There is little sign any of this is about to end. Last week, ABC drew 9
million viewers to "The Outsiders," a prime time program about a group of
Arizona polygamists. Commenting on the appeal of such a show, correspondent
John Quinones said, "I guess (it's) the voyeuristic appeal." It's true - we
are a nation of gawkers.
To some extent this has always been so, but television has made gawking
easier and the objects of gawking more accessible. This indulgence in the
base and banal has had a corrosive effect on our collective spirit. It also
lowers our defenses against those who would destroy us.
It isn't as if we haven't been warned about self-indulgence in secular and
sacred writings. In his "Republic," Plato has Socrates describe the effect
on the soul of grace and gracelessness in the material culture: "Our aim is
to prevent our Guards being reared among images of vice - as it were in a
pasturage of poisonous herbs where, cropping and grazing in abundance every
day, they little by little and all unawares build up one huge accumulation
of evil in their soul. Rather, we must seek out craftsmen with a talent for
capturing what is lovely and graceful, so that our young, dwelling as it
were in a salubrious region, will receive benefit from everything about
them. Like a breeze bringing health from wholesome places, the impact of
works of beauty on eye or ear will imperceptibly from childhood on, guide
them to likeness, to friendship, to concord with the beauty of reason."
You won't find such "craftsmen" on television. Better to turn it off, or get
rid of this unfriendly guest, than to allow for the creation of another
generation of anti-heroes and gawkers.