objectionable content on a cartoon channel
Well that’s what this started with, but it went on into a more broader topic.
One of my colleagues was discussing about semi-adult content coming in ad-breaks on a cartoon channel for kids. Another one replied saying no probs…
Though time has been throttling my neck nowadays, I somehow created some time to type a reply to that comment which I felt might be worth sharing here as well.
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Very open-minded maardern outlook! No probs for you (perhaps)!
Warning1: What I’ve written below might be annoying I suppose, you (any
reader) might feel safer by dismissing it as “serious philosophy” or an SEP*
and
pushing it under the carpet and ignoring this post.
Warning2: Still reading? Don’t say I didn’t warn you! (refer to Warning1
🙂 )
Think about Pavlov’s experiment with the dog. Please don’t take this
personally because it refers to “lowly” dogs… The basic functioning of
the neural system is the same even me and you included.
As a refresher, I will try to put it in the simplest way possible:
bell ==> no response from dog
food ==> dog salivates
bell + food ==> dog salivates
[repeated enough number of times]
bell alone ==> dog salivates!!
The bell is now a conditioned stimulus, and salivation to it is a
conditioned response.
This is called conditioning – the dog is now conditioned to respond to a
bell, ******even though initially, the bell had nothing to do with the
dog******.
Everytime this repeats, this chain in the dog’s neural network gets
reinforced.
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Example – for people like tobacco addicts: the pleasant things they
experience when they smoke (eg so called relaxation, which is only because
they are temporarily lesser sensitive than before because of the effect of
nicotine) they associate with tobacco [bell]. And that neural network in
their mind becomes so strong, that eventually they don’t even want to
consider giving it up. At the end of the day, its the tobacco industries
running the show – after all money rules!
All this here is only the tip of an iceberg, a very large iceberg.
Its upto each of us to take responsibility to investigate the rest of the
iceberg. On the other hand, ignorance is bliss as well (temporarily atleast)
… so the choice is always a personal one! 🙂
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Bottomline is this – coming to the original post:
Now look at the adult rated stuff [bell] they show on TV and the nice catchy
music, animation or other entertaining effects they package it in [food,
well – snacks for the mind]. And think about how the kids are getting
conditioned.
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Btw that’s the society you’ll live in when you’re older, so it might not
entirely be “not your problem” after all…
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*SEP Field:
When somebody, or something, is surrounded by a SEP field, the human brain
perceives it as “somebody else’s problem”, and therefore will be incapable
of paying attention to the object (or even seeing it, or recognizing its
existence) unless it is being specifically looked for.
The SEP field requires much less energy than a normal invisibility field (a
single torch battery can run it for over a hundred years) due to the natural
propensity of humans to see things as Somebody Else’s Problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Else’s_Problem_field
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Consider the following story:
The Emperors New Clothes – Hans Christian Anderson
The idea of posting it in this context, is that can we not easily compare the “tailors” in the story to many industries playing with our society and making money, such as tobacco or pornography-based media/industries.
Still there was a reply to that that it still dosen’t matter as it brings in a certain amount of numbness that prepares the kid when he sees a lot more hardcore stuff later.
Still there was a reply to that that it still dosen’t matter, its everywhere anyway not just on the cartoon network, and it brings in a certain amount of numbness that prepares the kid when he sees a lot more hardcore stuff later.
So I’d typed this reply:
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Really valid point depending on the kids age, and btw first of all thanks for replying [I’m happy to see some perspective that I’d missed.]
Not sure if its really as all-pervasive as its described above 🙂 Guess this just lies in perception.
But anyway, assuming its *everywhere*, who is to decide how much of a
certain level of numbness is required? Who’s responsibility is it? [rhetoric
question, I suppose there’s no generic answer, and definitely will not the
TV channels 🙂 ]
What I’m writing here is more for me to try to understand the situation better rather than to decide what’s right or wrong or what can be done.
One of the main implications of my previous posts was this:
Let me first clarify that I’m not some saint who’s gone beyond all physical needs, I’m a married man with no dearth of virility and know how strong it is. I don’t believe in being a pseudo-brahmachari [a brahmachari who is married in his mind] and trying to supress it. Its with this knowledge that I write the following, so I hope its not viewed as idealism or hypothetical
philosophy.
Even one with an average physical need, because of such conditioning by media it keeps getting built up over time. I realise Im a really lucky man who somehow by fluke managed to not subject myself to as much of pornography compared to many of my childhood friends. The drive for sex is a natural thing of course, but its being *artificially stimulated* to be much more
than natural. [consequenttly, people are aging much faster than they naturally would, becasue they’re draining their energy]. Its being misused for marketing and making money, and this process in turn stimulates it more. This is what I meant by saying that the media are nothing but tailors of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. In that story, there’s nothing at all. But in this case there’s something… the basic animal urge in anybody. But this something has been hopelessly blown out of propertion and is being exploited.
While everything is fine, we can definitely agree its all part of modernisation and on, but we should also look at it from the point of view of people whose lives are ruined, getting caught up in deceptively attractive “modernisation”. And these are not some vague uneducated people that we would never come in contact with our lives. These are ordinary people no different from us, could even be someone (or closely related to someone) whom we know very well.
I don’t know much about society as a whole, I’m talking more about ordinary individuals – ordinary everyday people. Hope every ordinary individual findsout that he or she is being misused by others before its too late.
For what can actually be done, I’m not a parent so this is only speculation: I’m not for restriction or prohibhition, such things only build up more curiosity! I would vote for right education and openness with kids, without making it look like some shameful thing, nor some exotic thing.
Let us not head towards a society like this one:
[warning: liberal use of swear words]
http://anxiousaboutlife.blogs.com/findingzen/2006/04/my_name_is_inig.html
[I dont follow that blog, had just came across that entry long ago and commented on it]
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There’s also the question on how parents can tell kids what is objectionable, for example stopping kids from drinking alcohol when they’re drinking it themselves!
Another key point is to preach etc by example. Else there is a breach of trust and it just becomes hipocrisy. Children could be used as an opportunity for adults to really improve themselves 😉
We have no doubts in believing that a petty metal cellphone device will send an SMS when we press some buttons on it but it will take very long for us to realise that a highly advanced organism like a human being’s body itself is like a
cellphone. Science is still very underdeveloped to explain this though some attempts have been made. Thoughts and emotions DO radiate! So parents/elders of a family could be bad influences even if they indulge in their bad habits
secretively! 🙂
See also: baby whisperer
Great post, Sanjay. “The Emperors New Clothes” story is funny…just goes to show how u can fool people.
The bell and dog story is also very good. This type of Conditioning is called Classical Conditioning.
Another type of learning, very similar to that discussed above, is called Operant Conditioning. The term “Operant” refers to how an organism operates on the environment, and hence, operant conditioning comes from how we respond to what is presented to us in our environment. It can be thought of as learning due to the natural consequences of our actions.
The classic study of Operant Conditioning involved a cat who was placed in a box with only one way out; a specific area of the box had to be pressed in order for the door to open. The cat initially tries to get out of the box because freedom is reinforcing. In its attempt to escape, the area of the box is triggered and the door opens. The cat is now free. Once placed in the box again, the cat will naturally try to remember what it did to escape the previous time and will once again find the area to press. The more the cat is placed back in the box, the quicker it will press that area for its freedom. It has learned, through natural consequences, how to gain the reinforcing freedom.
We learn this way every day in our lives. Imagine the last time you made a mistake; you most likely remember that mistake and do things differently when the situation comes up again. In that sense, you’ve learned to act differently based on the natural consequences of your previous actions. The same holds true for positive actions. If something you did results in a positive outcome, you are likely to do that same activity again.
That’s fascinating info Bellur – can very much relate to it.