Turn Off, Tune Out & Drop Out: Do you know what week it is?

National Review  Online, April 23, 2003

If there’s one fashion disaster that has endured throughout the ages it is the hair shirt. There is something perverse about our species, a self-indulgent sense of guilt that makes us take rather too much delight in self-denial. Ever since the awful moment when the first caveman was hectored by the first Neanderthal nag, the killjoy has been a malign presence at our side, a preaching, prattling parasite condemning and chastising, perennially telling humanity what to do — always for our own good, naturally. The excuse for such interference used to be the Hereafter, the preservation of the immortal soul, the pitch to avoid the sulfur, fire, and brimstone. But we live in more secular times these days — and with the afterlife increasingly an afterthought, do-gooders are busily turning their attention to this life too. Health is the new holiness. Narcotics are a no-no, sex is “high risk,” boozers are losers, tobacco is a taboo, the Big Mac is a lawsuit, and, now, seemingly in a final insult, one of the last remaining pleasures, television — that flickering, fascinating window into countless different worlds, that most kindly of household appliances — is coming under savage attack.

Yes, April 21-27 is TV-Turnoff Week! Just days after televised images of toppled statues and desert heroics transfixed this nation, an organization calling itself the TV-Turnoff Network is advising us to switch off the tube for what could be a long, long week. In a press release issued, fittingly enough, on that annual hair-shirt holiday, April 15, the Network predicted that “more than seven million people will participate in over 17,000 organized Turnoffs in every state in the U.S., as well as numerous other countries.”

I don’t know about you, but there’s something about the idea of an “organized Turnoff” that sounds deeply depressing to me. A quick check of a list of the Turnoff’s supporters is enough to confirm that, despite some benign participants, its core is indeed a killjoy cabal. Signatories of a letter supporting the Turnoff Week include the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association, miscellaneous “advocacy” groups including “The Alliance for Childhood” (opposed to “test-stress” but, readers will be relieved to know, in favor of a “new national commitment to peace education”) and, inevitably, Hillary’s old chums at the Children’s Defense Fund, as well as an organization with a name — Shape up America! — that led to some unaccustomed exertion on my part: a shudder of fear as, slumped on the sofa, I hastily put down my drink and reached for the remote, desperate to find something, anything, that would push the thought of “shaping up” far from my mind.

Superficially, at least one of the points made by those who have signed that letter might seem to have some appeal: “Research demonstrates conclusively that turning off the TV boosts school performance. Federal studies show that at all grade levels, students who watch an hour or less of TV per day consistently have better reading skills than other students — and this disparity increases at higher grade levels.” Well, maybe, but after a moment of thought, it’s not hard to see that this argument muddles cause with effect. Brighter kids — or children with more actively involved parents — are far more likely than their dimmer brethren to look for intellectual excitement beyond the boob tube. The contrary notion, the idea that Jackass addicts will, once their sets have been switched off, turn to Dickens, Melville, and Hemingway for their thrills is, quite simply, absurd.

There is, of course, potential for serious discussion about how much television Americans, and particularly younger Americans, choose to watch; but that’s not what the Turnoff Taliban is really about. Look a little closer at what their supporters have to say, and it’s easy to see that their destination is Rodham County: “Watching less television also means less exposure to a wide array of antisocial behaviors, including violence, over-consumption and racial and gender stereotyping.” It’s not difficult to suspect that the Turnoff Network’s greatest objection is not to the medium, but to what they see as its message.

These folks choke over their lattes at what they call “commercialism.” In other words, they disdain the cheery excesses of American capitalism, the ceaseless, chattering parade of vulgar hucksters, relentless hustlers, and insistent ad men who play so important a part in the consumer capitalism that the Turnoff crowd so affects to despise. They look down on the greedy, grabby, gabby, glittering, energetic mess of a culture that has brought this country so much prosperity, and its people so much opportunity.

That’s an old — and familiar — form of snobbery. But these days, of course, the hair shirt comes mainly in green, and so it’s no surprise to discover that amid the alternative forms of entertainment proposed for TV-Turnoff Week is a celebration of the most dismal of all the killjoy carnivals — Earth Day (April 22). “Turn off the tube and go for a hike, help in a stream clean-up, or write a letter to a legislator about an environmental issue that’s important to you.” Help in a stream clean up?

Further suggestions carry less ideological freight and don’t, at least, involve waterproof clothing. They can, however, be just plain goofy — “Shakespeare’s birthday is traditionally observed on April 22 or April 23 (depending on your source). Take an evening and read some of his sonnets as a family, or act out a scene from a play.” Well, if it’s dad who has decided to deprive his wretched offspring of the joys of television, King Lear might be a selection to avoid. Other choices included in the Network’s list of “101 screen-free activities” include (and I’m not making this up) watching the clouds, looking at stars, and learning about native trees and flowers. And if watching the clouds, looking at stars, and studying native flora is not excitement enough, why not “make paper bag costumes and have a parade?”

As with most liberal campaigns, not only do “the children” play a prominent part in the Turnoff Network’s message, but so does a health threat — in this case, smoking’s most likely successor as national scapegoat: the pudgy menace of “obesity” currently waddling across the fruited plain and dooming us all to early, if substantial, graves.

Fear of fat already seems set to tarnish the allure of those infamous Golden Arches and may now, it seems, be used to cast a shadow over the simple pleasures of a night with Seinfeld. “More than one in four American adults is obese,” we are warned, and tiny tots, it appears, are no longer so tiny — “more than one in ten children is obese.” All is not lost, however. “Turning off the TV reduces sedentary behavior — because no other waking activity is as sedentary as watching TV — and can affect nutritional choices, as it means seeing fewer advertisements for high-fat, high sugar foods” — advertisements which we poor peons are, presumably, powerless to resist on our own.

Of course, the Turnoff is not intended to stop at a week. Those seven days are just a first step. Worse is to come. Parents are urged to “try and restrict viewing to a half-hour per day or one hour every other evening.” That’s an unnecessarily rigid approach which will not only succeed in isolating their children from much of contemporary culture — good as well as bad — but which also makes very little intellectual sense. When it comes to deciding what children should watch on TV, quality should surely be a more important measure than quantity, a notion clearly lost on an organization that, for bad measure, also recommends canceling your cable — thus banishing from the home even relatively educational programming, such as A&E and the History Channel.

And the TV-Turnoff Network even has plans for those of us who, despite all the dangers, persist with the tube. In its opinion, viewers need to be subjected to a little improving propaganda every now and then. In a recent filing with the FCC, the Network called on the Commission to “adopt a regulation that requires all TV broadcast stations to run periodic announcements throughout the broadcast week and in all dayparts [sic] reminding viewers that excessive television-viewing has negative health, academic and other consequences for children and that parents and guardians retain and should exercise their First Amendment right and ability to turn off their television sets and limit their children’s viewing time.”

That’s a pretty strange way to look at the First Amendment, but unfortunately I don’t have time to discuss it.

Buffy is on in a couple of minutes.