sleepy jack

Television didn't invent apathy and stupidity anymore than the Manhattan Project invented anger and war. It's easy to look at television and the seduction which happens between the viewer and the viewed and go "well there's the problem" but it doesn't have much bearing on reality. Television isn't out to brainwash you; it's out to be liked. That's essentially the difference between "real art (and I almost gag using that term)" and popular art. It's the goal of the "artist" in most cases, when it comes to popular art, to figure out what the masses, or at the very least a large audience of people want, and then supplying it. There's always been a strong Western distaste for actual human suffering (I don't mean in the soap opera sense) so you're never going to see television as a whole show that side of things. Instead you're going to see it try and act as a form of electronic anesthetic.

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