Thought for today:
" The American writer and Minister, Norman Vincent Peale once said that if you are not getting as much from life as you want to, then you should examine your enthusiasm. As I review the past 60 years, I honestly find it difficult to view the 'progress' that society has reportedly made with any degree of marked enthusiasm. Since the introduction of television to our homes 60 years ago followed by the onset of 'Breakfast Television' thirty years ago to the day, we have essentially lived in a much more dangerous and decadent world, where the morals and behaviour of the nation as a whole has drastically declined. As a lover of both word and image, I have always been aware of their combined influence that they exercise over one's behaviour. As a Behaviourist though, I have long been aware of the increased power of image over that of the word in determining the way we ultimately act. Since the onset of television in the 1950s, I have witnessed the debasement of the English language across the whole of society along with a greater willingness to use images in any way that reinforces the act being described or desired. In short; as the power of the word has been down-graded it has inevitably declined in being able to influence action. Conversely, the power of the image has grown ever-greater within our communication processes and the repetition of images has been responsible for dulling our senses and desensitising our feelings. We no longer feel repulsed when we watch people dying or being brutalised on our television news screens while we continue to eat our evening meal. All this has produced a moral collapse as a nation and we have undoubtedly lost our moorings. Oh, I recall with sweet memory, listening to the word of the wireless over breakfast, reading the word of heroes/heroins and adventurers in school and library books, dining and talking with all the family over evening meal, discussing the newspaper headlines or some other matter with my brothers and sisters and walking out as a family to the local park on a Sunday afternoon to listen to the playing of a brass band before preparing for another week's hard work. Come back radio for all and ban all television in our homes. Depend more on the word and less on the image." William Forde: January 17th, 2013.
" The American writer and Minister, Norman Vincent Peale once said that if you are not getting as much from life as you want to, then you should examine your enthusiasm. As I review the past 60 years, I honestly find it difficult to view the 'progress' that society has reportedly made with any degree of marked enthusiasm. Since the introduction of television to our homes 60 years ago followed by the onset of 'Breakfast Television' thirty years ago to the day, we have essentially lived in a much more dangerous and decadent world, where the morals and behaviour of the nation as a whole has drastically declined. As a lover of both word and image, I have always been aware of their combined influence that they exercise over one's behaviour. As a Behaviourist though, I have long been aware of the increased power of image over that of the word in determining the way we ultimately act. Since the onset of television in the 1950s, I have witnessed the debasement of the English language across the whole of society along with a greater willingness to use images in any way that reinforces the act being described or desired. In short; as the power of the word has been down-graded it has inevitably declined in being able to influence action. Conversely, the power of the image has grown ever-greater within our communication processes and the repetition of images has been responsible for dulling our senses and desensitising our feelings. We no longer feel repulsed when we watch people dying or being brutalised on our television news screens while we continue to eat our evening meal. All this has produced a moral collapse as a nation and we have undoubtedly lost our moorings. Oh, I recall with sweet memory, listening to the word of the wireless over breakfast, reading the word of heroes/heroins and adventurers in school and library books, dining and talking with all the family over evening meal, discussing the newspaper headlines or some other matter with my brothers and sisters and walking out as a family to the local park on a Sunday afternoon to listen to the playing of a brass band before preparing for another week's hard work. Come back radio for all and ban all television in our homes. Depend more on the word and less on the image." William Forde: January 17th, 2013.
