Because You Never Asked

CONSUMERISM, TELEVISION AND EUROPE

     (This essay was written in the mid 90’s. As I put it up on my website in January of 2008, enough history has slid by to be able to discuss its accuracy and where time has led us. I will add a contemporary comment at the end of the original piece.)

     I recently had a discussion with a German friend about much of what is insinuated in the title of this essay. I was explaining to him the concept of a “television time out”, used during our football and basketball telecasts in order to insure the advertisers a guaranteed open road to their consumers. I explained how the natural rhythm of the game was disrupted in order to facilitate this, and how the coaches and players had even begun to plot their strategies around such interruptions. When he had assimilated all this, he turned to me and said, in a voice reminiscent of Henry Kissinger, “it seems to me, Jerry, zat all ov ’dis is done vitout da least bit ov merzy.”

     This man is no fool.

     I believe the most recent history of mankind can be divided into a B.T.-A.T. mode, meaning Before and After Television. The massive dissemination of this incredible invention has made possible the savage commercial environment that has become the most important aspect of what western culture represents. Its extended use has brought the Gospel of the consumer life into every home, every hour, of every day, since the year 1A.T. It is the most mesmerizing, massive tool of persuasion this planet has ever known. It has created a new kind of human being and has glorified and made legitimate the concept of fulfillment through consumption almost beyond dispute.

     But there is a slight difference in the American and European attitude with regard to all this, some of which can be gleaned in the cogent comment of my German friend.

     It can be said with reasonable accuracy that my generation of Americans was the first group brought up totally immersed in this televised, commercial environment. For us, there was no other point of reference. It was as much a part of our lives as the daily bread that sustained us, and we took it in and digested it in the same unconscious way, as if it were no more than a bodily function. We neither accepted or rejected it. It simply was (is) and we learned it in much the same way we learned to speak our native language.

     This is not the case in Europe, where the use of TV as a purely commercial instrument is still a fledgling concept who’s roots are just beginning to find a firm grip. It is not a natural, unquestioned bodily function, as it was (is) for us Americans. It is a language they have had to learn as a second language, which is a more conscious, clumsy thing to do. In the countries of western Europe, television was more a part of the cultural patrimony than somebody’s business investment reacting to the tyrannical dictates of the market. If my German friend feels this increased commercial onslaught is “vidout da least bit ov merzy”, it is because he has lived a different reality and has something to compare it to. In his mind, as in the minds of most Europeans, there is an intellectual debate in progress as to what this all means that is more vibrant and alive than whatever debate of this nature might exist in the United States.

     This debate, however, is something more transcendental and far reaching than a simple discourse on the merits of commercial TV. The advent of such has been a catalyst in the further examination of consumerism, ecology, competition, alienation, violence, and a whole series of questions this unbridled, no holds barred commercialism gives rise to. These issues are also being examined in America, but our natural comfort with such unobstructed pursuit of commercial ends seems to lessen the “angst” of the debate. Certainly, the historical context of our country, its size and newness, has helped create our less constricted commercial habits. In Europe, these issues are more a fulcrum of serious discourse. They are more at the center of things; how much of this is good for us, how much is too much, how much like America do we want to be?

     I find this quite healthy.

     (A posterior comment in 2008: Although the original public television giants like the BBC in England, France TV in France, TVE in Spain or RAI in Italy, are still important players in the communications landscape, with the “Coming” of cable television and the incessant lust for power of such media-mogul-politicians like Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi, the private sector has now run its tsunami up onto the shore and become the dominant force in television programming. Television in Europe now looks very much like television in America, and the younger generations probably feel as unconsciously comfortable with this commercial environment as we “originals” did in America.

     And yet --- perhaps because the United States, having fallen into the clutches of a cadre of simple-minded imperial thinkers who are wasting the nation’s resources and diverting its focus to military domination --- the Europeans still seem to have a more well defined attitude with regard to the issues discussed above. When we finally do come to our senses (if we don’t in the elections of 2008, perhaps the game is over and we all go down) we may be led forward by Europe.      

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info