We look back on the past with fondness, forgetting the bad but remembering the good. I was reminded of this when I recently rented a DVD from Netflix. The DVD was one of my childhood favorites. I had often wondered why it was not available widely in syndication. I found out why—it was terrible. "My Favorite Martian" was hokey, poorly written, and not at all as I remembered. Why then do we think that TV was better in the "golden age”? Part of the reason we think this way is that we are ignoring a principal first articulated by science fiction writer Theodore White who said:
80% of science fiction is crap.
This is true, and later "philosophers" have expanded it to: 80% of everything is crap. What we are doing is comparing the bad TV of today with the good TV of the past, not remembering that each of the networks had to fill 21 hours a week. Every era has its hits and misses. For example, "I Love Lucy" is a sitcom for the ages and it is still available in syndication. The later "Lucy Show" is in the bad TV category.
Instead of good TV we have, as one song put it, "mind numbing game shows." The song suggests that society wants us ignorant and mind-numbed and mind dumb. Just as ancient Rome kept the mobs under control with gladiator games, so our modern society is controlled by TV.
The song is called "Choose Life" because that is what society wants us to choose. The song points out that this life is not worth choosing. I suggest, as the song does, that you "chose something different."
BTW this is the PG version.
I am not saying that that TV should not be a part of your life. I remember with fondness my family's weekly ritual when I was young. We would watch "Perry Mason" and guess whodunit at the first commercial break. But I remember even more our Scabble games.
But I am saying that in order to leave Babylon, one must choose wisely. With 100 channels one is still faced with the problem of "nothing" being on. If nothing is on, leave the TV off. Do not settle for the best TV available, choose something different.
There is one area where there has been a decline in entertainment in general, but I will leave that for next time.