There’s an excellent article in Sunday’s NYT Magazine by Steven Johnson, excerpted from his new book Everything Bad Is Good for You. He may not have enough evidence to support the title’s broad assertion, but his argument represents a very important contrast to the forces of censorship and demonization. It’s about time someone stood up for the merits of modern television and video games, instead of just raising the First Amendment banner (which of course is still an enormously important concern here). I think this proposal in particular is excellent:
“What I am arguing for is a change in the criteria we use to determine what really is cognitive junk food and what is genuinely nourishing. Instead of a show’s violent or tawdry content, instead of wardrobe malfunctions or the F-word, the true test should be whether a given show engages or sedates the mind. Is it a single thread strung together with predictable punch lines every 30 seconds? Or does it map a complex social network? Is your on-screen character running around shooting everything in sight, or is she trying to solve problems and manage resources? If your kids want to watch reality TV, encourage them to watch ”Survivor” over ”Fear Factor.” If they want to watch a mystery show, encourage ”24” over ”Law and Order.” If they want to play a violent game, encourage Grand Theft Auto over Quake. Indeed, it might be just as helpful to have a rating system that used mental labor and not obscenity and violence as its classification scheme for the world of mass culture.”
Absolutely. The fact that we’ve had “prurience” ratings for years without even considering such a system is a testament to how far our concerns about our children have diverged from our goals for them. Do we really want to take a bat to the knees of their ability to understand complexity in order to preserve some small shred of their innocence?
To extend the argument a bit, it seems like the things we disapprove of children being exposed to are things we recognize that adults have a right to see. So in the process of helping them become adults, why don’t we give it to them straight? We can answer whatever questions the truth produces, rather than making up a web of white lies that then requires untangling right in the middle of adolescence, adding more confusion to a period that could certainly do with less. After all, having boobies in their yogurt commercials hasn’t destroyed the moral character of the Europeans. I really don’t see why we’re so afraid of them.
evan :: Apr.25.2005 ::
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