TELEVISION
A child does not want to be informed, it wants to experience. It wants to touch, have another look, ask. All this is impossible in front of the television. Any reaction of the child, any active participation in what is offered, is suppressed, crushed by the on-running program and is trained out of him.
Absolute passivity, the ideal consumer attitude is bred.
Not only the learning ability of the children, but their whole attitude to reality is influenced by television. Television children do not let themselves be impressed very easily – they know ‘everything’ from the television. Do they really know it? Or are they deluded into believing that they do?
Television approaches us with the claim that it gives an account of reality. The adults, who knows reality, knows how to judge this. But a child………? For the child the television becomes a false witness:
The cartoon cat is flattened, but soon rises again to cause new mischief.
A cowboy throws his arms into the air and falls off his horse.
A peasant’s hut is blown into the air. Change of scene. Compassion?
A world famous orchestra gives a concert. A highly respected academic discusses a contemporary problem. Switch over! The thriller series is starting on the other channel! Respect?
How is a sense for the individuality, the real being of another person supposed to develop in the inexperienced child?