recitation:

robert putnam is a sociologist at harvard who’s quite mainstream. he found about a 50% decline since the 1960s in any form of interaction - visiting a neighbour, going to PTA meetings, joining a bowling league. one reason children watch so much tv is that parent-child interaction has dropped 40% or so from the 1960s to today - at least in part because both parents have to work fifty hours a week to put food on the table. there’s little day care and few support systems available, so what are you left with? tv baby-sitting.

but it’s a little thin to blame tv itself. it isn’t a force of nature -  it’s the core of the marketing culture, and it’s designed to have certain effects. it’s not trying to empower you. you don’t find messages on tv about how to join a union and do something about the conditions of your life. over and over again, it rams into your head messages designed to destroy your mind and separate you from other people. that eventually has an effect.

what’s happening with tv is part of something much broader. elites always regard democracy as a major threat, something to be defended against. it’s been well understood for a long time that the best defense against democracy is to distract people. that’s why 19th-century businessmen sponsored evangelical religion, people talking in tongues, etc.