Praise the Lord for the gift of television

[robinturner]

So here I am, sleepless and in coding deadlock. I don't mind getting stuck when I'm trying to do something difficult, but for crying out loud, all I'm trying to do is install a pissy little Perl script to let my students upload their essays. I tried two scripts I downloaded and one which I more-or-less wrote myself. No dice. This is starting to remind me of my one attempt at learning C++, when I failed to compile "Hello World".

Anyway, in frustration, I switch on the TV and find my all-time favourite South Park episode - the rain forest.

There's a place called the rainforest that truly sucks ass!
Let's knock it all down and get rid of it fast!
You say save the rainforest, but what do you know?
You've never been to the rainforest before!

Getting Gay With Kids is here!
To tell you things you might not like to hear!
You only fight these causes cause caring sells!
All you activists can go f**k yourselves!

As a wise friend of mine once said (or rather, sang) "TV is everything."

There is a limit, though. The program about to start is Equus. It's a great play, but I don't think I can handle it at the moment. I'm more in the mood for something like "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble" (anyone here remember Kentucky Fried Movie?).

Comments

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

I remember when Equus came out. I also remember when South Park started. (Did the them music win any awards? it /should/ have.) Ignoring that TV is passive is dumb; to quote an old Zen saying, a painted bread fills nobody's stomache.

That you can't get the script working shows *TaDa! I finally get a chance to trot this out!* that the information technology industry is paradigmatic of willfulness and enantiodromeia ... the intention was to sell hardware and shrinkware, and both were achieved ... and woe to those who try to actually get something done. (Sihly me, I spent my time trying to help people get things done ... a perverse and contrarian avocation.)

[solri.livejournal.com]

I do find the passivity of TV annoying sometimes. I enjoy watching it with my wife, because then we can talk about what's happening, but for a TV programme to hold my attention when I'm on my own, it has to be pretty damn good.

I liked your comment about IT. The thrust over the last ten years has been to try and make it more like television - i.e. content delivery. I don't think it will ever become as passive as TV (and I expect TV to become more interactive and integrated with the rest of the IT world) but it's obvious that IT companies would prefer users to be as passive as possible.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

I've long suspected that there's more to the passivity thing than we first think; not only is there the absence of participation, but there's something like the illusion of ... ?what? engagement?
Watching TV, I'm not part of that complex whole, not as I would be at a concert or sporting event. However vanishingly small might be the effect of my being an auditor, it is not zero. Indeed, I may have quite a reasonable sense of my small effect. But with TV ... you see where I'm headed, I suspect: it's a source of perhaps false consciousness, or perhaps (more simply) in-sanity.

I think the MFing corporations want passivity of a particular type. If I do literally nothing at work then my employment will likely be short. But if I do a lot, then I'm likely secure, though I perhaps achieve very little or even nothing.
So long as using the system fills the time justifiably, plausibly, then the sterility is deniable ... they get their money, I keep my job and get my pay-cheque, and the economy is *once more* polluted. Not only that, but the in-sanity of the community increases (the MFers get rich, the slackers get rewarded, and I get a stomache ache).

The world's fucked ... I'm tired of making sense and not being able to afford to replace even my socks.