People have the potential to ‘connect’ over just about anything. Why television? Why encourage a connection over TV rather than by drawing examples from literature, theater, music, film, fine arts, sports, nature, family, food, everyday life – as my wonderful high school English teacher did at the age I suddenly – surprise! – stopped watching TV? Why do we, as a society, have to make TV our nexus?

Masturbation isn’t a bad thing… but I can only waste so much time.

I’d certainly prefer to watch such tv as I watch without commerical interruption — and generally I watch it that way, by watching series later on on DVD or through the internet.

But I won’t not watch some tv show I want to watch just because of commercial interruptions, anymore than I won’t not read novels I want to read or not see films I want to see or not hear music I want to hear just because those novels, those films, and that music are subject to commercial restraints, just like tv.

I’d prefer not to pay any price at all for any of the cultural material that I take in.

But I’m not going to stop taking in any cultural material, just because I have to pay a price.

Or rather I’m not going to stop if the price is not too high, in my estimation.

Which, in the case of television, commercial intrusion is not to high a price to pay — at least for the benefit of watching a show as good as *Mad Men* as it unfolds from week to week, instead of waiting for the DVD … for which, incidentally, I would also have to pay a rental fee, to Netflix.

“Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they’re scraping the top of the barrel.”

-Gore Vidal

“Television: chewing gum for the eyes.”

-Frank Lloyd Wright

“Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”

-T.S. Eliot

“Television – a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.”

-Ernie Kovacs

“Television: the bland leading the bland.”

-Anonymous

“Television is for appearing on – not for looking at.”

-Noel Coward

“Television is democracy at its ugliest.”

-Paddy Chayefsky

“I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.”

-Groucho Marx

“Television is the first truly democratic culture – the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what the people want.”

-Clive Barnes

“Television has lifted the manufacture of banality out of the sphere of handicraft and placed it in that of a major industry.”

-Nathalie Sarraute

“There is an insistent tendency among serious social scientists to think of any institution which features rhymed and singing commercials, intense and lachrymose voices urging highly improbably enjoyment, caricatures of the human esophagus in normal or impaired operation, and which hints implausibly at opportunities for antiseptic seduction as inherently trivial. This is a great mistake. The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial television and could not exist in its present form without it.”

-John Kenneth Galbraith

I don’t know that I was condemning all of television out of hand, and I should say that I had “The Wire” and HBO in mind when I mentioned the universal pay-per-view option.

But surely you can admit that the problem of commercial discrimination is one that plagues us when we watch television as it does with no other media. That is, with television, you have to guard actively against the intrusion of commercial culture every 6-8 minutes, and with, say, a novel, no such guarding is necessary. So, wouldn’t, as I suggested, the medium of television be better served to find a way to manifest itself bereft of the promotional baggage?

That said, Arthur, I’m surprised that you’re pushing back so hard against the idea of commercial-free television, for, since you sound like something of a t.v. connoisseur, I would’ve thought that the larger aesthetic problem that commercials pose would’ve seemed more stark to you than to many others. What I mean to say is that the intrusion of commercials on the television experience surely demeans the very artistic experience you’re trying to praise, doesn’t it? After all, such an intrusion dilutes the sort of purified aesthetic concentration and emotional involvement that are necessary to superior aesthetic appreciation. And I think such dilution is suggested by the fact that virtually no one would rather watch an episode of any show with the commercials rather than without them; it’s why people buy television DVDs commercial free, and why HBO has a surcharge for its largely commercial-free programming. So, as I’m not demeaning television out of hand, but pointing to problems unique to this particular medium, I would ask why you seem to think that television wouldn’t be improved both morally and aesthetically by the elimination of commercial intrusion?

“And now folks, I’d like to tell you about the latest, greatest, softest variety of toilet paper from my favorite company, TP Fiorenza….”

After Canto 5 he might insert something like this:

“Whew! How about those two, Paolo and Francesca?! You know, I’ve been told that milk cools the libido. Let me tell you about a special brand of cow’s milk they might have drunk….”

And so on. No problem?

Regarding your other questions to me, see my 2nd post above.

I’m not sure if this answers your question, but I do feel that watching a good television show would be time better spent than listening to a bad concert … or reading a bad novel … or reading *most* blogs.

There already is “high” television, despite the fact that most television broadcasts are funded by commericals. And it is entirely possible to be both entertain and edified by “high” (and “low”) television despite the fact that commercials appear between the scenes. Commercials haven’t prevented *Mad Men* for example from being as great a work of art as any new novel published, any new film produced, or any new music composed or performed since it went on the air. And the fact that there are commercials between the scenes does nothing to prevent me from being entertained or edified. If I would rather not watch the commericals — and I would rather not — I can put the television on mute or leave the room until the episode resumes. And in the case of many other programs — for example *The Wire* — it isn’t necessary to do even that, since there are no commercials at all in the midst of an episode. It seems to me that it makes more sense to urge people to watch television responsibly in a more critical and more discriminating way than merely to say they shouldn’t watch it at all. I see no reason whatsoever for an adult, responsible, critical, and discriminating viewer not to choose — if he or se so wishes — to spend some portion of his or her time watching television shows of the caliber of *Mad Men* or *The Wire.* Indeed, I think that would be time better spent than attending to almost any contemporary novel, film, or work of music I can name. Perhaps you should actually investigate that which you seem so reflexively quick to condemn all but out of hand.

On the other hand, sometimes a musician bombs in concert but even that might be better than the relative sameness of formulaic television.

Actually, it aint the telly that is the bad guy here, it’s what the folks who fill the airwaves with expensive banality and purported reality put into it is that is bad. As has been stated, some of it really is good, making that which is bad stand out more starkly. It is then, a useful Barometer for measuring the eras pathological manias and certainly more entertaining than watching Rats in a Skinner Box in some under-funded lab.

What I read you as trying to argue is that all media engender high and low manifestations: there are books of high and low culture, blogs of high and low culture, films of high and low culture, and television of high and low culture. So, your question is: why think that ‘high television’ is any worse than ‘high literature’ or ‘high theatre’? Am I right so far?

To answer this question, what we really need to figure out is what ‘high television’ would really be like and whether (1) such a manifestation could exist and (2) whether such a manifestation does exist.

So, what is ‘high television’? Let’s set aside the positive descriptions (long-running plot lines, perhaps) and turn to the problem of consumerism that’s at the heart of this thread. As others have written, surely the best sort of television would not be nearly so advertisement-dependent as nearly all television today is. After all, other media do not manifest their best work in short intervals separated by a set of commercials that runs for 3/4 the amount of time that the actual work of art runs. Can you imagine seeing Lear and having to sit through seven minutes of ads between each scene? Or reading The Republic and stopping to hear Billy Mays peddle Scratch-B-Gone or some such thing after turning a page? (And interestingly, even the lowest forms of theatre, literature, and film are not broken up by commercials in the way that live television is, except for when theatre and film are broadcast on the t.v. Even the worst blogs, as Sabin points out, don’t force the McDonald’s anthem into your ears between paragraphs.)

And I don’t really think you can point to DVDs or TiVo or whatever other mechanisms have been devised to skip commercials as cures for the problem, because advertisers would surely pull their funding if everyone were skipping their commercials, and without that funding the television studios would lack the resources to produce the shows in the first place. So, the so-called ‘cures’ for the problem of advertising are really only workable when the advertisers have already succeeded–that is, the cures only work if someone else continues to foment the problem by watching the commercials.

In the end, then, it seems like the medium of television will have to be fundamentally re-imagined in order for its highest manifestations to take their place beside other manifestations of high culture. What this re-imagining will finally look like, I’m not quite sure–some kind of universal pay-per-view system, perhaps. But until that happens, it looks to me like manifestations of the television media, high and low, will continue to rely on the kind of consumerism that is, ultimately, antithetical to the manifestation of truly high culture that a society ought to be interesting in fostering.

I notice that you still haven’t given us an answer to the question of whether blogs — like television shows — are or are not a part of the Brave New World that you would like to “save” us from.

It would also be interesting to know what it is that makes films or music — whether live or recorded — any better for us to attend to than television shows.

In the same way that one could “free” oneself to “take a walk around the neighborhood” by turning off the tv once in a while or for good, or by taking a break from the blogs by turning off the pc once in a while or for good, one one could also do that by not watching movies anymore, not listening to music anymore, even by not reading books anymore.

Would you recommend those similar courses? Why or why not?

One’s brain waves are flatter while watching tv than while sleeping. It’s true. Look into it. This isn’t very surprising, if you think about it. Watch someone watching tv. Notice the fixed stare, the glazed eyes. You might also see a gaping mouth, a protruding tongue, and some drool. Possibly you’ll hear some gargling as well. You get the picture.

Then think of all the wonderful reading and listening you could do if you freed yourself from the glow box! Note that word: ‘freed.’ If you watch television every night, for hours on end, know that you’re a slave. No? Try unplugging. Notice the pain.

Take a walk around your neighborhood. Note the ominous flashing blue glow coming from window after window, night after night. Renounce it. This single act – the renunciation of regular tv viewing – is a major form of resistance to the burgeoning Brave New World. Postman was apt in describing television as the soma of this Brave New World. (Incidentally, blogs are not equivalent to tv for many reasons; for example, entertainment capacity is not the supreme criterion of most blogs, tv viewing is passive while blog use is active, most blogs don’t appeal to the lowest common denominator, etc.)

P.S. One need not exclude using the television to watch, for example, Teaching Company lectures (SOME, not all – avoid any by the heretic Bart Ehrman, for example), great operas, or great films, as these can enrich the mind and soul. By “television” I primarily mean that stream of broadcast/advertising propaganda polluting the air at every moment.

It’s similar to the difference between reading an edifying article on its own, on the one hand, and reading that article in a magazine which is otherwise full of crap and to which you are a subscriber, on the other hand.

Are blogs themselves or are they not “very effective impulse generators for habituated consumers?” If they are, then why the difference in standards in evaluating blogs as opposed to television shows? It could be because one might argue that television shows are inherently worse for us than blogs. But it could also be argued that blogs are inherently worse for us than television shows. I tend to think it’s at least as likely and probably a bit more likely that the latter and not the former case is true.