Ignoring the Nobel:Jack Humphries

"Everybody’s got values . . . The thing that frightens me is the way that an eroding public school system . . . and television on all over the place is leading to a steady dumbing down of the American public and a corrosion of basic critical thinking in the population."
-- Jamie Raskin, American University law professor, November 2004 on the Democracy Now! radio program

Jamie Raskin's observation that Television is slowly but surely dumbing us down, is unpopularly truthful. Not only is TV turning our minds into mush, in exposing us to the distorted worlds of our favorite shows/programs, it is altering our perception of reality. For example, every year various awards ceremonies are held to honor the people/projects that are chosen as being particularly worthy of attention. Almost every aspect of society has some prestigious award. The field of mathematics has the fields metal, and millennium prize problems. The field of science has Nobel Prizes, and the various media mediums each have their own awards ceremony ( Oscars for good movies, Grammys for Music, and Emmys for T.V shows). The amazing thing is that T.V has changed what award cerimonies we view as important, and by extension what things we see as important.

A rational culture should value the realm of academia over the fickle world of celebrity gossip, pompous performances, and ephemeral drama. The culture of T.V America is by no means rational though. With dozens of mindless reality T.V shows, overly coincidental murder T.V dramas, and comedy programs so cheesy they have to pay people to laugh, there is no room for rationality. Thus is why in the overly dramatic entertainment awards draw in much larger crowds than the formal academic ceremonies.

To a much larger extent, the more submerged in the fast and exciting world of T.V drama we become, the less engaged we become with the real world. Instead of focusing on real world issues like Syria's chemical weapons, we end up obsessing over our favorite meth cooking chemistry teacher in Breaking Bad. When we could be rejoicing about the developments of new cancer treatment methods, the majority of us are lamenting that "so and so
" didn't become Americas next top Idol. 

The sad fact of the matter is that T.V is just too entertaining. Its most appealing characteristic is not in its ability to bring us the world news, or the latest academic breakthroughs. No, Its greatest allure comes from its ability to let us escape from the real world. T.V's emotionally turbulent programs are addicting because they give the viewer experiences he/she would not normally experience in his/ her daily life. But as we become more and more inundated with dramatically saturated T.V programs, like like the Emmys; We care less and less about programs that are less dramatically stimulating, such as the Nobel Ceremonies. Thus is the way T.V has changed our worldly perception.