Television’s Effect on Children
Nick Gillespie, captures my position on efficacy of television to instruct morality in people:
In a telling and all-too-common moment of Hollywood hubris, director Rob Reiner (who has made some good movies, I think) said, “Hollywood should not be making exploitive violent and exploitive sex films. I think we have a responsibility [to viewers] not to poison their souls.” Thanks, Meathead, but you don’t have access to my soul in the first place. Or those of my kids.
We may be what we eat (which explains the puddles of foie gras that form whenever I stand up), but we’re not what we watch, and creative expression needn’t be the ethical equivalent of a Cross Your Heart Bra, designed to uplift and separate us from our base instincts. And certainly the viewer, whether 15 years old or 45 (alas!), doesn’t need to watch The Secret Life of the American Teenager to know to use condoms or not drink and drive.
One of the great disconnects in American life over the past 30 years is that even as popular culture has been getting more graphic in its depictions of sex and violence, sexual behavior and violent crime among youth have been declining. Folks on the left like Reiner and many on the right often assume a connection between what we watch and how we act. That’s just not the way it works. Which is actually cause for relief.
I would be willing to make the strong argument that television and movies lack the capacity to influence people because of our biology. Using human language to convey morality necessarily requires the use of our language system which, in terms of of affecting morality, relies heavily on coercion, and therefore is only effective so long force is present. Since movies and television lack any real coercive force their ability to affect morality is extremely hindered.
January 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am
It’s not coercion, but we know from psychological investigation that we certainly have a familiarity bias, we are less averse to things we have seen before. Additionally, one of the ways people learn how to behave is by watching other people, children especially. Force and consequences are not necessary for learning; this has been proven by the way we learn language, and this concept can probably be generalized to other areas of learning.
So while I do not believe we should censor any kind of artistic expression, I do accept that television and film can affect behavioral development in both positive and negative ways, most notably in children. It is the parent’s job to decide what is best for their child, not the government’s.
January 13th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Careful here, Steve; I agree with you that children are more shaped by their peers and parents, but it’s usually through force of peer/social/emotional pressure rather than immediate threat of physical violence. If you start calling things like that ‘coercion’, all your arguments about the government having a monopoly on coercion are going to start falling apart- especially when I say the government has to protect kids against the coercive power of their peers.