I was traveling the other day and I stopped for lunch at a restaurant that had one of the cable news stations on their TV.  The sound was turned off.  A headline kept appearing before me as I ate:

 Accused Rapist critically beaten.  Was the vigilantes' attack justified?

With the TV's sound off, I never learned the details of the case.   I confess that I understand the sentiment of vigilantism in the case of rape.  What struck me as bizarre, was having a news network proffer the possibility that a vigilante attack on an accused felon might in any way be justified.  They didn't say 'understandable', instead moving beyond hyperbole to the definitive 'justified'.  My first thought was that the question presupposes guilt.  Additionally, the suggestion of such an attack being justified tacitly implies the judicial system in the US has malfunctioned in some fundamental way, and in this case, the resort to illegal justice might serve some legitimate purpose.  If that's true, then please hold in check any judgments on Mexico and its' tribulations with the drug cartels.  If justice is being thwarted in our legal system, then we should be addressing our own failure to successfully prosecute the 'known' criminals in our midst.  If the truth be told, framing the discussion in terms of support for vigilante justice is specious.  It is a manipulation of the audience marinated in sensationalism which networks routinely offer as the sauce du jour, to wet our appetite for stories that should have been relegated to the page 4 of some regional newspaper.  This 'appetite for their 'special sauce' is in actuality, the lizard brain,  underlying our conscious mind, demanding spilled blood for the horrific act of rape as well as stimulating other primitive, unreasoned responses from homo sapiens, which may have played a role in our past biological success, but which has no place in a society founded on the rule of law.  The media execs who chose to frame this story in terms of public support for vigilantism are manipulating their audience's primitive instincts in order to to 'gin up' interest in the already thin content of the 24 hour news cycle, (on what I can only hope was a slow news day). 


Do television media executives bear the responsibility for framing the debate in a less provocative manner?  Do they have a social imperative to avoid reducing the discussion to the level of an alley brawl, as they bloviate on lawlessness, human depravity, or whatever issue happens to poll a high Q score that particular week?  In an altruistic world, shouldn't their role be to advance the public dialogue rather than leading the participants down this intellectual and moral blind alley where they will be abandoned to duke it out as their 'minders' break for the exits.   The argument they present isn't point/counterpoint, it's insipid and crass, the 21st century media's equivalent of a dogfight, with the viewing public playing the dual role of tawdry audience and vicious hound.

 

Will television eventually act altruistically and responsibly in their role as a communications medium that disproportionately influences our collective self image and knowledge?  In the medium's present incarnation, the probability of conducting a dialogue that strives for a understanding of ourselves and our motives within a framework of humanistic psychology, philosophy, or law, appears to have been largely abandoned.   Rational debate has been kidnapped, as we are perversely set up to play the alternate role of lout or sensei in the pseudo-drama concocted by the kidnappers.  We've been left no directorial discretion for a more nuanced interpretation as doing so would require thought on our part , and that could lead to lower Nielsen ratings.  The daily passion play is produced for the entertainment of a viewership, who like their media masters, aren't really expected to recognize, let alone extract themselves from the intellectual and moral traps which they have set, or which have been set for them. 

The functional aspects of the psychology at play brings to my mind an interview given by one of the Beatle's as to why the band had forsworn public performances.  The band had been experimenting with LSD, and had recently spent time with Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi in India. 



One of them, (John or George, I think), described the 'control' the band had over the large crowds at their concerts, describing how they could throw the neck of their guitars a certain direction and the audience of thousands responded immediately and physically.  Viscerally.  As if a force field had been manipulated over and through them.  Whichever of the Fab Four it was who said this, went on to describe his interpretation of the disturbing karmic aspect of exerting that kind of power and control over other sentient beings, indicating that as a band they believed it would be appropriate to forgo such manipulations, even were it at the expense of their commercial success.  That's not a sentiment we're likely to hear from our captains of the television industry anytime soon and more's the shame.


The program managers from the industry have yet to come to terms with the puerile aspects of pulling the public's strings as have those four young musicians from Liverpool.  The sword of Damocles suspended above the jabbering heads of their onscreen personalities has yet to surface in a consciousness clouded by the ongoing struggle to fill the 24 hour programming day with catchy issues that don't demand much concentration from the audience.  They are perhaps motivated by what they perceive as a boost to ratings and revenue through the provocation of the public.  They bid their viewers join this perverse bal de Sade, as they set the ballroom aflame, (film at 11).  Alternatively, they are perhaps moved by an unexamined, infantile pleasure founded in their very own reptilian proclivities, like a half formed child, exploring his awakening sense of power and self while toying with a bug.  Either way, this polarizing and manipulative examination of 'hot button' issues that would benefit from a more expansive discussion, leads some to reinforce favored ideas against opposing views rather than undertake the intellectual reconciliation of valid aspects that conflict with their own thoughts/beliefs.  Such ideological isolationism can turn to violence as a means of defense for our most cherished fallacies from a demonized opposition.  The recent murder of Dr. George Tiller by a dangerously armed anti-abortionist comes to mind as a possible illustration of this. 


My questions: 

Is there a media executive out there with something approaching the intelligence of four musicians from Liverpool, UK, circa 1969?  Someone who might look beyond his or her immediate financial interests, to consider they may be doing themselves, their audience, and the entire species a disservice by advancing the strategy of playing Pied Piper to the lizard brain lurking below the surface of public consciousness.

Does their approach to presenting 'news' in a simplistic and sensationalized manner even translate into more revenues for them, or have these architects of public opinion, and our collective self image,  just grown lazy? 

In my experience people generally enjoy the challenge of learning.  There is a market, perhaps the largest market, for advancing such an approach in our media.  Exploring that concept might risk short term revenues, in consideration of which I fully expect the status quo to prevail, as programmers search out new ways to set the imaginations of their viewers ablaze.  Viewers who mostly lack the imagination and initiative to hit the 'off-button'.  The men and women of television programming have stopped analyzing who they are and what it is that they do in a broader sense than their job descriptions dictate.  In short, they've stopped thinking.  They are collectively in a rut, wherein their own thoughts and ideas remain obscured by the inscrutable precepts passed down to them via marketing surveys that pinpoint demographics yet cast little light on directions in which we might want to be moving.  They've fallen asleep on the job.  Perhaps someone should lace their water coolers and cafe bars with acid and outsource their jobs to India.  Maybe that would wake them up.




Afterword:  I'm not suggesting there's anything to be legislated or regulated here.  Change, if it comes will be from within the industry.  I just wonder when these people will start acting like members of the same species I am a member of.   I don't watch much TV, and haven't had a subscription to cable since the first Gulf War.  Am I that far out of the mainstream now, that the framing of these issues strikes me as if I've fallen down the rabbit hole?  Something tells me I'm not alone here.  Is there a way to make this better, or should we all just do as I've done, and shoot our TVs?  What about those that don't or can't read, and depend on TV to bring them information?  Personally, I'm feeling an Edward Abbey/Monkey Wrench Gang moment coming on with respect to the media.

Disclaimer:  To any who may be trolling tpm for examples of intolerance to opposing ideas:  I'm not really suggesting anyone lace the drinking fountains of the media with LSD even though they, and the public service they perform, might benefit from same. The suggestion was merely a rhetorical device to tie the non-altruistic actions of the media back to the more beneficient actions of those lovable mop-tops from Liverpool.