This spring I gave up the Boob Tube for Lent. It turned out to
be a remarkably pain-free sacrifice. Not only that, but I think my
IQ may have inched up a few points.
Lent has come and gone, but I have chosen to maintain my
self-imposed ban on television — in perpetuity. True, I was not
much of a couch potato to begin with, being one of those rare
modern curiosities, a middle-aged man who does not give a rip about
sports. As a result of this endearing eccentricity, I never felt
the need to subscribe to cable or dish or to plunk down $5,000 for
one of those 55-inch HD plasma jobs, which made it all the more
easy to walk away from the set and never look back.
Besides, with so few channels on commercial television my
options were limited to old westerns, reruns of Maude or
Two and a Half Men, or one of those godawful
reality shows that pass for Prime Time TV these days. The
wife still catches The Biggest Loser on occasion; other
than that the only time the TV gets switched on is when relatives
visit and insist on watching “The Game.” (And then only if “The
Game” is being broadcast on a commercial channel.)
Thus far, the benefits of a TV-free existence have been
substantial. Television, like the Internet, is a notorious Time
Suck, so I find I have considerably more free time now, time for
the Permanent Things Russell Kirk talked about (and he wasn’t
talking about The Simpsons, now in its 23rd season). Time,
too, for long neglected chores, for exercise, for slow-cooked
meals, even gardening. I finally was able to dust off some of the
classic books I have been promising myself to read, but too often
slighted in favor of a Schlitz and an old episode of
Gunsmoke.
THE WHOLE IDEA of giving up the idiot box still draws curious,
if not hostile, reactions from family and friends, as if there were
something vaguely subversive and un-American about it. I can’t
imagine why. It’s not like the Politburo passed anti-TV laws. In
fact, television was the regime’s most effective means for
spreading its vile propaganda. I can only assume the reason is that
television is considered quintessentially American, like baseball,
hot dogs and apple pie. Well, I don’t much care for baseball and
hot dogs either. Besides, like it or not, one cannot really give up
television completely, since it blinks at us from every wall: in
restaurants, doctor offices, taverns, post offices, even the lobby
of the building in which I work.
If you ask me, abstaining from television is a no radical step
at all, but a reactionary imperative. I consider it a very
conservative act, as in, conserving my time and my cultural
values. I am sympathetic to those conservatives who maintain
that we are living in a New Dark Age (only this time we
are the barbarians) and it is our duty to separate ourselves from
the present culture of barbarism to the utmost extent possible, and
perhaps by doing so conserve a few shreds of civilization, to pass
on to future generations, much like Benedict of Nursia and his
fellow monks did during the sacking of Rome (that is when his
fellow monks weren’t trying to poison him).
Of course, television’s raunchy and largely puerile content is
only its most obvious offense. The late social critic Neil Postman
nailed it when he wrote that modern technologies don’t just
distract us from Higher Things, they shape (distort?) who we are
and change how we think, and not for the better. Television doesn’t
just shrink our attention span, it teaches us to prize sham
emotion, deviant stimulation and quick resolution over logical and
abstract thought. Former TV critic Rod Dreher says television is by
its very nature a force against tradition, against continuity,
against permanence and stability. Who can argue with that?
I guess what I am trying to say is I feel somewhat called to set
up my own personal Benedictine monastery as a bulwark against
barbarism, and the first step is by refusing to allow television
and similar degrading forms of pop culture into our home, and,
instead, to fill our lives with beauty, with great books, and with
things spiritual and uplifting. I can live without
SportsCenter and Jersey Shore. Indeed, as St.
Benedict learned, there is almost no end to the things one can live
without.
