It’s some sort of progress that today is day #5 of Television week.
Size Matters
For all the education that can come from TV, and yes I do believe a huge amount of education does come from TV, there is the ability for information to come out from all sorts of sources. And those sources aren’t always going to be intelligent or forward thinking. They aren’t changing their mentality just because their audience now one million instead of one thousand. Because of that the potential and proven damage is greater.
Science Matters
This is especially true in the world of sexism. We watched during this past US election cycle as a number of candidates said some things that were hard to believe. Probably the most egregious of these statements came from Akins in Missouri. He stated that he had been told by doctors that a woman who is being ‘legitimately raped’ had a built in protection in her womb that would kick into gear and stop the woman from getting pregnant. He was rewarded for his ignorance of science by being defeated. He was also rewarded with scathing criticism from all sides for general stupidity.
Standing Up Matters
What does this have to do with Television? It has to do with it because, just as on the Internet, you can have all sorts of ignorant, damaging and inaccurate information coming at you. There is no way to know what is true unless you work diligently to get a broad range of information, which many people are not going to do because they either think the broader world of information out there is dangerous, secular or demonic, or they are too lazy and don’t care to investigate and learn. Either way we end up with many people believing ideas, and implementing policy based on those ideas, that have already been proven to be scientifically false. They are going backwards and it is damaging and embarrassing for the US and it’s citizens.
We have to be diligent and stand up for what is true in the world against those who would take us backwards. And no, it won’t ever end. We will have to fight forever – on TV, the internet, and wherever else we see the stupidity and resulting damage being done.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Aldous Huxley
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Trivia question answer from yesterday
Question: What caused Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of the Television to proclaim, ‘This has made it all worthwhile.” ?
Answer: Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon – July, 1969
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