Tag Archives: Indoctrination

People Spend 1/6 of their Lives In Front Of the Television

Posted on by
1

The average person spends 4 to 5 hours a day in front of the television. That means that, in a 65-year period, the average person would have spent 9 years glued to the tube. That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? But that’s not all, since there is – on average – 18 minutes of commercial airtime during an hour-long broadcasted television program. Thus, a simple calculation shows that the average person – given that he only watches commercial airtime – spends almost 2,5 years (!) of his life watching commercials on television. Add to that the Tel Sells of this world, and you’ll come to even more years of commercial television usage. So, let’s make this very clear: on a global scale, people are spending more than 1/6th of their lives in front of the television, and possibly more than 1/24th of their lives watching commercials on television.

Imagine what the world could be like if – instead of sitting in front of the television watching commercials – people would be doing something useful with their time: helping their neighbors, teaching their children, taking care of their garden etc. Then we would gain 1/24th of ‘extra’ human life, and even more if we would stop – or at least lessen – our television usage at all. We could in the time saved by not watching television (commercials) help people in Africa, think about what we’re going to do about global warning or play games with friends. We could, instead of watching people promote their books on television, actually read a book. That would surely be a better use of our time, wouldn’t it? Surely it can be pleasant to just relax and watch something on autopilot; to not think about anything for a while. To just let the ‘entertainment’ of television blow you away. But don’t you mind that – in this time that you’re ‘not thinking about anything’ – you’re in fact (unconsciously) being indoctrinated with thoughts and desires about deodorant, ice-cream, cars and beer? Don’t you mind being used as a puppet; companies using your precious time supporting their own wealth?

There are, as always, exceptions to the rule: there are documentaries broadcasted on television that might actually widen your perspective on the world, instead of narrowing it. Documentaries that actually teach you something and therefore might actually be worthy of your time. But – given that there are such documentaries – can’t we just watch them online, without having to suffer from any commercial breaks whatsoever? There are plenty of sites (Top Documentary Films and DocumentaryHeaven, to name only two) that provide you with such documentaries for free. And if you want to watch less educational programs (series etc.), there are equally many sites at which you can stream your favorite series for free. That might save you a lot of time watching commercials; time that can be used to watch more of your favorite series. However, as you might have noticed, many of such series – like Californication – are interwoven with implicit advertisement (Why does Hank Moody drive a Porsche? Why does he smoke Camel?). But that’s the price we’ve got to pay for entertainment.

But what do you think?

The Poisonous Culture of Football

Posted on by
1

It was 2 December 2012: the day that a Dutch assistant referee got kicked to death by a bunch of young football (“soccer“) players. This pitiful event started a chain reaction of discussions in the Netherlands about (the lack of) respect in football. The professional football teams wore “Respect-logos” on their shirts, and everyone of the Dutch people stood forth and yelled that it was utterly disgraceful what had happened to the man. “How could children do that? How could they kick a man to death just because of (an allegedly) wrong decision he made? Where did it all go wrong?”

I have played football myself for 14 years. I have witnessed the utter disrespect football players have for the referee. I would even dare to say that you are not a real football player if you don’t yell at the referee and tell him what a fool he is. How am I so sure about this? Well, I was one of them. I was indoctrinated by the football culture; a culture that teaches children to disrespect arbitration. But this disrespectful behavior doesn’t restrict itself towards to children’s “interactions” with the referees; it is deeply ingrained into the football culture. Children are taught by the “older and wiser” football players, which they look up to enormously (I did, at least), that you have to show that you consider yourself to be better than the others. You have to show that you feel sorry for the youngsters, the ones that aren’t as good as you. You have to show them who’s boss. But why was that again? Because that’s what everybody does! So there must be some essence of truth in it, right?

When looking back on my “amateur football career”, I feel bad and ashamed. I have been indulged in disrespectful behavior, without even knowing it. Although I have not so much yelled at referees, I have been arrogant and degrading towards younger players. And all of this came forth out of a sense of insecurity; a need for validation that I wasn’t able to fulfill in those years that I was the younger player. Because, for those who don’t know it, you are clustered by age in football: the youngsters with the youngsters, and the elder with elder. But there is always some kind of overlap between the youngsters and the elder.

My point is that you cannot blame the children playing football for their disgraceful behaviors: they simply don’t know any better. They look up to the older and “cooler” players, and simply copy their behaviors. Behaviors that are based on values like disrespecting younger players, and arrogant behavior. And those who, without even knowing it, “teach these values” to the youngsters have also learned them from the older and cooler children. It’s a chain reaction. And it is this culture that spawn all sorts of pitiful consequences, like kicking to death a referee.

What worries me the most is that there is no reason for these behaviors to restrict themselves to the football playing ground: they become part of children’s nature, of who they are. So that means that all the disrespectful football norms and values are being carried into society; into real life. And that might contribute to “the youth of these days” lacking respect, in the broadest sense of the word. And with 240 million people playing football worldwide, of which a substantive part are children, the consequences of this might be worth taking a look at.

It’s an analogy often made, the analogy between football and rugby, in order to show the difference in norms between these two cultures. I want to point you to the following article of a guy who speaks about the norms he has been indoctrinated with in his rugby career. Especially the following quote seems worth noting:

“Having played rugby for nine years of my life, I am completely indoctrinated into calling the match officials ‘Sir’ and being chastised for answering back to any decisions made. It is severely frowned upon to comment on a referee’s call, and not only will it more often than not result in a penalty against you, but the perpetrator will receive temporary animosity from the rest of his teammates.”

So it can go both ways: it doesn’t necessarily have to be a disrespectful culture that is promoted within the sport you play; it can just as well be a respectful culture. So maybe we should start doing something about it: change the core of the disrespectful football culture that by times looks more like acting (Cristiano Ronaldo? Arjen Robben?) than sport. Let’s banish these values from football and – consequently – from society. Let’s make sure that people don’t look back on their football lives and think: “shit, I’ve behaved like an asshole” (like I did). Can we do that?

What do you think?

The Trick of Affection

Posted on by

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Or – to put it less cryptically – affection is fundamentally subjective in nature. In other words: there’s no single true conception of what to (dis)like. Some people “just happen to like” red and other people “just happen to like” blue. And – in contrast to our “knowledge” of what does and what doesn’t exist in nature, and in contrast to our political conceptions – we have no conscious reasons for liking something. And note the word “conscious” in the previous sentence.

Because we might have reasons for liking a particular brand of whiskey more than other brands, or for liking to wear ragged jeans with stains all over them instead of regular and decent jeans. We might “believe” that our brand of whiskey “just tastes better” than the other whiskeys, and that the ragged jeans that we like “just looks better” than the other kind of jeans. And it is this “just” tasting better or “just” looking better that is reason enough for us to buy the product associated with this feeling instead of the other products. It’s after all not our fault that we just happen to like these products, right? It’s just the way it is; it’s our nature. And why wouldn’t we accept our true nature? That would be nothing but a kick in the face of our identity, wouldn’t it?

Can you imagine how easy it must be for a marketer to lure us into buying his product? He only has to make sure that we “just happen to like” his product. Because that alone would be sufficient for us to run to the shops and buy it. And do you know what the best part of all of this is? They can mold us any way they want to. They can keep on promoting their products all day long until that point of no return is reached at which the person “just happens to like the product”; until the person reaches the point that he no longer needs any excuses for buying the product. The point at which the person feels capable of legitimately buying the product he “likes” in order to feed his “affection”. And that’s it. Case closed.

We don’t know how our affections are being created; how they are molded and how they are manipulated. All we know are the end products flowing out of the realm of our unconsciousness and into the shining light of our consciousness. So even though our affections might be kneaded and sculpted, even though we might be indoctrinated and deceived, all of this takes place within our unconsciousness; all of this takes place off stage, a domain that we do not have access to. All we know is what comes out of our very own factory of unconscious longings. And at that point, the point at which the affection enters our conscious experience, we are lost. Because it is then that a little voice inside of our head tells us, “you must not resist who you are. Face it: you just happen to like this product. Go for it!”

And that’s how we came to like those ragged jeans of ours.

But what do you think?