The following is a letter my late father wrote to the editor of the local newspaper in which he exposes the illusion that a television itself, as well as what is broadcast on the same, creates. Wouldn’t he be astonished at how extreme the illusion is now with computer animation and artificial intelligence and “fake news” and algorithms! But on second thought he wouldn’t be surprised because he predicted this.
In fact, in the 1960s Dad wrote a letter to Walt Disney saying that some day animation would be done with computers (Dad was a mathematician and computer programmer. He was not a fan of the direction he saw computers going and the effect they would have on society, even though it was his profession to program them). Mr. Disney personally wrote back, offering Dad a job opportunity. My father declined. The letter from Disney has tragically been lost.
Letter to the Editor July 20, 1990
Dear Editor:
Sitting in front of me about 6 feet away is a device called a television set. I am watching a performance in what I think is full color and motion. Buy my eye is being fooled: I am not seeing what I think I am seeing.
For example, the motion I think I see is due to a property called “persistence of vision.” What appears to be motion is actually made up of many separate still photographs displayed at the rate of 30 “fames” per second. The eye fuses them together in a smoothly blended animation.
On closer examination, we discover that the individual frames are not really complete photographs. Each is composed of several (over 500) lines drawn horizontally across the screen by a flying spot of color. Again, due to the persistence of vision, our eye fuses these together to make up a complete picture. If we took a snapshot of the screen at a high enough shutter speed, we would not see a picture—all we would see is a glowing spot of color somewhere on the screen.
A spot of color, did you say? Not exactly. It, too, is an illusion. The spot is actually three smaller dots of color, one each of red, green, and blue. These appear in various combinations of intensity which the eye, unable to resolve as individual dots, fuses together to create the sensation of all the colors of the spectrum, and even some not in the spectrum.
The deception does not stop there. The drama I am watching was based on a novel by an author using a pen name instead of his own. Likewise, the script was written by another writer under an assumed name. None of the actors appear under their given name; all have stage names. Occasionally, for some dangerous scene, the actor is replaced by a professional stunt man or woman, dressed to resemble the actor. Here we are two levels of deception removed from reality. Many of the scenes are created either by trick photography or computer graphics and have very little connection with the real world.
Yes, television is rife with illusion, deception, and fakery at every level. But, some will say, so what? It is the message that counts. Precisely. Practically every program broadcast by the networks contains one or more allusions or statements concerning the issues of the day. The list is endless: abortion, animal and homosexual rights, freedom of speech and expression, spouse abuse, gun control, environmentalism, pollution, to name but a few.
I ask you: are these so-called “issues” being treated any more realistically than any other aspect of the television industry? Might the arguments advanced, pro or con, be just as illusory and just as insubstantial as the glowing flying spot that traces out scenes? Would you trust one who is afraid to use his own name? or an author writing under a false name? (Newspapers usually refuse to print anonymous letters.)
Case in point: we are constantly being told we are in grave danger unless we get busy and clean up the environment. We must learn how to dispense toxic wastes so they will not poison us. However, such reasoning stops at the spiritual level. These same activists tell us its s perfectly all right to broadcast or display obscenity, profanity, pornography, and violence. True, they will admit, television is the most potent media of inducement ever invented; literally billons are spent on advertising each year, money wasted if television were an ineffective instrument of persuasion. However, these protectors of our environment tell us the constant barrage of violence and illicit sex are not influential at any significant level: certainly, they are not harmful.
Our medical scientists have established a strong cause and effect relationship between smoking and lung cancer. The evidence is so overwhelming that the government actually prohibits cigarette advertising on television. At the same time, statistics show an alarming increase in violence and murder, especially due to guns. Why can’t the same reasoning be applied to ban violence and gun play from television programming? If this is a violation of freedom of speech, what was the banning of cigarette advertising?
To put it another way, if we can legislate against acts of violence, why can’t we with the same justification legislate against words and scenes of violence? The constitutionally declared “freedom of speech” requires some careful and sober analysis by responsible minds as to exactly what is covers and what it does not. When I consider the tangled mass of deception that constitutes our television industry, I do not take its arguments seriously. I refuse to permit those whose livelihood consists of creating and maintaining illusion, deception, and fakery to dictate what I should think about on any issue at all.
Yours,
Leo Jordan
Television, internet, social media are not trustworthy venues for truth. Even “entertainment” that is marketed as “Christian” is manipulated by producers and writers that may not have our best interest at heart. I am thinking particularly about the series, The Chosen. It is meant to entertain, it is produced by a man whose Christian worldview is questionable, a man who is quoted as saying that 95% of what is portrayed in The Chosen is not from the Bible. Yet countless Christians are wild about it. It has an almost cult-like following. People who are not well versed in the Bible can easily get misled. Furthermore, it has the potential of being a substitute for actually Bible reading. People have even admitted to envisioning the actor who plays Jesus(Jonathan Roumie) when they pray to Jesus. Sacrilegious!! Why would anyone want or allow the entertainment industry to portray to us the personalities, the thoughts and the interactions of the real people in the Bible. No thank you. I’ll stick with the Bible and the Holy Spirit.
Some say, well it’s better than watching the other shows that are on. Why watch either?? Turn it off. Or watch an old movie that is somewhat wholesome without overtly telling us what to believe about Jesus and his followers.
Now I have never been one to follow the crowd. In fact, usually if a majority of people are in favor of something, it is a sure sign to me NOT to follow it. When The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren was making its rounds in the churches I did not want to jump on board until I had researched it thoroughly. After doing so, I politely bowed out of the six-week study our church was conducting on the book. I was asked by the Sunday School Superintendent to step down as a teacher, that I wasn’t being a “team player”! I didn’t realize that being a “team player” was one of the fruits of the spirit. I stepped down and left that church.
Media outlets can be useful. But any media you allow into your home or your mind should be scrutinized. It is with discernment a person should use them. I will add that in my early teens, when our TV quit working, Dad chose not to replace it. So for most of my high school years I did not watch TV. I didn’t even miss it. And when I did watch it again, I was appalled at the immortality and blatant propaganda even in prime-time shows. As a teenager I recognized it!
When my children were little, the same thing happened in our home. Lightning struck our television set and we chose not to replace it. We went a year without one, and then a well-meaning friend gave us one. The year without television was the best years we had as a family. Shame on that friend.
To this day, however, neither I nor my children, are consumed with watching television.
Contemporary Christian music is another source of “entertainment” that should be scrutinized. I’ve written about it in an earlier post, but I want to add that this genre of music is a big money-making corporation. The songs, as a whole, are not composed based on a person’s deep experience with the Lord but about what will sell, pandering to the lowest common denominator. And the beat and rhythm of the music itself is designed to be seductive. In a word the “music” it is WORLDLY.
That is enough ranting for now. It’s a lonely world.
