[MD] Mediated Objectivism and me

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[John]
But on the way home, I listened to BBC Radio and a different reaction came.
A female interviewer breaks down in sobs, a woman screams upon finding her
dead son in some rubble...

[Arlo]
I'm venturing a guess you've seen Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine.
If you haven't, you should, you'd find yourself nodding an awful lot. Maybe not
all the time, but most of the time.

Like Mary mentioned, I too have gone without the telly for years now. And I
don't miss it one whit. Oh sure, I rent or buy shows I enjoy (My Name is Earl,
The Office, LOST, Californication...) but the television news is something I am
happy to never see. 

What is interesting is that, like you mention, I find myself much more informed
by listening to foreign news shows even about the goings on in my own country.
The American media (which, lest its unclear, includes the ramblings of
talk-radio) has become pretty much a bastion for satiating the lowest common
denominators in whatever "target audience" one has. 

[John]
It's been over ten years now, since Lu and I lost our youngest daughter in a
hot tub drowning accident, and we couldn't afford a coffin so I had to build
one.

[Arlo]
You have my deepest sympathy, John. It is always the worst tragedy when a
parent is forced to bury their child. It is counter to the way the flow is
supposed to go. 

[John]
So don't try and tell me there's no difference between information transmitted
via the word and information transmitted through the image.

[Arlo]
I'd say both can be quite powerful, if done "artisitically", or if done with
Quality. My guess here is that is more the difference you are pointing to than
necessarily image versus word. But as with all tools, there are benefits to
wielding certain ones at certain times.

[John]
So what is SOM, anyway?  Subject Object Metaphysics.  The idea that reality is
all out there, and I'm in here, and there's an eternal gulf between the two. 

[Arlo]
Yep. And we can lay this disconnect squarely on the major belief systems from
which our culture derives.

[John]
And what is tv?  A way of presenting this reality for our viewing pleasure,
objectified, controlled with a remote, and needing no intellectual mediation to
get in the way of direct experience.

[Arlo]
One of my favorite quotes from ZMM, one I have made into a small poster on my
wall... "You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely
different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and
because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window
everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all
moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all.
You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence
is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the
real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you
can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and
the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate
consciousness."

I don't think "television", or any technology, is inherently bad. I think that
was a point of ZMM, but its obvious that this technology, in our culture, has
evolved in a way that is not entirely Good. I've never been to the Antarctic,
will likely never make it there, so a program showing me the continent is
something I appreciate greatly. But like anything else, too much becomes a bad
thing. When people start preferring documentaries about mountains in their own
backyard than actually going out and experiencing them themselves, you have to
realize we've crossed a bad line.

[John]
It's Nova, by God!

[Arlo]
While I am not familiar with all NOVA programming, I have found what I've seen
to be informative, thought-provoking, and well-done. Same with The History
Channel. Just bashing something because of its media type is like saying the
Buddha can't rest comfortably in a television documentary.