming because it evokes something in us.  And train wrecks can be healthy … on occasion.  We all take life for granted.  Seeing loss reminds us of how fragile life is.  It refocuses us on our goals … helps us commit to our hopes and desires for tomorrow may never come.  This isn’t negativity, but a healthy dose of reality.  But like anything too much of something is a bad thing.  See too many train wrecks and you become immune to them.  They don’t mean as much to us.  Then we have to see something else much nastier before it registers upon our minds.  We become indoctrinated to these images.  We are lowered by these kinds of things.  We are reduced by reality television.

Liken this to the once terrifying movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  All you saw was the knife blade coming down … a woman screaming … and then, using a Hollywood trick, a photo of her eye with water on it as the camera spiraled out from that shot to reveal the dead Janet Leigh in the bath tub.  Today, in order to invoke a similar response, we require arterial spray with blood spatter on the wall sprayed in the appropriate pattern (or otherwise we will know the scene was a Hollywood fake rather than a reality).  We are a species that needs to escalate images and words and violence to remind us that we’re alive at the same level of intensity.  To give us an elevated heart beat in a dramatic scene, more has to be shown to attain the same rate of the heartbeat.  We eventually become immune to the first levels of violence and we seem to crave more to get back what we once had.

So if the media cannot stop reality programming because it makes too much money from it, and if the government cannot stop it because it will smack of paternalism and this means we are no longer in a free society then it is up to us to stop watching this programming so that the networks will be compelled to give us something else we really want to watch: something that might be good for us to watch.  But we can’t stop watching can we?  We’re enthralled by how someone cheats their way to the top and no one seems to catch on?  We’re amazed by how low people can stoop and by how much hurt they can cause someone else that we cannot stop watching.  At first we’re shocked by it.  Later it makes us laugh at other people’s misery.  And so the cycle continues and our respect for one another diminishes.  Our permission to be mean and nasty towards one another becomes the new norm.  Human kindness seems like an antiquated notion designed for old fogies.

It’s a dog eat dog world out there so we’d better learn, each day to eat a slightly bigger dog.  Toughen up.  Wake up and drink the stoked caffeine beverage.  Be mean.  It’s okay. 

Well … it’s not.  So.  I recommend that we all stop watching reality television … that we pry ourselves away from this form of programming.  What it’s doing to us is nasty to the point of being dangerous.  Besides taking time watching others live their mean-spirited lives, means we have less time to lead our own lives.  We’d be better off doing something positive to helps us strive towards our own goals than learning from others how to lie, steal and cheat our way to the top.

But then … that’s only my opinion.

Please.  Refuse to take in bad information.  Find a way to take in positive information.  Then once you have found a good thing: rinse, lather and repeat … over and over again.  In this way you can cheer for others who succeed instead of being jealous.  You can practice human kindness rather than practicing things that make the world just a little more mean spirited.

Cheers

Owen