Nov 10 2007
TV Delirium in Twenty-First Century America
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By Annell Fontenot
11/10/07
The average American has an addiction: television. We love to watch gorgeous celebrities, reality show personalities, gourmet chefs and athletes.
Like an obedient dog being given treats we salivate over flickering images. Clips of action, tenderness, conflict and sex fill the screen and rapidly affect our body and mind.
The power of these images is rarely examined by the average individual. However, due to its mind-altering nature we must make a rigorous assessment concerning the power of television.
Television is a thief. It robs the human spirit of creativity, achievement, originality and motivation. The brain becomes passive and the intellect dull.
According to scientists, after 30 seconds of watching television the brain produces Alpha waves are associated with a comatose state, whereby the brain suppresses mental activity.
The barrage of flickering lights puts the mind in this trance-like state. An excellent example of this was proven by Dr. T. Berry Brazelton by using a disturbing light stimulus.
After hooking babies up to electroencephalographs, Dr. Brazelton turned a bright operating room light on and off. During the fifteenth stimulus, sleep patterns appeared on the EEG, but the babies were not sleeping and their eyes were still taking in light. As a result of these disturbing stimuli the babies’ minds literally shut down, but this is not the only way the mind is affected by television.
The constant shifting of visual frames and the rapid changes in camera focus make the viewer’s reference shift every few seconds. This alters perceptual orientation so that the mind is programmed with a short attention span. If we apply this knowledge to the world around us we can see the effects of TV everywhere.
It must also be pointed out that our short attention spans alter our perception of how we perceive life. Leisure activities that were enjoyed in the past, such as reading and taking walks, are now considered boring and not worth pursuing.
According to Nielsen Media Research the average American home now has more television sets than people, while the average person watches four hours, 35 minutes of television each day. All this time spent in front of a television has translated into a sharp decline in the quality of life for the average American.
We are sleepwalking through life in a repetitive way, like passive machines, and in the process we have forfeited our humanity. The rabid TV viewer leads an existence that is lacking in the human contact that our higher nature thrives on. This has resulted in the
death of community life.
Franz Kafka, a Prague-born writer and author of The Metamorphosis, knew well in advance the mind-deadening properties of America’s favorite addiction. Kafka states, “Cinema disturbs one’s vision. The speed of the movements and the rapid change of images force you to look continuously from one to the next. Your sight does not master the pictures; it is the pictures that master your sight.”
Kafka was right! The images have indeed mastered us. Observe the average American and you will discover a person with a passive mind.
We watch so much television that we have become lazy physically, intellectually and spiritually. This laziness is diabolical because it has produced a mentality whereby we perceive ourselves as powerless.
We have made ourselves weak by the poor choices we have made. TV delirium is killing our souls.
Most people falsely believe that passivity and powerlessness are new phenomena that have been brought about by the conveniences and luxury of the modern age. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Henry David Thoreau wrote over 150 years ago, “There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say they do not know what to do, and do nothing.”
Just like previous generations we have rationalized away the notion that we can change ourselves and the world around us. This is a false deduction.
What then is needed in order to correct this errant belief? The answer is the knowledge that we have been endowed with the power of self-determination. Armed with this knowledge we should commit ourselves to managing and balancing our needs against our desires.
For many of us, the ever-seductive world of television is a lure too hard to resist. What is lacking now more than ever is an individual commitment to pursue activities of a higher nature. To that end, the individual who is oriented toward watching television will always live in a lower state.
Civilizations are built by cognizant individuals and they must be carefully cultivated like a garden if they are to flourish. TV watching does not foster the kind of deep thinking needed to keep a civilization functioning much less flourishing.
We are in an abysmal state and we must awake from our stupor. There is much freedom and empowerment to be gained if we choose a life of higher purpose and reject the path of least resistance.
When we become enlightened with the power of our own self-determination and apply this enlightenment to our free will, we are capable of creating a mature, progressive society that can leap past the selfishness, pride and illusions that are the enemies of
truth.
Annell Fontenot is the Assistant Editor and Publicity Coordinator at Harbor House in Augusta, Georgia. A graduate of Louisiana Tech University with a BA in English, Annell edits manuscripts, promotes Harbor House and its authors, and assists in overall book production.
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It is true that TV affects your mind adversely, and the powers that be know this and want this hypnotic state of affairs to continue. I recently canceled cable TV and they never completely shut it off. The menu system is removed and most channels are gone, but there are still around 20 channels you can get, including popular ones like the History channel, the Discovery channel, and of course, Fox News.
Why do you think the cable company would not shut off the cable even after canceling the service. Is this a fluke, or is there some self interest here beyond the financial?
It’s been some time since John Prine sang ‘Blow up yer TV’ but never has it been so pertinent. From the home to the classroom to the car to the hand-held device, TV is running our lives. It truly is the weapon of mass destruction. Insanity afflicts us in a completely sanctioned and calculated way, and so few are doing anything about it. If I may offer a sample of modern musical craftmanship about this very thing:
—– select VoyeurVision
Television, OJ jailed, Paris Freed, Whoopi and the View, all distractions. While mainstream media creates illusions, the gov’t steps on our throats by opening our mail, suspending habeas corpus, stealing private lands, banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon, conducting warrantless wiretaps and starting wars for a foriegn gov’t.
Vote Dr. Ron Paul and end this madness.
Final link (until Google Books bends to pressure and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-38523-0
>>the gov’t steps on our throats by opening our mail, suspending habeas corpus, stealing private lands, banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon, conducting warrantless wiretaps and starting wars for a foriegn gov’t.
Having read the piece by Annell Fontenot i have to say that a vital piece is left out in all of that, and that is that ownership is in just one hand - zionist.
I use singular because it, unlike normals, thinks as a group. Touch an octupus anywhere and all parts know.
In itself that would not be a problem. However, the intent is not benign. It is an essential part of group strategy where the group is a very small percentage of a given society and means to destroy - because it can - that society utterly, especially if it is prosperous materially and culturally and is destined to overshadow any jewish achievements - like Germany was.
This TV hijacking of the mind of the populace is an essential precondition for its intended destruction. Your America is in a well advanced state of TV induced dysfunction and decay, proof its material and human resources are enslaved totally in the service of Israel’s goal of expanding its hegemony in the ME.
Or to rephrase the last para, it is to say that the parlous state of America in all of the indices measuring such things had to have its origins in zionist control of your TV over the last 60yrs.
America! Throw off the invisible zionist shackles or you too will be yet another of its victims.
I have not watched, listened or read anything from the main stream media in the past 6 years. To be exact, from 9/12/01 when lies, deception, propaganda and demonizing became the only tool of the main stream media.
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers” - Thomas Jefferson
I can see what the “tube” does to my children and family. I am a First Nations person, from St. Croix, Wisconsin. I have known and fealt many negative things in regards to the modern day television. One thing i have connected from television to peoples addictions is gambling. Where i am from and where i live Native American casino’s are the number one economic drive for independence. However, what i teach and preach to the gamblers is that they are not only getting their “fix” in the casinos, but they are also fufilling the empires agenda…..sitting and watching a device known as a monitor, all who are trying to get rich.
Anyone who wants to check out mackwhite.com and check out his article the ” hive mind ” can and will get some new insight on how our empire has been doing this crap for years……..all out in the open.
Jay
Quite right. Very good post.
I ditched my television eighteen years ago. I wish I’d done it sooner!
Peace
People have always prefered sweet lies to hard truths, it’s just that the Masters of Media have exploited that human weakness to the umpteenth power, practically enslaving masses of millions of people.
I see it everywhere I turn, from my own family, to friends, to people at work, to strangers in a bar. We’re a nation of egomaniacal sociopaths lorded over by meglomaniacal monsters.
It can only get worse from here.
Ron Paul for POTUSA.
I wrote a short story years ago about a cable tv owner sending a “Bill” to God that stated nobody gets to watch for free.
Someone please help me - I’ve been absorbed by the television.