Television and Passivity

Here's a critique of television.

I know, I know, you watch television, you like it, you have great shows that you watch, television at its best can be a work of art, it's entertainment, it gives you something to talk about with other people, etc., etc.

I understand. I watch television too. I will watch every episode of Family Guy this season. Same with 30 Rock. I often needs me some Daily Show. Parks and Recreation seems to be finding its legs this year.

But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.

So here's a bit on television, the arts, and marginality. Or something.


"You have two choices. You can either play Guitar Hero, or play a real guitar. Guitar Hero will ask you to match the colors streaming down your TV screen with corresponding buttons on your toy guitar. Real guitar will entail hours of practice, interaction with a teacher, and a consideration of musical styles; in a few years you may even start writing your own songs. Though Guitar Hero demands some small motor skills, it mostly asks for your passive participation in matching their color streams. Real guitar demands you take an active and committed role in developing your new craft.

Amongst many other possible factors, I would like to consider the phenomenon of passivity and how it contributes to the marginalization of the arts. To start, art making is the antithesis of passivity. When a painter stares at the blank canvas, or an author at the blank paper, she knows she is responsible for every forthcoming detail of her creation. But because art is so challenging, it can also provide the deepest reward. In every high school where I’ve ever worked, I’ve seen a marked difference in the way students feel about their art classes: they excitedly talk about their work, they eagerly show it to their teachers and friends, and they say it’s their favorite class. Much of this love comes from the pride they have in making art that is truly their own. They see their hand in every brush stroke, every poetic phrase, every melody.

In stark contrast, watching television demands very little of the viewer; an imagination need not stray any farther than the images on the screen. Comparing the act of making art with the act of watching television helps us see the degree to which our culture is mired in passivity. 99% of American households have a television, and the average citizen watches over four hours a day. What percentage of Americans work on art for over four hours a day? Suppose 99% of American households had ample art supplies, and everyone worked on their chosen art form for four hours a day—how would our country be different? How would our schools be different?

I first thought about a culture of passivity when I was traveling in Belize years ago. One evening, while I was staying in San Ignacio, I chatted with an archeologist who had lived in the area for the past five years. He told me when he first arrived, all of the families would emerge from their homes after dinner to walk the streets, mingle, run into neighbors, and generally talk the night away. Then the families started to by their first TV sets, and in months the evening streets were bare and everyone was inside watching TV. I realized the same thing had happened to the U.S. years ago, before I was born.

I think this culture of passivity has made its way into our education system. Standardized exams insist on the passivity implicit in rote memorization and multiple-choice questions. A poorly conceived rubric will elicit formulaic writing, never insisting the students struggle with their thesis and organization. And I have had valedictorians in my classroom from time to time, and they are never the most interesting and curious of my students. Usually they display a striking subservience to the teacher and an affinity for following the rules. I had to conclude that obsequiousness was what the school system wanted most, since it rewarded these students with the highest honor. But an art class demands originality, creativity, curiosity and experimentation, which run counter to the above trends. So it is no surprise that the arts are sent to the margins of school curricula.

Last year I started a Voluntary Simplicity program with some students. For the entire month of December, we didn’t watch any T.V. By the end of the month the students were saying things like 'I find my homework a lot more interesting,' and a junior named Ryan said his head had been 'exploding with ideas' for his next paintings. Without television, the students had stepped away from some of their passivity, and their active impulses had come to the fore. Earlier in the year I had tried to make the program a regular class for regular credit, but the administration said no. I could only run it once a week, in the evening, for no credit. My students had been pushed to the margins of the high school. Maybe they weren’t being passive enough."