X-Envelope-to: ETHICS-L@UGA.BITNET
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethics-l
Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:16:39 -0400
From:         "Valdemar W. Setzer" <vwsetzer@IME.USP.BR>
Subject: Re: Good consequences of TV

Now it is TV time... Hopefully, it has something to do with Computer Ethics...

William Hugh Murray writes:

>I suspect that someone who has made sixty speeches on the evil
>of TV and who has never heard anything good about it is not
>likely to acknowledge any value in anything they hear now.

I try not to have prejudices. My position is based upon concepts; these are
always subject to revision. Give me better concepts than mine, and I will
change my conclusions.

>However, while much of TV may be mediocre and some of it even
>destructive, one has to be an elitist to reject it out of
>hand.

Please notice that I did not criticize TV programs; I just made phenomenological
observations about the apparatus and about the viewers. I am well known in DP
and educational circles in Brazil for having different ideas. Everybody
criticizes TV programs; I enter into deeper problems, the problems inherent
to the apparatus, as with computers. I see some ("good") place for computers
in our society; I don't see any place for TV sets (attention: as mass-communicat
   ion media). For me, TV programs just reflect the apparatus
characteristics (nothing original there: see Jerry Mander's "Four arguments
for the ellimination of television").

>TV has made much of the world's culture accessible to the
>majority of us who have mastered only spoken language.

I would not call it "culture". When transmitted by TV, it turns into a fake.
Culture requires participation, requires reflection. TV (the equipment, not
the programs!) prevents both. When Francois Miterrand assumed his presidential
post, he tried to change French TV. After a year, France Soir made a survey of
the population's reaction. One lady said: "To hell with culture! TV has not
been made to transmit culture; there are other better means for that." If you
really try to transmit culture through TV, it becomes so boring that every
viewer will make a transition from its normal drowsiness (semi-hipnotical)
state to deep sleep. TV producers know this problem very well: that is the
reason why TV concert transmissions are ridiculous: the cameras keep moving
from the conductor to some player, then to another palyer, and so on.

>Man is that being who tells stories and paints pictures,
>makes music and dances, plays games and visits distant places
>in search of adventure, beauty and truth.

No, Sir or, better, partially yes, sir. Man does all that, but there is
something much more important: man THINKS! Animals don't (let's see the
rejections I will get from this statement...). TV prevents thinking (who
is able to think in a drowsiness state?

>  Now you might not like the stories, the pictures, or the songs...

Again, programs contents. That was not the point.

>... but to reject literature, music, or art per se is to reject humanity.

Who did it? I am an amateur musician (classic) and know by own experience
the importance of art (mainly active). I adore literature. As a matter of
fact, instead of watching the news on TV every night, I read them in the
newspaper next morning, in a mental state as to criticize what I am reading and
compare it with my own knowledge, contrary to the poor TV viewers.  Emery&Emery
from Australia, in a nice booklet refer to an experiment that was conducted
in San Francisco. After the evening news program, people were called by
phone and asked to mention which news they could remember. Bill (may I call you
so), the result was that 50% (fifty percent) of all viewers could not remember
one single piece of news they had just watched! (How about trying this experimen
   t
yourself, at home, with your family? But don't tell them you will do it).

> To reject TV per se is to reject popular culture.

If this is popular culture, than our world is a horrible one indeed! I reject
it because nobody could give me good reasons for viewing it. Let's see some
examples:

>Television creates widely shared experiences.  The moon
>landing, the fall of the Berlin wall, the Olympics,
>the Academy Awards, and yes, even Desert Storm are examples.

I watched the moon landing in 1970 while I was teaching at the U. of
Texas at Austin. I don't think it was important to me. I could have read it
in the newspaper next day; probably I would get much more emotionally
involved if I would calmly read a good description of it, told by a good
writer transmitting Armstrong's feelings.
I did not watch the Berlin wall happenings. I saw the pictures in the
newspaper, and I think I have not missed anything important.
The Oplympics is a tragedy; a Roman circus without lions. Athletes dedicating
their life to something which is pure animal challenge, without real human
substance. A commercial show (read Neil Postman's book, which I have already
cited - its subtitle is "Public discourse in the age of show business" to see
how TV has transformed **everything** into a show, as education, religiona,
politics, etc.). Desert Storm: yes, I saw it, because at that time I was doing
research at the University of Marburg, Germany, living with a ham-radio
friend; I accompanied him sometimes (he is TV-addicted). It was much more
informative to hear BBC, French, German or Italian radio stations, which I
did in my room. On the other hand, TV reduces tragedies to shows, so people
get used to them, and eventually loose their ability to react against them.

>Again, you may not like the content, but the experience is
>human and humanizing.  It enlarges the sense of "we" and
>humanizes "they."  Shared experiences and shared information
>are essential to a sense of trust, community, and identity.
>No other technology in the history of the world has had the
>power of TV to create that sharing.

I cannot agree with that. If the viewr is reduced to the consciousness of
an animal, how can the apparatus "humanize" him? For me, "humanizing" means
being more and more free and self-conscious. Animals are not either free nor
self-conscious. "Sense of trust, community, identity" have to be produced in
an active way, through direct personal contact. TV "apassivates" (hopefully
this new word makes sense...) and producers no personal contact. It produces
a kind of a dream-contact; humanity has left behind dream-consciousness
(expressed through the miths) ages ago. Also, "humanizing" means to me being
more and more an individual. How can a **mass*-communication device "humanize"?
It can only "massify"!

>When George Schultz was Secretary of State, he watched CNN in
>his hotel room in Moscow.  On his return he was interviewed on
>CNN.

BBC was that important during World War II. I remember being 4 years old and
seeing the whole family here in Brazil following their transmitions, my
grandfather moving pins in an Europe map as the allies advanced. Can CNN be
more important than BBC was? Is it necessary to have the images? You may argue:
but TV is more atractive. Well, the contents should atract, not the medium
(MacLuhan said that the reaction is more to the medium than to the contents...).

>To reject the value of the medium because you do not like the
>content of the message...

Again, I did not criticize the content of the message.

>...or even its influence on the individual,is to miss the importance of the
> message

Yes, I reject it because according to my concepts its influence on the individua
   l
is very bad, independently of the program being transmited. When the viewer
is put in a semi-hipnotical state, his consciousness is being reduced to
that of an animal.

> MacLuhan foretold the global village; he would feel justified, vindicated,
>and even satisfied by recent events (and he was no friend of TV).

The electronic "global village" will be a sample of our horrible world.
As a matter of fact, many years ago the Japanese government made an experiment
with a village, installing computer terminals in every household. Does anyone
know the outcome of the experiment? I bet it did not work. So, Bill, please
advance other examples; yours have not convinced me.

The world is full of problems. In my point of view, they are not technical
problems, they are humane problems. In the midst of our black age, one may
find some light: the environmental movement, for instance. I have the
impression that the environmental consciousness is not a consequence of
scientific thinking. How can you prove that whales are necessary? They are
at the end of the food-chain.  So people's interest on them does not have a
logical reason: it indicates that people have become more sensitive to
the marvel of nature, and are growing to respect it. I will advance another
thesis here: TVs and computers do not help to increase this respect, on
the contrary.

Finally, Art Scott writes:

>I wonder if the person who does all that lecturing ever stopped long
>enough to watch PBS.

I am sorry for the ignorance, but I don't know what PBS stands for. It must be
something terribly important, so I am willing to examine it. As for "the
person", maybe TVs and computers have made Art loose the perception that
when we use persons' names we establish a personal contact and show more
respect towards them...

Valdemar W. Setzer
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Sao Paulo

PS: I will answer Tim Weaver another time.
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