Soap Operas, Pop Cultures and literature

[blazeofglory]

Today we are on the fringe, in a shaky position. Brighter sides are aplenty. We have a thousand sources of entertainments, educational materials. All of us are reintegrating ourselves despite our differences and orientations. The world is really shrinking into a small global village thru a communication breakthrough. Information technology has skyrocketed and we are in fact netted closely. Geopolitical barriers are flown up. There are things to glory in and cheer up.

With this we have other darker sides that can not be over-sighted. There are growing schisms and schizophrenias all over the world. We are losing trust and can not confide in one another. We have increasingly facing cases of broken marriages. We are immune from in fact accustomed to living with some realities that had hardened our sensitivities. Now if hear any cases of murder or scenes of violence we take them for granted thinking that they are normal phenomena.

In earlier days children used to read books of literature, poems, and other good things. Cheap literature was censored and parents were highly watchful of all that.

Now children do not choose to read such good pieces of art and they are glued to the TV and to other cheaper sources of entertainments.

These sources of entertainment corrupt their sensitive mindsets.

It would be really good if they are back to literature and if parents encourage them to delight in literature.
i

[Virgil]

Good points Blaze. We all look back and see a better world, but many times it's nostalgia. I do agree about many of the things you say. Where I might disagree is in your assessment of howbad it is now. While it certainly can be improved, I don't think the world is in that bad a shape.

[Barlo]

I see what you mean blaze, a day doesn't pass that I don't think about the problems that modern society produces. In the end you can question the bottom line of man's lust for technological advancement - does it do more good or bad? We have to face the fact that most children are raised up by the cruelest parent of them all - The mass media. And it is not in the interest of the "ruling circles" that people are massively educated through as you said "books of literature, poems, and other good things." What is improved in my opinion is that it is nowdays much easier for someone to get a hold of a fine work of literature(by internet or just plain purchase). The problem is that few decide to do so. It is much more easier to watch a soap opera then to use your mind and really READ a book or watch a movie that demands that you think about it(The movie - Waking life - for example). But you have to remember that things in their core do not change, only their forms do. You wrote that "Cheap literature was censored and parents were highly watchful of all that." but there were always "sideways" for a person to get lost in. And there were significant limitations. For instance, in the past society was much more conservative. There will always be cheep sources of entertainment and people who feel that it is ok to give in to them. That is their choice. The subject brings out many other issues...

[Bii]

I'm not convinced that society is any worse now than in the past. I'm pretty sure, if you research through history, whatever time period you pick there will have been senseless violence (public hangings, the Roman Games to name but two), and 'meaningless' entertainment (the theatre was one considered a den of sin). Bear in mind that all these things exist because there is a human demand for them, if you seek to suppress this demand then you fall into other ills such as censorship, oppressive laws and dissolution of human rights. Shouldn't people be allowed to choose what they watch, how they relax, how they seek entertainment, providing that in so doing they don't harm anyone else? It's easy to decry the apparant increasing violence on modern television, but if it's violence you're looking for, pick up a book of fairy tales.

[MaryLupin]

I'm not convinced that society is any worse now than in the past. I'm pretty sure, if you research through history, whatever time period you pick there will have been senseless violence...

I am afraid I agree with you Bii. Human beings do like to dramatize their particular woes and so every society sees itself as holding the line between a golden tradition and a dark and dangerous future. Usually this image of a battle being fought for the "light" is rather heavily dependent upon a strong case of historical amnesia. Let's take the idea of "broken marriages" as one example.

What does it mean when we say a marriage is "broken?" Just divorce? Is the marriage intact as long as no divorce is granted? What about a marriage where one partner (usually the wife) has no control over the things done to her children, no property rights, no say over what happens even to her own body? What about a situation where a husband can have his inconvenient wife incarcerated in a mental institution for the rest of her life time just on his say-so. What about the institution where the "rule of thumb" applies by common (even if disgusted) consent? What about an situation where, by law, it is impossible for a husband to rape his wife, just not impossible by physical fact?

From my point of view a world where it is seen to be preferable to divorce your spouse rather than use any of the other "golden age" solutions to human inability to get along seems to me to be a better place. One that is, in fact, less broken.

[Redzeppelin]

Society may behave no differently from century to century - but the "frame" or context within which societal behavior occurs has shifted considerably. Sure - we're still as manipulative, cruel and selfish as we've always been, but the frameworks that used to structure society have changed - especially in terms of morality; the difference now is that more and more, culture tries to argue that things that have always been wrong aren't really wrong at all; or (worse yet) that we're not really responsible for the atrocious behaviors we choose. I think violence/etc that occurs within a morally structured society is very different from violence/etc that occurs within a morally bankrupt society.

[R.A]

I think all what is said is pretty right... I agree with all sides...

but Blaze has said sth so essential in the modern age which is..


Now if hear any cases of murder or scenes of violence we take them for granted thinking that they are normal phenomena.


Yes, that's true... and it is so dangerous...even games are full of bloodshed and crimes... always the hero is that murderer to committe crimes!!! Where is the human sympathy and emotions?? where is our sense of the other?? where is the respect for each other??

Yes, being one world is really nice...and we can take it from our experience here.. each one of us is from a different spot of earth, but education, respect and humanity are what gathering us... But how about the bad technologies which are used these days to kill humans? to destroy nature? is it a pretty side of moving forward?? No, for sure we won't say the world is so nice while it's supporting killining the humanity in us... I dare say we are living a pretty funeral for emotions


I think violence/etc that occurs within a morally structured society is very different from violence/etc that occurs within a morally bankrupt society. :thumbs_up

[curlyqlink]

Wasn't there a time when reading novels was considered pernicious, a threat to society, at best a waste of time? (esp. French novels!!)

[blazeofglory]

Wasn't there a time when reading novels was considered pernicious, a threat to society, at best a waste of time? (esp. French novels!!)

This is true of every society, and still there are people in our country who consider reading novels is pernicious. This is a matter of judgment and of course of value that changes with respect to time.

Just a decade ago, in my part of the world that is Nepal we were taught to or kind of told to abstain from reading novels. We were given books of moral science, and religion. We were not allowed to see movies.

Now Nepal, a very old civilization also has undergone changes dramatically and we no longer are hooked to old systems, morals, mores and customs.

Now globalization has hooked us and we are more and more assimilated into international mainstream culture and we can not preserve the traditions that are distinct and unique and slowly we are losing our identity.

Is identity necessary? This is a question I can not answer. Maybe I will start this with a new thread, for I have too many questions I want others to help me find answers.

[R.A]

What about the Waste Land for T.S Eliot?? don't you all think that it's for the time being?? It is so universal...

[byquist]

You might enjoy reading Wendy Shalit's "Return to Modesty" of maybe 10 years ago; she wrote another recent book also but don't know title.

[Desert Rose]

I do agree with u & about the children i think their innocence is gone ...

[Judas130]

nothing much that was bad has changed. There's still bloodshed like there was centuries ago, we've just found new ways of doing it. There's still perversion, like there was in the dualistic Victorian and Edwardian times, only now it is open in pornography.

Yet marriages don't work anymore because marriage doesn't mean what it used to, a 'life long vow' can be taken more than once legally, while before this was unheard of.

However yes, Kids would rather watch a shoot em' ups than read Dante but this does not apply to ALL. I've always loved literature from childhood, and i'm not even 20 yet. I know many others my age who love literature. The majority have been desensitised to emotion through media and modern film, if you want an example look at horror fiction. That genre is practically a corpse to the modern world, no child finds Poe scary, or Mary Shelly, while at the time works such as Frankenstein were terribly frightful. Now, they have films like Saw or video games which have stolen their fright from the grasp of long dead authors.

[curlyqlink]

Yet marriages don't work anymore because marriage doesn't mean what it used to, a 'life long vow' can be taken more than once legally, while before this was unheard of.

It wasn't unheard of in ancient Rome. Divorce was accepted, and commonplace.

This is something I love about the classics. Two millennia ago folks were assuming the world was going to hell in a handbasket and that civilization was done for, just like they are today.