Truer words were never spoken

[Horse with no Name]

Opiate of the masses.

>>>snip
Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.

http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/commentary/hiddenagenda/murrow.html

[flashl]

1. More food for thought ...

Older DU Post

Heads up fellow addicts. Time for intervention.

T.V.
It satellite links
Our United States of Unconsciousness
Apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive
The methadone metronome pumping out
150 channels 24 hours a day
You can flip through all of them
And still there's nothing worth watching
— Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Television, Drug of a Nation

The Journal of Cognitive Liberties

Alright junkies, I know you don’t like staring at long strands of motionless text, and I know it’s a struggle for you to analyze and comprehend the meaning of complex sequences of words. But if you give me just a few minutes, I will let you in on a little secret that marketers and governments have been relying on for decades. That television you watch every day, your secret best friend, is an addictive opiate, and not only that, it’s one of the most potent mind control devices ever produced. And I’m not just basing this on intuition. I have the neurological evidence to prove it.

...

Of course, not all addictions are chemical. Any behavior that leads to a pleasurable experience will be repeated, especially if that behavior requires little work. Psychologists call this pattern “positive reinforcement.” This is what we mean, technically speaking, by addiction. In this sense, television certainly fits into the category of an addictive agent.

When you watch TV, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. In fact, experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman showed that while viewers are watching television, the right hemisphere is twice as active as the left, a neurological anomaly.1 The crossover from left to right releases a surge of the body’s natural opiates: endorphins, which include beta-endorphins and enkephalins. Endorphins are structurally identical to opium and its derivatives (morphine, codeine, heroin, etc.). Activities that release endorphins (also called opioid peptides) are usually habit-forming (we rarely call them addictive). These include cracking knuckles, strenuous exercise, and orgasm. External opiates act on the same receptor sites (opioid receptors) as endorphins, so there is little difference between the two.

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Notes

1. Krugman, Herbert E. “Brain wave Measures of Media Involvement,” Journal of Advertising Research 11.1 (1971): 3-9. Krugman later became manager of public opinion research at General Electric.

For more on brain state changes occasioned by watching television, see: Emery, Merrelyn, The Social and Neurophysiological Effects of Television and their Implications for Marketing Practice. Doctoral dissertation. Australian National University. Canberra, 1985; Nelson, Joyce, The Perfect Machine (New Society Pub: 1992).