Critical Thinking

I may have mentioned this before, but "reality TV" really points up the decline in critical thinking in this country.

Flipping channels last night -- before I found the Sean Carroll documentary -- I watched a bit of that motorcycle show called "American Chopper" I believe. A father and son who build custom choppers, last season (or was it 2?) they had a big fight and Paul Jr split off to form his own company doing the exact same thing as his father.

Well the big story line this year apparently is a reconciliation, where father and son kiss and make up. Last night's episode had Paul Sr hopping on his bike to visit Paul Jr's shop, unannounced, for the first time.

They showed him deciding to do it, then getting on his bike while a camera crew filmed him from in front of him.

Then they show Paul Jr from inside his shop, being surprised as his dad pulls up. What a wonderful surprise!

But, but, wait a minute I thought. Why were they filming Jr in his shop if he didn't know Sr was about to arrive? Why was a camera crew leading Sr if the visit was spontaneous and a surprise? The whole thing comes apart as a sham the minute you think about it.

Same thing with the show about the Las Vegas pawn shop, "Pawn Stars." Supposedly people bring in all this weird shit to pawn, and the camera crew just happens to be there. Nobody brings in watches or rings or other jewelry. It's odd stuff like Civil War muskets and books printed by Benjamin Franklin.

Really? Like how likely is that? I don't believe for a minute that it's anything but scripted and 100% fake.

Being a life-long lover of Harleys, I watched American Chopper when it first came on. For a while, it was all about building bikes, and was sometimes quite interesting (although I hate the style of bikes they build). After a while, the program became less about building custom bikes and more about the characters on the show, especially problems between the father and son. That's when I quit watching it - one of the worst soap operas ever.

The insertion of personal conflict into so-called reality programs seems to have become de rigueur. Which makes them completely of no value as far as I am concerned.

There used to be a program called "Monster Garage" in which four guys and the host - Jesse James - would build some strange thing from cars and car parts. It was sometimes quite amusing and fun to watch them, for example, take a Ford SUV and build a garbage truck complete with opening roof and a mechanism to pick up and empty the cans. Very funny. But after a while, it too became mostly about conflict - obviously contrived - between the team members and/or the host. So goodbye Monster Garage.

My favorite episode of the program was the first time they had a woman as one of the builders. I was surprised to see this young woman on there when I realized that she was a childhood friend of my daughter's and I used to pick her up and give her a ride to school with my kid.

Yeah. Reality programming sucks big time, and it just keeps getting worse.

It's not the programming so much that I was commenting on. It's the fact that Survivor and Cake Boss and Millionaire Matchmaker and all the rest purport to be unscripted, and events on the shows (sometimes) are reported as news by the "news & entertainment" wings of the same channels that carry the shows. To the casual viewer the line between entertainment and reality is subtly blurred, and these shows do not encourage those viewers to critical thinking about what's really happening here.

Really, it's NO WONDER people believe in Sasquatches and Area 51 and Death Squads and life on Mars and compassionate conservatism -- they are continually fed on a diet of illogic, unalloyed cynicism and saccharine storylines which warps their view. Fox News (and MSNBC too) take advantage of the removal of the Fairness Doctrine to present an unfair bias, causing viewers to misunderstand or misinterpret real events.

Democracy doesn't work that way.

NoCoPilot wrote:

It's not the programming so much that I was commenting on.  It's the fact that Survivor and Cake Boss and Millionaire Matchmaker and all the rest purport to be unscripted, and events on the shows (sometimes) are reported as news by the "news & entertainment" wings of the same channels that carry the shows.  To the casual viewer the line between entertainment and reality is subtly blurred, and these shows do not encourage those viewers to critical thinking about what's really happening here..

I think people are more fooled by bad fiction than fake "reality". I often lose my suspension of disbelief with many documentaries which I feel are even more insideously deceiving in the way you describe. There should be a show made about fake versus reality programming and how we can discern between them when they seem the same.

SAI2 wrote:

I think people are more fooled by bad fiction than fake "reality".

What's the distinction?

NoCoPilot wrote:

SAI2 wrote:

I think people are more fooled by bad fiction than fake "reality".

What's the distinction?

Everyone knows fiction is fiction, but there are those who seem to think that a certain kind of intrinsic value can be derived from it. A value that one can somehow apply to life. Real life. Some fiction writers write with the intention in mind to change minds and attitudes. Iow, they deliberately call their work fiction, yet they and their audiences seem to believe there is more to it that is really not intended to be taken as make believe. Whereas with reality tv it seems quite obvious just how contrived it is. As reality tv gets closer to the realism of documentary or hidden camera style, guerilla journalism it may become more absorbing and affecting. But shows that you describe are pure candy floss and soda pop fair. They will never capture any realism or insight into human nature because they are too busy showing off and being corny or hammy, or overtly dramatic and hitting you with a sledgehammer of take me seriously - fake - to care.

Fiction can play a valuable role. It allows readers to experience and empathize with alternate viewpoints. It lets authors play 'what if' scenarios to show the strengths or weaknesses of various viewpoints. It educates people in life's complexities. People who read a lot are invariably a lot more liberal, tolerant and non-judgmental.

Although some of it is crap (Sturgeon's Law).

Here's what I think has contributed to the decline in critical thinking in the past 35 years.

1.  Television has turned from an educational tool to a septic field designed to reinforce people's prejudices and lack of education. This is due to unfettered advertising and the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine.

2.  Public education is underfunded and in many places subject to religious or cultural censorship. Standards should be universal and fact based.

3.  Religious organizations and conservative organizations have strived to redefine science as just another worldview that competes with religion on an equal footing. They have worked hard to convince many people that history is malleable, reality is a matter of interpretation and if you believe something hard enough it becomes true. They promote this view of course out of self-preservation.