What our consumption of TV news is doing to us
Till a couple of decades ago, this question was superfluous. I remember the time when we were fed (read, malnourished) only by Doordarshan. First, black and white. Then small slots of colour; approximately two hours per day. And then the deluge. So, the question that forms the caption of this piece.
If you think this is a small matter, please think. Let us look at it this way.
One of the arguments favouring vegetarianism is that what you eat becomes you. Or, what goes into you, influences you in a shaping sort of way. If you eat the meat of an animal which, at the time of its killing, was in a carnal state, you ingested a lot of carnality, which was not good for you or for those around you. As simple as that.
In other words, don’t feed your pet dog with the flesh of tigers. They could behave like tigers. Beef-eaters, as every reader would know, were supposed to be, intellectually, no better than the animal itself: dull-witted.
Now ingestion is not only oral. All five senses are entry points, or routes of ingestion. What we see, what we hear, what we touch, what we smell are all in process of becoming us, or shaping us, one way or another.
From an educational point of view, what we see has – make no doubt about it – a powerful shaping influence. This explains the prestige that visual media enjoy over print media. Ask a political, or poll strategist, if you are not convinced.
In an age saturated with visual media, the issue becomes pressing. It is no longer like having three meals a day. It is like being fed intravenously 24X7, lifelong. And we spare not a thought on what is going into us.
All of us are victims of conditioning anyway. By virtue of being born and raised in a family, I have been conditioned from the first day of my life. Maybe, it began even before I was born, via the influences – a whole universe of them – that my parents ingested.
Much of these have been washed down into me. As someone said, his education began some 2,300 years before his birth.
All of these were involuntary. They were beyond the scope of personal choice. Not so, what we allow to enter us via the media. It belongs wholly in the sphere our personal, free choice. So, there is something we can do about it.
Do we, let us ask, like TV programmes that are aggressive, belligerent and noisy? Do we countenance verbal duels packaged as debates? Do we suffer verbal clutters and claptraps that, over a period of 90 minutes, really yield no clarity on the issue ostensibly discussed? Do we enjoy talk shows that, in their sound value, are more canine than human?
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| I prefer to watch Karan Thapar’s programmes. He allows his victims to talk. |
We don’t like to consume garbage orally. Why do we, then, allow garbage to enter us via the visual route? Are we mindful of what is happening to us in the process? Or, do we ask: In whose interest is it that I allow my inner life to be desecrated thus?
Consider a hypothetical scenario: You have a son or daughter of matrimonial age. You are looking for a prospective spouse for him or her. You come across someone, desirable in all respects, except that she/he talks like the panelists on currently popular talk shows. Would you grab that candidate and rush off your son/daughter to the matrimonial venue?
It is at once incredible and alarming how indifferent we are to what is happening to us. That is because, this is happening to us with our complicity. Yet, we get violently reactive, if someone were to abuse us by calling us names.
If someone calls me names, it is really of no consequence in the long run. Someone calls me, say, a dog or a cur. I know I am not one. It is, in that event, a mere bit of noise. It means nothing. It can do me no harm.
The same is the case with being called – as I have been – a thief, a harasser, a cheat, a bigot, and so on. If there is no truth in them, why get hurt? Even if there is any truth in it, merely getting hurt is of no use.
What would help is that we take cognizance of the truth-content in the abuse and reform ourselves, so that a present embarrassment is turned into a future gain. I would prefer abuses, any day, to flattery. Ideally, I would like to be spared both.
What really abuses us – or uses us in ways harmful and degrading – is our willingness to be dumping grounds of audio-visual toxic garbage deep into us, where it works its poisonous process of redefining us, silently but relentlessly.
The extent to which the flavour of public conversation and human interactions has changed in the wake of the electronic media explosion needs to be studied with empirical exactitude.
I find even five-year-olds becoming, nowadays, belligerently argumentative and dogmatic. I find now more adults shouting, rather than arguing, than was the case a decade ago. I find conversational violence commanding far greater acceptance, even respect, in the public sphere now.
I find much less willingness to listen to each other and to seek together a way forward.
Most arguments now fall into the India-Pakistan mould. Confrontation is the norm. Outdoing each other, rather than communicating with one another, is the goal. It happens even between parents and children.
I prefer to watch Karan Thapar’s programmes. He allows his victims to talk. They are heard. He is willing to listen. At least, he creates that impression, which is such a relief.
As viewers, we can decipher what is being said and make out what is going on. There is a method in the madness. Since Karan does his homework reasonably well, he does not have to scream, "Don’t challenge me on facts!"
Cultured men and women never used to brag. Why can’t the viewers be trusted to know who is erring on facts and who is better acquainted with them?
I woke up to this when the other day, in the course of a trivial domestic conversation, my wife said to me, "Do not challenge me on facts!"
And I thought, it is high time I wrote this piece.
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