Mailbag #1: Four Arguments

What follows is a conversation with my friend Byron. We read “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” by Jerry Mander and agreed to share our thoughts weekly, or at least kind of weekly. Byron has been a close friend since 1st grade and has without question significantly influenced the way that I am today.

The ‘B’ represents Byron’s posts, and the ‘M’ represents my posts. Without further ado:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimination_of_Television

B: In reading the introduction to the "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television", it's hard to avoid the fatalistic feeling of Jerry Mander's argument. He concludes that TV is NOT neutral, that there are aspects of TV that make it non-reformable.

It was easy to be swept away in his over bloated language - in particular, his 1984-like dream of the President exercising autocratic control, engaging in a "war to control the unity machine".

And it's almost convincing, until you take a step back and ask how it's different from many other mediums of informational exchange. Go ahead - hit "replace all", replacing "television" with "radio" or "tabloids" and see what you get… many of his arguments will still hold. I can hear his arguments resonating with the people opposed to the first printing press, easily described as a device that could be used to print propaganda for mass consumption (consumed by the masses, produced by the few).

Let's start with his four high level arguments:

Narrows channel of experience: does not listening to the same radio stations or reading the same mass tabloid narrow the experience? Everyone is listening to the radio, the same way everyone is watching TV.
Enables control by those in power: Is the radio or newspapers excluded from the hands of the wealthy? Can a right wing donor not buy up a newspaper and begin publishing conservative op-eds?
No democratic potential, as the medium chooses its own content: are papers not the same, molded by the confines of an 11 x 17 sheet of paper?
Effect on human bodies and minds, fitting the purpose of the people in control: Do reading massive tabloid headlines not impact human minds, summarizing in depth analysis into just several words?

What I'd like to hear is why TV as a medium is so detrimental, compared against other mediums. Maybe he would agree that tabloids and the radio are as equally non-neutral as TV, but my sense is that he sees something special in television. Sure, there are nuances here and there, but he'll have to prove what's fundamentally different.

M: It should be noted that I have already read the book. So some of the anticipatory frustration you’re experiencing I’m not but I will do my best to put myself back into the mindset I had while reading the book the first time, as well articulate some of the new thoughts that were catalyzed in the second reading.

I think it's also worth noting that we may be similar to each other, but unique when compared to most others in that our exposure to television during childhood was actively controlled and consciously limited by our parents. This facilitated the cultivation of alternative habits early on; limiting our television watching ensured that we did not establish deeply rooted habits of using television watching as a reprieve.

Now, to your post -

Here are some things that differentiate television watching from the other mediums you discussed:

1. When watching television it is relevantly harder to multitask, that is, television watching consumes most of your attention whereas radio is often a background exercise.

2. The environment in which television is being watched generally trumps or nullifies the opportunity for another experience. Whereas in the same room one person could be listening to the radio, one person can be doing dishes, one person can be reading, and one person can be talking on the phone, any of those experiences would at least be much more difficult to accomplish in a room in which someone is watching television.

3. Most television can be digested more passively whereas reading, no matter how trivial, requires a level of attention that is relevantly higher than that of watching even dramatic television

4. Television watching for most happens in the same place every time whereas for radio and reading the experience is mobile, and therefore usually (and at least potentially) more novel. There has been a lot of work done that says that similar simple settings have an ability to induce more trancelike states.

5. Television emits light -> Humans are drawn to light and/or light flashes are distracting. Whereas radio and reading do not do that.

6. More people watch television then listen to radio or read. Therefore it has an advantage in influencing people's experience or perspective.

I think I can go on but I'll leave it at that. So my answer to you is that I think while it's true the arguments wouldn't fail if you hit 'replace all,' they are more interesting when applied to the proverbial black box.

For me, the experience of reading the intro was less of an arm’s length one and more of a "Woah, he's right. I never realized how sucked into a trancelike experience I find myself in when watching TV." It has been particularly illuminating because throughout college I had a television in my room, and due to its low barrier to entry (get a beer and press a button) I would often rely on its trance inducing powers after exerting myself (in any way). Not having a TV in Chicago has forced me to fill my time with other habits that I might not have tried if there was a television available and I feel very... different.

B: Got it. So I read through Argument One, chapters 3 and 4.

I do understand how television is different from these other mediums (though to what extent, we should continue to debate), just found it interesting that he doesn't really discuss the TV in contrast to, or apart from, other mediums of information / communication. It seems like a relatively obvious first critique.

My takeaway from the intro was a confirmation of a feeling I already had, which is that TV is a way to passively engage with mostly pop-content (trying to get as many viewers as possible). I never really watch it unless it's a few specific shows without commercials. And I mostly watch those because of the passivity... it's a way to unwind and not do anything, but more addicting than listening to music and easier than reading a book.

But I take greatest meaning from his argument in its application to phones / computers. I'm on those devices all the time and it's troubling to me because I both 1) feel tied to them, constantly checking mail, texts, articles, Facebook, etc. and 2) they draw me away from engaging (non-digital) people and things around me. It may be different because I engage in those actively, not passively, but "the mediation of experience" applies here too.

This brings me specifically to Chapter 3. I think he's right. We are in an institutional-technological rhythm and are increasingly separated from the natural world. At first I thought, "Why is this necessarily bad?" So what if we don't notice the animals and stars, instead noticing a funny Facebook post? But he makes a strong point that everything we engage with today has been created - and shaped - by people. So where the natural world is "unbiased" (at least by human experience), the technological world is biased by its creators. This too, isn't necessarily bad; we just need to hope that the biased version is at least as good as the unbiased, and that we can trust it (to his point that everything we know is processed).

So a few questions...

Aside from obscured knowledge, what else do we lose through the mediation of experience? Does it impact our emotional well-being in any way? My sense is that there are spiritual ramifications. But again, don't know if it's bad (i.e. is it preferable to be romantic or totally logical? The first feels more human but not better per se).

I think much of what science shows is that we can't just trust our instincts, that sensory observations aren't always reliable, and that's why questions need to be approached in a scientifically rigorous way. It feels like he's making a trade-off here of basic understanding of the natural world through direct experience for everyone versus nuanced understanding of the world, led by experts, disseminated to the many... you agree?

M: Excited to get back into this, I hope you had a good week. On my end we are starting to rev up for yearend close and given this is my first close I am not totally sure what to expect.

So back to Mander, and all his hyperbolic sensationalism. Just joking.

So before I get into addressing your thoughts on chapter 3 and 4 I want to readdress, per your suggestion, why he has not spent much time differentiating television or the experience of watching television from other experiences. I think the first is because at the time, (and probably still today) television was becoming such a fundamental part of American human experience. Not only was it a source of recreation and a way to unwind but it served as the main vessel for which people (mainly adults) got their information. It served as the biblical water well or communal fire for families in that it was the center of the domestic universe. It allowed everyone in the family, no matter their demographic attributes, to sit together and share in the experience of receiving the input. So, to make a long winded paragraph into one word: TV was more important than other mediums. I'm not sure if applying his arguments to all mediums is within the scope of this project, but I might be wrong. It might either a) be in the scope b) be important and relevant so should be added to the scope. I'm going to put this thought down for now and address the arguments and your thoughts on the arguments.

When trying to apply our experience of watching to TV to the experience Mander has in mind we have to be careful about a few differentiating and relevant factors. The first is that there is an infinitely greater way to access news and recreation so television's market share of our time and our perceived value of the programming has been decreased in the digital age. The few specific shows you watch without commercials might not only serve as a way to unwind because, and in listening to podcasts with showrunners and executives of networks this can be confirmed, many of the shows that are 'pop culture' are actually 'niche pop culture.' Pop culture then meant something more universal then it does now. I think that's important because the intent of the director/creator of the niche shows put more effort into achieving a more artistically developed product as opposed to appealing to the average viewer. That combined with both the viewer and director/creator knowing there are infinitely more ways you can choose to unwind means that there is a level of active intent and active receiving of the input of the programming. It should be noted that I am assuming you are watching premium programming (HBO, Netflix, Showtime, IFC, etc.) and not reality shows, network sitcoms, etc. That's important because when there is an authorial intent to achieve a specific art result in and of itself (and separate from appealing to the masses) the viewer is aware of the need to actively engage, consider, and reflect on the content viewed. This is evident by the numerous think pieces and reviews of the premier television shows and the amount and desire of viewers to access the director/creator via interview to get an understanding of the process and goal. So I question whether your assessment of the TV you watch as being "a way to unwind and not do anything" is the same interpretation Mander would have about viewers watching television. I think you would be a more active viewer then the kind Mander had in mind.

Now, mediated experience as it applies to our lives is the argument we're addressing and in Mander's time television was the primary mediator of experience. There was no cell phone, there was no internet, and there was no computer screen. I think at that time the only mediators were television, movies, and books. We can eliminate books because of the understanding that reading entails a different type of active consumption then the type of needed to receive input from screens. Movies were a luxury, a once a week at most activity, clearly television is a much more omnipresent and therefore potent and relevant medium to consider when considering mediated experience. Your experience of being tied to your phone might have more to do with your desire to be reachable and attached to other PEOPLE and not necessarily other THINGS or EXPERIENCES.

So to you point "2) they draw me away from engaging (non-digital) people and things around me" the mediation of the experience is different.

Television:

Screen mediates you from experiencing a thing or experience that is directly represented on the screen

Phone:

Device mediates you from experiencing the people in your vicinity who aren't directly represented on the screen.

Really you aren't being mediated from the people directly around you; you are just choosing the mediated experience of the people represented on the screen over experiencing the people in vicinity which are accessible in a non-mediated form.

And I think that model is the EXACT thing that concerns Mander. Mediated experiences are easier, less messy, usually more of them are available, probably cheaper, and a whole host of other reasons why they might get chosen at the expense of a non-mediated experience. Humans have always developed their paradigm through mediated experience, what will that paradigm look like if it is the product of mediated experience?

As to this paragraph:

We are in an institutional-technological rhythm and are increasingly separated from the natural world. At first I thought, "Why is this necessarily bad?" So what if we don't notice the animals and stars, instead noticing a funny Facebook post? But he makes a strong point that everything we engage with today has been created - and shaped - by people. So where the natural world is "unbiased" (at least by human experience), the technological world is biased by its creators. This too, isn't necessarily bad, we just need to hope that the biased version is at least as good as the unbiased, and that we can trust it (to his point that everything we know is processed).

I don't have anything to add because I understand and agree.

So you had a few questions... I have a few answers

Well, we lose the opportunity to (practice) digesting information in its raw form. Mediated experience, even if it has not been changed in any way, has been separated from us, and in that sense we lose a part of our agency as interlocutors with the world (through experience). I think that practice is vital to personal development and self-actualization. Theoretically a master might be better than I am at digesting information but by usurping that opportunity from me I will potentially eventually become something like the subjects in the Brain in a vat thought experiment (I am pretty sure you are familiar but in case you're not Brain in a vat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Brain in a vat - In philosophy, the brain in a vat (alternately known as brain in a jar) is a scenario used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features...

We could also eventually lose a point of reference for which to base our conclusions on which is vital for human sanity. When nature was less understood our frame of reference was religion as a vehicle for understanding the world. If we no longer have access to experience in its raw form we might lose our sense of raw experiences and become dependent on mediated experience.

I do agree, and I think if you asked him he wouldn't posit a world in which experience was only attained directly. Our potential for intellectual growth would be severely neutered. But I think he was writing at a time when he saw the pendulum of total experience swinging to rapidly from unmediated to mediated experience. There was a feeling (I and many other held) that unless consciously prioritized people would be reduced to the sum of their online presence in social media. That if all human interaction was mediated through social media we would lose interpersonal skills otherwise not attainable unless through direct in person contact (including pheromones etc). I think that concern was justified but perhaps dramatic.

I have a couple questions for you:

I'm not a hundred percent sure what your work environments have been, but have you experienced the feeling after spending too many hours in the office of yearning for the outside? This is going to be a little difficult for me to articulate clearly so bare with me. I remember vividly last year (because my office at Groupon has a lot more stimulus) feeling suffocated by the dullness of the office. I was not used to spending so many hours inside, with such little sensory stimulation, and had to make a conscious effort to go on walks. It was not unlike not having soda for a very long time and then having a sip and being completely overwhelmed by the sweetness, a level of sweetness you never noticed when you were regularly drinking soda. The lack of sensory stimulus at work, and the hours I spent in the same dulling environment did force me to appreciate Archie, time spent outside on the week, brief walks during the day, etc. Have you noticed this? His section in chapter three of "Sensory-Deprivation Environments" (page 62 in my hardcopy) really resonated with me.

When is the last time you slept outside? When is the last time you saw stars unencumbered by city smog?

Much love, I am having a lot of fun with this, let's keep it going

B; A lot of great thoughts in your response, but per your last comments and having just read the chapter "Adrift in Mental Space" I'd like to focus on sensory deprivation and artificial environments.

You left off with two related questions, "When is the last time the you slept outside? When is the last time you saw stars unencumbered by city smog?"

Very fortunately, I experienced both these things just a few weeks ago on my travels in the Amazon. I slept outside for 3 nights along the Urubu River on hammocks tied to trees, many miles from the main city Manaus. One night Eric and I paddled our kayak into the middle of the river and threw out a line, hoping to add another fish to our dinner. There wasn't much to do so we just chatted, and ironically, a version of your question came up. When was the last time either of us looked into the night sky and could see the constellations with such clarity?

In that moment I felt isolated (nearly alone on the river), small (compared to the vastness of space), and awestruck (by how much there is that we just don't know about). I also appreciated the beauty and sense of purity attached to an environment totally untouched by humans, which resonated strongly as I read about artificial environments.

There are two themes I want to explore, and I'll try to relate back to that moment on the kayak.

I'll start with the first, the one that you identified: sensory deprivation driven by dull and sterile indoor environments. Though I've avoided rows of grey cubicles, I've certainly felt this in boring corporate offices while working at BCG. Even at WeWork, which I think does a great job of designing beautiful spaces (and with more stimuli), I've felt suffocated and needed an occasional long walk during lunch. I think there's some nuance to it - what makes the spaces dull is not that they're artificial / man-made. Rather, because humans made the space, they're inherently planned, predictable and unchanging. It may be possible for humans to create an artificial space that mimics nature, and in that case it wouldn't necessarily be more sense-depriving than the natural world.

What you may be overlooking here is the impact of working with other people. More than anything else, I think dullness arises when sitting at your desk staring at a screen. Talking to people - in meetings, small conversations, banter - can turn even the most bleak physical environment into a sensory-filled place. This is still consistent with Manders argument, as he'll say that people are part of the natural environment (and rightly so). Relating this back to the kayak, I think I would be bored quickly if I was alone by myself in the woods (I don't want to equate bored / dull with sense-deprivation, but it's easier to describe that way) - I think I get more out of interpersonal connection than from interaction with the (non-human) environment. This may be because I don't interact with the physical environment as directly and frequently as I do with people or a manifestation of my more extroverted personality type.

Manders then explores the consequences of sense deprivation, which I never really considered. Having been deprived of your senses and severed from the natural world, he write that you're now at risk of accepting an arbitrary re-creation of reality. Since there's no way of distinguishing between the artificial and organic, then reality just exists in the mind and can easily be controlled… cue 1984 and Brave New World, in which overlords promote sensory deprivation to reconstruct a reality befitting them. I really like his argument here. First you deprive people of their senses so they can't determine what's real/not, then you inject them with a new reality. (btw, one of the rules he mentions is that these societies restrict or control all human interactions, which connects back to the paragraph above).

I hope he eventually answers the question as to why any of this matters. Why is it bad for someone to think he / she is living in reality, even if it's totally constructed?

M: Morning,

This past week at work we finished making most of the final changes that had to be pushed through the 10k so barring any unforeseen issues my busy season is more or less over which is exciting.

Back to Mander. Well I guess first back to you, and your trip. It sounds like you had an awesome opportunity to connect a rarely used innate part of yourself with the stimulus of your external environment. From your testimony it sounds as though that set of stimuli had a significant impact on your experience.

During your time camping in the Amazon and experiencing a more primal lifestyle did you feel as though you were on a different channel (pun intended) then that experienced in the hustle and bustle of New York life? If so, was the transition from non-primal to primal seamless? Was the transition from primal back to non-primal as seamless? That is for the few hours/days after leaving the primal lifestyle did you feel different? Which transition was more difficult? Which felt like it made more sense?

The answer to those questions are worth investigating. We know that as babies we are far from a tabula rasa. Part of the innate programming is the ability to be flexible, rather, adaptable, to whatever environment we find ourselves in to an astonishing degree. Humans thrive in the most wide ranging of environments. The reason I want to investigate that further is because I am curious whether you would agree with Mander's inherent assumption that as human our status quo is actually a primal lifestyle that provides a certain set and type of stimulus and every day we survive, succeed, and thrive in an environment wholly influenced by man we are compromising on the stimulus that our bodies would prefer to digest.

This raised a really interesting conundrum for me, if my assessment of Mander's inherent assumption is true then as city-goers we are actually actively involved with our external stimulus because we have to work incrementally harder to adapt to that environment as the effort necessary to adapt to the environment we were built to be in (the primal/natural/uninfluenced by man).

Which brings me to your second point and ultimately the question that should always be asked? Why does this matter?

A frog has a unique ability to adapt to very hot water. This amazingly useful adaptation could also be the reason for its destruction. A frog might unwittingly allow itself to be led down a path of stimulus/experience in which it dies from the water boiling around it and overheating. We absolutely can learn to adapt to a manmade experience and the set and type of stimulus we could provide ourselves but I wonder why we would be incentivized to add that burden to our list.

To get at your question more directly; assuming man could completely and comprehensively imitate the value of the stimulus that natural environments provide, why would that be preferable? That would necessarily implicate a new type of existence in which we shed all of our foundation, which is all of the things inherent in us that make natural stimulus appealing and preferable, and tether ourselves to ourselves and our own constructions. Are we willing to take on that responsibility? Are we equipped to make those decisions (as to what type of stimulus we should and shouldn't include)?

I don't think Mander is accusing television, or those behind its pervasiveness, as being malicious. I don't think he blames television itself for the things it does, but rather its ability to disassociate consumers from the thing he thinks should be a priority. He does think that the function of sense deprivation, to further widen the gap between primal stimulus and manmade influence, is malicious. For Mander our priorities must be curated to include a high value on our human need to incur natural stimulus.

There are a lot of things we can do but don't choose too. Assuming we can imitate nature's guiding hand, why try to usurp that responsibility?