How come some people are such intellectual snobs?

[hyphenate]

Tell you what--I'm smart. I've also got a good education behind me. But I must admit that one of my favorite things to do is to watch TV, mainly SF and anything with a solid cast, good stories and nice eye candy.

I've been a TV fan all my life. But I have other interests as well: obviously politics, nature, animals, photography, writing, music, art, graphic arts, reading, science, space and lots more. But give me a great TV show, and be able to discuss it with me, and I'm in love.

My friend Steve is also intelligent. He's got a whole set of his own likes and dislikes, but he is one of the greatest snobs I know.

He treats my love of television with untold amounts of condescension. Anything I watch is subject to taunts of how banal regular television is. HE only watches documentaries, specials on wars, and such other fare. He runs an "art house" for foreign films and other non-commercial fare, and has a tendency to speak ill of any film which isn't directed by Martin Scorsese, or other such directors. He ALSO loves grade B movies from the 1950s--things like "I Married a Teenage Frankenstein from Mars" stuff. If it was made in the 1950s and has a title which is 90% ludicrous, he's heard of it, and likely owns it.

I don't understand why it's okay for him to have a fancy for the Grade B movies, and not for me to enjoy regular television. And why it's okay for him to love art house films and not for me to enjoy some of the films I enjoy. He believes he's above others in this regard, and I, frankly, am confused.

Another old friend used to be the same way. In her eyes, TV was the bottom of the cesspool. She didn't even deign to own a TV set for a very long time. Her life was spent reading and listening to classical music. Well, shit, I do both, and I don't consider myself a snob because of it. Steve's the same way: jazz music or oldies. None of the pop stuff or New Age stuff (which I happen to love), but only anything made before 1975 or thereabouts.

I try not to judge people on what they enjoy reading, watching or listening to. But when people like this decide that what I like is shit, it's hard for me to feel anything other than some animosity toward them. Like I hate reality TV, but I don't go around telling someone they're idiots for liking it. I say, to each his/her own.

I know for a fact that at least I have more creativity in most things, I have a lot more skill in mechanics, my imagination is superior, my knowledge in some areas is greater, but I don't go around telling them all these things. I just bite my tongue and keep the topics light.

Why is it that some people must raise their own worth while degrading everyone else? I just don't understand it. It's one of the reasons I've always been a liberal--to let everyone follow their own bliss, and let them choose their own goals. But I've gotten WAY sick of having my own choices laughed at by some people.

[BlueJazz]

1. The next time he starts in on you say:

Hey..Just because I love and appreciate Fine Wine does not mean I can't drink a Pepsi....I'm capable of enjoying both.

[hyphenate]

23. I try when I can to say similar things

He tends to maintain his air of superiority and rolls his eyes. It happens a lot when we get together. His way is best, everyone else's opinion is subject to mockery.

[Javaman]

72. Doesn't sound like much of a friend if his constantly critical of everyone. nt

[SteppingRazor]

2. Are you suggesting then, that the entire field of criticism is invalid?

I get what you're saying, but I also don't think that all opinions are equal. If you're an evolutionary biologist, your opinion on evolution is far more valid than some jackass who's trying to get schools to teach intelligent design.

Similarly, if someone is a professional art critic, then yes, his or her opinion on art is probably more valid than that of the average joe.

Thus, since you watch TV and are more experienced with it, your opinion of TV is obviously more valid than that of your loser friends, who are clearly just jealous of your intellectual superiority ;)

[WildEyedLiberal]

15. Professional criticism is fine

But it doesn't sound like that's what this guy is doing. Sure, an art critic, for example, is going to extol the virtues of the Great Masters over Thomas Kinkade, and a film critic is going to probably prefer the latest Sundance festival winner over "Transformers." But that doesn't mean it's anything other than rude to treat a PERSON as if they're stupid, less than you, etc if they prefer forms of entertainment that you personally find trite, simplistic, etc. And like it or not, if you're telling someone to their face while they're watching a TV show how utterly STUPID said TV show is, how banal, etc - you can't avoid implying that the person who could ingest and (gasp) LIKE such base, banal entertainment is also simple or stupid.

Also, it doesn't sound like this guy is a professional critic - his life apparently isn't based around film, which would make it more understandable (although still rude) for him to excoriate what he considers to be inferior entertainment. Most likely, he just needs to feel better about himself by convincing himself that he's got more intellectual taste than the OP, and is therefore smarter/more cultured. It's a phenomenon that I see at college all the time.

Edit: Reread the OP, the snob friend IS an art house theater owner, so he is involved in the field, at least. Still, that doesn't make it acceptable for him to constantly run down the OP's entertainment choices as stupid or banal. It's just rude - especially on something as subjective as TV and film.

[Exiled in America]

73. The difference is between saying "that's a bad movie" and "you're a bad person for watching it"

"Edit: Reread the OP, the snob friend IS an art house theater owner, so he is involved in the field, at least. Still, that doesn't make it acceptable for him to constantly run down the OP's entertainment choices as stupid or banal. It's just rude - especially on something as subjective as TV and film."

Totally. We agree. :hi:

[hyphenate]

25. I know what you mean

and I've tried to maintain the attitude that everyone has their own special skills and strengths, but it doesn't always work. As far as experience is concerned, I have a great deal of experience and knowledge of the entertainment world, and studied mass communications as well as worked in the business. While I believed that not all television should be lauded, I've seen some of the stuff that never gets ON the air to begin with, and what manages to make it looks like Oscar material in comparison to some of those things.

And yes, as far as the world of TV is concerned, I do have a superior intellect in that area!

[GOTV]

3. I agree. It sounds like you're MUCH better than those snobs!

That's meant to be a joke, but also with a message. He sees faults in you and you see faults in him.

[hyphenate]

26. It is true

that we both have faults. But while I forgive him his, he doesn't seem to share the same amount of blamelessness. :)

[zanne]

62. Do you mean it's really okay...

To watch reruns of "Bonanza"?

[waiting for hope]

4. Lack of Self Respect -

I find that people that behave that way are insecure, uncomfortable in their own skin and feel that if they act superior, no one will know that somehow, in their mind, they are lacking. I have a sister-in-law like that - she says some pretty stupid shit for someone with two BA's and a PHd ... I only feel somewhat sorry for her now instead of getting pissed off.

[porphyrian]

5. People are snobs in all kinds of ways, for a variety of reasons.

You don't have to accept someone else's self-proclaimed superiority, especially when the qualifier is subjective.

[GOTV]

6. Everyone's thinks something is inferior, but it's always the other guy who's a snob. n/t

[porphyrian]

13. That may be over-generalizing things a bit.

I don't know that, say, Buddhist monks think anything is inferior. And I refer to myself as a snob all the time (iceburg lettuce is shit and does not belong in any meal meant for human consumption). But, in general, people would prefer to insult others rather than themselves, and I agree with that, if that's what you were getting at.

[Annces]

19. That is what I was trying to say, but my brain wouldn't work n/t

[porphyrian]

20. Well, you're excluded from our group then...

;)

[wuushew]

7. In all fairness he is probably a collector of the best kitsch and camp

There was a god awful amount of bad stuff produced in 1950s which people have long long ago forgotten.

Good or representative tv is not always apparent during the time at which it is first aired. Your friend has good taste.

[eugeneliberal]

10. One word:

insecurity

[Posteritatis]

31. I have a friend who *only* watches B (or worse) movies/TV shows/etc

He introduced me to the term "sets the bar with a shovel," which I immediately fell in love with. The worse the movie is, the more enthusiastic he is about it - stuff like the original movies MST3K took on, etc. His collection is vast, comprehensive, a thing of terrible beauty.

[maxsolomon]

8. de gustibus DISPUTADEM.

there IS accounting for taste. there IS low culture & high culture.

read "on camp" by susan sontag & you'll see why your "friend's" love of B movies is NOT the same as watching, say, celebrity porn on the E channel for 3 hours a night. the key is IRONIC DISTANCE.

i've been told i am a snob my entire life, by my parents, siblings, friends, exes, etc. so what? i'm not going to change. utter crap is utter crap.

oh, and every minute you spend watching TV is an hour you spend killing your brain. i say this as a TV addict myself. BUSH like to watch TV.

[redqueen]

9. Not just intellectuals...

people of all stripes love to have someone to look down on. It's animal nature... something to strive to rise above.

I often find myself doing it... but try to keep in mind that it's meaningless and falls in the category of humor when I do indulge.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

11. On the ninth of May 1961 Newton Minow called TV "a vast wasteland"

And it has certainly not gotten any better since.

Television caters to the lowest common denominator. Most newspapers are written on an eighth grade level and TV makes them look positively intellectual.

If ninety five percent of what is on TV doesn't insult your intelligence, then you are probably not as intelligent as you think you are.

Reading a work of fiction or watching TV or a movie calls for what is known as "suspension of disbelief" and an overwhelming amount of TV egregiously violates my suspension of disbelief. I end up nitpicking everything to death because it irritates me that the producers can't get things right.

A prime example of things that drive me crazy are a car driving really fast down a dirt road and the tires are squealing, tires don't squeal on a dirt road and anyone who has ever driven fast down a dirt road is well aware of this.

Another example, you see what is obviously a two stroke dirt bike and it sounds like a Harley.

Or on "24" they have spy satellites that hover over one spot on the Earth. Or Jack Bauer gets correct information from terrorists time after time by torturing them for two minutes..

I'm sorry but almost all TV is the equivalent of mental bubble gum, it keeps your jaws busy but it has no nutritional value at all.

[Nederland]

24. Those of us who like TV

...are happy to provide you with someone to look down on. Hope it makes you feel better... :)

[The Vinyl Ripper]

32. I don't look down on you..

I pity you for willingly filling your heads with corporate propaganda.

How do you feel about NASCAR fans?

[WildEyedLiberal]

41. What's wrong with NASCAR fans?

Seriously? They like to watch car racing. So what? Are you implying that they're all stupid? Conservative? Love George Bush? Just come out and say it.

And please stop infantilizing people by implying that they're too stupid to watch television without being "brainwashed" by "corporate propaganda."

[Greyhound]

47. The evidence of television's "brainwashing" is all around you.

Who do more people pay attention to, Noam Chomsky or Paris Hilton?

Do you believe that the fact that most Americans no longer have the attention span to absorb a true debate and to form a reasoned opinion based on the arguments presented is the result of evolution?

How about the fact that about 60 million people cast their ballots for an illiterate fool that has failed at everything he ever did to lead our nation?

How many examples would you like of the deleterious effects of television on our culture?

[TZ]

except for the fact that Pew research just finished a major study

about people's tv viewing habits when it comes to the news and concluded that the "entertainment" type stories like Paris Hilton are the *least* liked segments on the news. The most watched news? Natural disasters. Politics is second from the bottom though

"How many examples would you like of the deleterious effects of television on our culture?"- tell me how your argument is different from the RW argument that violent and sexually graphic TV is ruining our culture? Hmmm?

How sad you think watching tv made people vote for Bush..Its far more complicated than that. Or doesn't anyone you know have gone to school where they are taught to think for themselves? Personally, I think the problems are more education in this country.

[Greyhound]

56. Firstly, the argument that tv culture is ruining our nation is not reich-wing,

it is made by many people from all over the political spectrum and equating violence and sex is straight out of the repressive, puritanical, play book that still dominates us.

How people rate the content of what is called news on television is utterly irrelevant. What is relevant is that the overwhelming majority of Americans think that what they get from the idiot box is news. Consider that a book that sells 100,000 copies is a best-seller, a network television show that attracts 5,000,000 viewers is canceled after 6 episodes.

I didn't say that watching television is what made millions of people vote for arbusto_®, I said that watching television has diminished our capacity to make accurate judgments and is yet another example of how badly our culture is diminished by our preoccupation with the passive observation of what is presented on television. The result of this was 60 million idiots voting for an obviously flawed and massively inferior fool.

The fact that our attention span has steadily declined and that our ability to grasp subtle distinctions or complex problems has become practically nonexistent correlates with the advent, and rise in popularity, of television, and is indicative of the insidious effects of over-exposure to the sales tube.

If I understand what you meant with the question, "Or doesn't anyone you know have gone to school where they are taught to think for themselves?", the answer is very few. Most people I am acquainted with do not, in fact, think for themselves. The people I do choose to associate and be friends with do and usually do so in spite of the "education" they were subjected to. Of those that would not agree with that statement, most are older and were educated before our system disintegrated so far into the day-care/indoctrination system we have now, or are from wealthy backgrounds, or were educated in other countries, where real education still takes place.

Have you considered that one of the chief causes of our desperately poor education is the fact that most Americans spend more time passively sitting in front of a television than reading, studying, or even talking with each other?

[ProfessorGAC]

64. Neither

I don't pay attention to either of them. I think Chomsky is the left's William F. Buckley. All pretense and bluster but very two dimensional. And Paris Hilton means NOTHING to me in any way shape or form.

I'll do my own analysis and thinking, thank you. And, if i watch TV to be distracted after i've read the papers and done my work, then that has no negative influence on my opinions or analysis.
The Professor

[Greyhound]

76. Your individual opinion of either of them is irrelevant to the question.

I guess you were just kicking the thread?:shrug:
:kick:

[ProfessorGAC]

77. No. It Was Pertinent, I Think

You asked the question whether i pay more attention to Chomsky or Hilton. I said neither. I don't think watching TV and being well-informed are mutually exclusive. Apparently, the OP's friend thinks so, and from your question i would infer you do too.

I think one can enjoy diversionary television and still be informed, educated, and analytical enough to form well-grounded opinions.
GAC

[Greyhound]

79. The question was who do more people pay attention to, and the answer is self evident.

Of course one can watch television and be informed, educated, and analytical, however one cannot do this when television is the exclusive source of input which is, sadly, the case with the majority of Americans.

Without some active stimulation, as opposed to the complete passivity of television, a deterioration is inevitable.

[LanternWaste]

83. Why limit it to television?

Why limit it to television?

Shouldn't we also mention I-Pods, the Internet, Graphic Novels, the Matrix Movies, etc, as contributing to the decline of our collective intellect? Seems to me they waste more time these days than television does...

[Greyhound]

98. The internet and graphic novels are interactive and so engage the users mind

much like radio did before the advent of television. Similarly, I have read that music engages the mind/imagination and is not passive, which is supposed to be the difference.

Use it or lose it...:hi:

[iverglas]

111. "graphic novels"

Oh yeah. Comic books.

But books in general now, they're interactive I suppose? Hmm.

And music. You say that you "have read that music engages the mind/imagination and is not passive".

And yet it puts me to sleep. It leaves me cold. Unless it has some really good words. Like Phil Ochs, or Kurt Weill. Or Freddy and the Dreamers. (Ah, I had ironic distance when I was 15.) What's wrong with me???

What's "wrong" with me is that it DOESN'T engage my imagination, because my brain isn't wired that way. It's kind of odd, because it is wired really supremely well for doing math and learning languages, and there's often a correlation. But music is generally just good noise or bad noise to me.

Maybe there is a way in which a large proportion of really smart people's brains are wired that makes music interesting to them. My PhD in old French films brother, for instance, spends hours listening to obscure jazz. He's also pretty good at languages, although not up there with me. But he can't add or subtract to save his life. And while spacial arrangement is one of my really strong points, he'd flunk an IQ test if all it had were those questions like "if you open this 3-dimensional thing up flat, which of these 5 flat things will it look like?" I tried some of them on him once (a test that was supposed to demonstrate how good men were at spacial stuff, and how bad women were). I'd done the quiz in two minutes flat. After 10 minutes, he threw it at me.

But anyhow, maybe people like him think that everybody's like them. Me, I don't think that everybody's like me, because I'm used to being the odd one out. I can't sit and listen to obscure jazz for hours. It bores me, and annoys me. But I can spend hours watching murder mysteries that play games with my mind, and that my mind plays games with.

I might wonder what's wrong with people who don't use their brains that way, but I'd never tell them so. When you're in the minority, you know better than to suggest there's anything wrong with the majority, when they've already defined themselves by the fact that they're better than you are ...

[LanternWaste]

131. I'm sure everyone can justify

I have little doubt that everyone can justify their own guilty pleasures while reducing and minimizing those of others, heck-- I do it myself.

So the next time I see someone with a glazed look on their face, earplugs in, and mouthing the words from The Bay City Rollers' 'Beach Baby', I'll really, really try to tell myself that they're engaging their minds and dwelling on deep and fundamental issues of the day rather than entertaining themselves in fron of the tube.

To each thier own and all that, I guess.

:hi: back atcha!

[antigone382]

86. People were exalting meaningless celebrity over merit long before TV came along.

I'm no fan of TV, but it didn't create human ignorance or the capacity to be distracted by shiny things. If, prior to TV, enlightment had ruled the nation rather than misinformation and ignorance, the Native Americans wouldn't have been virtually exterminated, women wouldn't have been the possessions of their fathers/husbands, and slavery wouldn't have found such a welcome home here. Most people in the 1800's were reading formulaic, brainless dime novels, not political treatises. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a major turning point in public opinion regarding slavery specifically because it relied on a melodramatic plot which appealed to extreme sentimentality, which was exactly what was required to really reach the public (and which exactly describes many TV shows today).

Don't get me wrong. I don't own a TV and don't particularly want one. I can't abide most of what's on it myself, but I don't think those who do find some entertainment value in it are contributing to the downfall of the American Intellect, because the American Intellect wasn't all that formidable to begin with. People have ALWAYS been extremely easy to brainwash, and on the whole I don't really think TV has worsened the situation anymore than those dime novels or most of the crap journalism of the 1800's did. Those who feel the need to make fun of others for their choice of entertainment are in my opinion about as silly and immature as the thirteen-year-olds who make fun of their younger siblings for dressing up for Halloween or believing in Santa Claus. Who cares how other people get their kicks, so long as they aren't harming or infringing on the rights of others?

[WildEyedLiberal]

93. Um, the OP was about a snob friend making fun of the OP because he chose to watch TV

Your post is only tangenitally related to the substance of the OP, which was - what the hell is wrong with people who feel the need to tell others that their chosen form of entertainment is "stupid"?

The OP was not talking about "our culture" or "society" consuming TV - he was speaking of HIMSELF, a DUer, choosing to watch television and being derided for it by his friend. Since he's a poster at DU, he has probably managed to form opinions of his own despite "corporate propaganda." Why should he have to put up with his friend's assholery because he chooses to watch television?

It's not that the point you're making is without merit, but it doesn't really have anything to do with this specific OP.

[Greyhound]

102. I just replied to youR denial that TV has brainwashed us,

the rest just took on its own life. Like anything, television in moderation is probably harmless, we just seem to have a hard time with moderation.

[iverglas]

113. I have an idea

How about if we blame people who buy recordings of performances by, say, Billy Holliday, for the ruination of modern society and destruction of indigenous cultures wrought by the recording industry these days?

I think it works just as well as blaming people who watch Star Trek for the short attention span of George Bush voters.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

61. Stupid? No...

NASCAR in many ways is a sophisticated sport, there's technology and strategy.

Conservative? More so than the average American.

It's impossible to watch a lot of TV and not have your perceptions change due to "information" you absorb from it.

A lot of the programming and almost all of the advertising is carefully designed to effect you emotionally more so than intellectually. Emotions are easier to manipulate than thoughts.

I regularly read NASCAR bashing here on DU.

[Nederland]

69. NASCAR

How do you feel about NASCAR fans?

Don't really care one way or another for NASCAR fans. Unlike you, I'm more of a live and let live person.

BTW, I own Tivo, so I miss most of the corporate propaganda. Sure I still get product placement embedded in the content, but that's not much, and limited to certain types of products.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

91. You don't have to watch the commercials to absorb corporate propaganda..

The programming is rife with propaganda too..

Do you tivo *every* program you watch?

[iverglas]

116. got Google Ads?

DU sure does. It's "rife with propaganda". We'd all better run screaming.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

122. What do you think of Chomsky?

Have you read _Manufacturing Consent_?

[iverglas]

130. har har har

I did see Manufacturing Consent, in a movie theatre, quite a few years ago when it was first released.

I think Chomsky is interesting and has some enormous blind spots, about things he simply - apparently - chooses not to think about because they are - apparently - not important in his mind. I think his association with the Holocaust denier for whose book he wrote the introduction was an enormous error, which illustrated one of his enormous blind spots. I think the nonsense he spouted on the one occasion I have ever come across him talking about women's reproductive rights illustrated another aspect of it. (I can't find it offhand, but let me know if you need directions and I'll put a little more effort into it.)

I think Chomsky is on the money about many things in his context. Take him out of that context, and he's a fish out of water, it seems, and apparently lacking in a little intellecutal curiosity himself.

If there was anything specific you wanted to know, I'm sure you'll let me know.


typo fixed

[The Vinyl Ripper]

132. No one is right one hundred percent of the time...

But Chomsky is right about manufacturing consent.

Which was my point.

[Nederland]

135. Yes

Yes, I Tivo every program I watch--no reason not to.

Apparently you aren't familiar with the term product placement, which I referred to in my post.

[Exiled in America]

74. I am an Indy Racing League fan. http://www.indycar.com/

I'm also a graduate student, former campaign manager, volunteer, and community leader. I also (and I only mention this due to the nature of this conversation) have an IQ of 142.

I don't need a lecture from anyone else about what I choose to do for entertainment.

[Posteritatis]

33. He's right that most of it does suck, but there's always exceptions

I hardly ever watch TV save for the news during major events (or when someone else has it on in the background), but hey, it gave me things like Babylon 5.

[LanternWaste]

84. Babylon 5? Are you serious...?

Babylon 5? Are you serious?

Made you look! :rofl:

B5 is listed as one of my favorite TV shows ever made...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. ... says somebody on the internet.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

65. There's ten billion web pages.

What percentage of them would it take having useful, informative and yes, entertaining information before you had more than enough for one human lifetime to read?

Even if you knock off 70% for pr0n, that's still a lot of web pages.

And if you participate somewhere like DU or the Salon.com letters or Table Talk or lots of other places on the intertubes to talk intelligently about anything you want to talk about you learn even more by asking and answering questions, arguing a point, etc.

Who is better informed about politics, someone who watches a lot of tv or a DU regular?

Want to get a detailed view of the really intelligent Army officer's opinion on things military?

http://www.intel-dump.com/

How about human evolution and how it created our behaviors?

http://www.pandasthumb.org/

Making music and sound with your computer?

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

I've got three computers full of bookmarks.

Anything else you want to know about is out there too.

For those who enjoy learning for the sake of learning it's like trying to drink from a fire hose when you're really thirsty.

[cherokeeprogressive]

96. There is? There is ten billion?

Wow, for someone so seemingly intellectual, I'd have thought you'd have used the right contraction.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

101. LOL,

Is that all you've got?

Grammar nits?

[cherokeeprogressive]

107. Yes. Best I can do. I'm a TV watching NASCAR fan. I don't have much more than that.

Especially in the face of such an intellectual giant as yourself.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

109. I enjoy racing

But NASCAR is too unlike anything people do in a regular automobile for it to hold much interest for me. And despite its sophistication NASCAR is still low tech by today's standards.

As a long time motorcyclist I enjoy watching road racing on TV but since my wife controls the TV I don't watch it very often at all.

These guys have huevos that make NASCAR driver's look like BB's

[cherokeeprogressive]

118. Truce with an apology.

I have Kenny Roberts' autograph on one of his race-worn gloves. I met him at Roger Mears' house when I was a kid. I will agree that motorcycle racers have cojones made of hardened steel, but disagree that NASCAR drivers have cojones that can be compared to BB's. Any time a human participates in an activity that keeps his/her heartrate at 200+ for three+ hours, it is a feat of either unnatural endurance, or steel testes bravery. IMHO of course.

For 7 years my daily commute in L.A. was accomplished on an '89 Ninja 750R. Not that it means much per se, but I understand what it takes to ride on two wheels with your head on a swivel in the mix with four-wheelers talking on cell phones. To say the least, it was a challenge, albeit a fun one. I've since graduated to an '06 HD Road King that I rode last summer to the Canadian border (through IDAHO of all places) with my fiance on the back.

Everyone, no matter what philosophical/ideological differences they may have, has something in common.

Apologies for my snarky comments. I grew up with a domineering (freeper) Pop who I am finally learning to get along with. His comments about what I liked and what I SHOULD like formed my beliefs about "live and let live" and it gets my hair up when someone says something to the effect of "you shouldn't enjoy that".

I apologize.

^5

Chris AKA cherokeeprogressive

[The Vinyl Ripper]

123. No apology necessary..

I didn't detect an insult so much as a bit of defensiveness, we are all human and typing on a screen is not the easiest means of communication.

I too didn't mean to be insulting and I apologize for coming off that way.

Kenny Roberts would have made a good gunsel, eh?

[cherokeeprogressive]

124. Gunsel. I'm not sure of the context. I'd have voted for him when I was a teenager though eom.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

125. Gunsel = gunslinger..

Someone with a cool head and catlike reflexes..

[cherokeeprogressive]

127. Forgive me for not getting that. Cool head and catlike reflexes...

Would that there could be someone like KR vying for public office.

I'd put my leathers on and campaign for him/her in a heartbeat.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

136. Or Eddie Lawson for that matter..

One thing about them, they understand the concept of personal risk.

[HornBuckler]

45. Or like sound in space, my Star Wars loving friend...

Think about it.



Maybe change yer Yoda to something more 'believable'

[NYC Liberal]

53. Sheesh, maybe the problem is that you take things a bit too seriously.

A lot of it is entertainment. So, what's wrong with entertainment? Maybe you don't like it, but not everyone who does is some sort of mental defective. People have different tastes from me in what they find entertaining. I don't go around acting high and mighty as though my *opinions* are the end-all be-all of, well, everything.

"If you believe anyone who has different taste in entertainment is the 'lowest common denominator' of society, then you are probably not as intelligent as you think you are."

I'm sorry but almost all TV is the equivalent of mental bubble gum, it keeps your jaws busy but it has no nutritional value at all.

Ever do *anything* that has no "benefit" other than just being...well, fun? If not maybe you should try it.

[SteelPenguin]

70. Yeah exactly. I NEED bubble gum

I think plenty of tv isn't what he describes, but maybe the majority is. Even the vast majority.

Still though, just because I watch Big Brother with my wife during the summer is ok. I eat Ice Cream too. Often at the same time. I have no nutritional reason for doing either, physically or mentally....but spiritually....ah there's the rub.

It goes all the way back to the greeks, and who knows....maybe earlier. Mind, Body...Spirit.

Yes, Big Brother does nothing for my mind, as the poster suggests, and the Ice Cream does nothing for my body (well it does bad things)...but Spirit? Both raise mine. After a hard day of work and kids my mind and body are tired. I don't want to think, nor do I want to excercise. I need to replenish my spirit.

Bubble Gum Television, and Ice Cream do that for me.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

87. The point is...

That watching TV is not "fun" for me.

It both bores and irritates me simultaneously.

Why should I do something I don't enjoy?

[WildEyedLiberal]

92. That's fine - no one said you should

People are responding to your apparently negative opinion of people who DO choose to watch TV. No one cares if you don't watch TV, but you shouldn't be implying that they're the "lowest common denominator" or somehow less intelligent than you because they do.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

94. So you disagree with my analysis?

Your position then is that TV does *not* cater to the lowest common denominator?

[WildEyedLiberal]

95. I don't see what your "analysis" has to do with the OP

So the OP likes to watch TV - who are you, or Steve, or anyone to tell him that what he likes to do is "dumb"?

Your argument could be applied to virtually anything designed for mass consumption - obviously, in order to enhance the number of people interested in the product, most products are designed with the widest appeal possible, which is a nicer way of saying "lowest common denominator." TV isn't special or unique in this regard. And so it does for the most part appeal to the broadest audience possible - so what? I think there's a subtle form of classism in these kinds of remarks - implying that if someone were truly intelligent, they'd choose only forms of entertainment that are accessible only to the well-educated or intellectually elite - whatever those may be.

God, I don't even LIKE TV, but I'm defending it here because I think mocking other people's entertainment choices is an ugly, insecure thing to do. Honestly, what difference does it make to you if someone watches Law and Order or Lost? If they watch football? NASCAR?

[The Vinyl Ripper]

103. It doesn't make any difference to me..

Why does it make a difference to you?

You are posting on this thread, obviously you care enough about the subject to bother reading and posting here multiple times.

[WildEyedLiberal]

128. In case you've forgotten, you've posted in this thread multiple times

It clearly does make a difference to you or you wouldn't have posted 10 or more times about how TV is corporate propaganda, dumbed down for the lowest common denominator, etc. This post makes no sense whatsoever.

I'm posting in this thread because I, like the OP, dislike snobbery and am unfortunately seeing quite a bit of it here on DU.

[bettyellen]

119. i like some TV but sounds like u watch more than i do! LOL... what the fuck is "24"??

[GOTV]

12. How do you feel about people who watch professional wrestling...

... and think it's real?

[hyphenate]

22. Hell, if they're happy,

I'm happy. I just don't want to have such a person mistaking the nuclear weapons array launch buttom for a "play" button on a joy stick. :)

[GOTV]

28. It's not about being happy. I'm sure your snob friend is happy...

... do you not think less of them for not being able to see that wrestling if fake? That they don't "get it"?

[WildEyedLiberal]

39. Why do you so desperately need to think of people as "less" than you?

Because they watch a stupid TV show, no less?

PS, I have never met a single person who thinks TV wrestling is real. I think this is a strawman.

[cgrindley]

55. Those people are morans (nt)

[Selatius]

14. Hate to break it to you, but each of us has at least one friend who is like that.

It's the human condition. You only suffer them until their arrogance is rewarded with humiliation. You point and say "now you know how I feel," and then you help them back up to their feet, and a new lesson is learned. Hopefully...

[JNelson6563]

16. Different doesn't mean "better" or "worse"

I think you hold a more enlightened view than the two friends you mentioned. It seems to me that those who have to feel their choice of whatever is "better" than someone's different choice reveals a sense of insecurity. A bit of an exercise in overcoming a deep rooted inferiority complex? Who knows? Just be glad you're free of it, whatever it is.

Julie--of the live and let live crowd

[LeftishBrit]

17. Are you absolutely sure that he is condescending to you...

or just perhaps expressing his own likes and dislikes, perhaps a little forcefully, just as someone might say "I hate broccoli; it's disgusting!" to express their own feelings, without it meaning that they are condescending towards those who eat broccoli?

The reason I'm suggesting this is that I have occasionally been misunderstood as being 'snobbish' about television programmes, because I tend not to watch TV to relax, but only if there is something of serious interest. But this isn't because I'm a snob about it, but because I have some visual processing problems which make TV-watching an effort for me, so it *isn't* relaxing for me. I still read plenty of women's magazines, children's books even at my age, etc., so it's definitely not a snob issue for me with regard to TV. But some people, especially if they *have* been criticized over their watching of soap operas, etc., misinterpret it in that way.

Of course, it may be that your friend really is a snob about TV, in which case it's probably part of the "Whatever I choose to do at the moment needs to be proven to be superior" syndrome. Some people are like that about their cars; some about their choice of music; any number about their chosen computer!

[valerief]

18. They'll outgrow the snobbery once they've gotten older.

I lean toward Steve's tastes myself but that's because I love trash. Scorcese I could do without.

[WildEyedLiberal]

21. Hell, look at DU

How often do people here mock "red state" entertainment like country music, NASCAR, big action movies, sports, etc? If it were just a matter of disliking it and preferring other forms of entertainment, that would be one thing, but some people here go out of their way to say how STUPID said forms of entertainment are, how STUPID and SHEEPLIKE anyone who likes them must be, etc. It's like there's a sliding scale of snobbery: NASCAR < country music < pop < generic TV programs < indie rock < art house cinema < classical music and NPR. Almost everyone here - myself included - is guilty of it to some degree, of looking down with scorn on entertainment (and by extension, the people who enjoy said entertainment) we perceive to be lower on the cultural food chain. It's one of the uglier tendencies of leftism, and one that I think is in part responsible for the anti-intellectual cultural backlash among less educated, more conservative voters. No one likes to be condescended to.

[Hardrada]

99. I think the BBC is superior to NPR and, of course, Early Music

and Chant is superior to generic "classical music" but that is because I am so truly great. (And of course I missed the point of most of the posts here).

[baby_mouse]

27. I bet he's not fully aware that he's actually irritating you.

People fall into patterns very easily.

[Ron Green]

29. TV is different

from any other message system you could think of, including old "B" movies and dime novels and kitschy art. It is the way we are enslaved by the corporate masters, not just an entertainment choice. People who say, "Oh, I only watch xyz, or that other thing" are engaging in meaningless anecdotal chat, when put in the context of mass hypnosis and addiction.

[Sherman A1]

30. And his opinion is worth......

exactly WHAT?

[opihimoimoi]

35. He is a BULLY and desires to DOMINATE/CONTROL yo Ass

google Bully....look for Tim Feilds...and his description on what signs to look for...

[Jed Dilligan]

36. Shows like Six Feet Under, Dexter, the Wire

are ten times better than that last piece of shit Scorsese made. I see the dramatic series as a broader canvas than the film, like a novel to a short story. I am MUCH more involved in the characters from these tv shows (or even a slightly more lowbrow show like the Sopranos) than I am with the characters in any feature film.

[Berry Cool]

37. People who spend a lot of time criticizing other people's bad taste are generally insecure.

If you're really secure about your choices and opinions in culture and entertainment, you generally don't have to spend a lot of time belittling other people's. You can think what they like is full of shit, but keep the opinion to yourself unless you happen to run into someone else who shares it. Or you can realize that maybe you like some things other people think are shit. And you'd feel pretty crappy if all they did was spew the livelong day about how stupid it was for you to like what you like.

That's my experience, anyway. Your friend probably feels a bit silly about his taste for old B movies, so in order to feel better about it, he has to knock your tastes in current TV. It balances things out.

Feel sorry for him that he has no other means of making himself feel better.

[NashVegas]

38. Two Things May Be At Play, Here

First, indoctrination. There are art-snobs, and there are art-snobs. Some are self-aware enough to know it's all show.

Second - your friend, he's not a 20-something year old male, by any chance?

Generally speaking, when you encounter a male in this age range who's a little educated on the subject, who thinks he has something to prove, he'll behave like this. He's got his tastes and anything he's not into has no value whatsoever. Go to the lounge and read some of the music threads. Eventually they grow out of it, most of them.

And he may, indeed, feel he has something to prove - peeps who work at art house cinemas don't make a lot of money, not even those in management. Many of them make a fraction of what their patrons do.

[BlooInBloo]

40. Probably a different reason than why most people are such illiterate provincial idiots.

[BoneDaddy]

42. Because EVERYONE to a certain degree

believes they are better than other be they religious, intellectual, straight, gay, conservative, liberal, American, European, Older, younger, male, female.

Just look at the elitism on this board and every other "board" out there. Everyone who belongs to a group thinks their group, their thoughts, their life, their beliefs are superior to others. Sadly, superiority over another for WHATEVER the reason is part of the human condition.

[Colorado Progressive]

43. Some people cant exist without constantly belittling others.

I have a self-proclaimed liberal sister who shreds everything out of my mouth before I say it. She is RIGHT, you suck. PERIOD. I watch a few hours of tv a day to deflate, because I am sensitive and get worked up and cry and want something to remind me that kids are not really being blown up in Iraq. Fuck those neo-lib pieces o shit.

[Greyhound]

44. I think you're taking an accurate judgment of quality as a personal affront.

You like (love) TV, fine, there's no accounting for taste, but to claim that because somebody doesn't agree makes them a snob is just silly.

You haven't named any of the specific shows that you seem to feel so strongly about, but I'm not aware of any current network prime time shows that are not shit, including the few that I enjoy. It is similar to literature or art, whether you like it or not has no bearing on whether it is great or not, much that is great is not generally appreciated by most people but that in no way diminishes its greatness. Most of the people I know really don't like "Citizen Kane" and will never willingly watch it, that doesn't mean that it is not one of the greatest films ever made, it just isn't very popular.

Perhaps your friend Steve is making a similar judgment about the shows you like.

[GreenTea]

46. I have to agree with Steve, in this world of mediocrity some people just don't seem to mind or

get.... others go out of their minds with the stupid simplicity with most of television's addiction & addicts -- "TV drug". I can understand Steve's frustration and his disdain for mediocrity, especially with the bullshit television throws out, which is just a half a step ahead of Britney Spears...I don't like television shows, I despise networks and cable isn't any better, not to mention shit like NASCAR & wrestling. I refuse to watch any news shows since a week before the illegal Iraq invasion....So I'm left with movies and a bio here and there. At least with films I can choose to ignore the 90% garbage that passes for movie entertainment and rent what I know will not be a waste of my time...Some of HBO's programs may be an exception for me personally.

[onewholaughsatfools]

48. are you looking for a new mate

this surely sound like a person searching for a new mate....... of course this is a good way to find one I believe.......good luck

[blogslut]

49. On critics

A quote, attributed to the late Jackie Gleason:

"Critics are those people who sit on hill and watch the battle. And when it's over, they go down and shoot all the survivors."

:)

[GreenTea]

50. I can't do without a good liberal film critic like pulitzer prize winner Roger Ebert!

An excellent writer, incredibly funny, insightful, fair and knows his film history. Ebert's reviews are 95% on the money with my taste and he saves me a lot of time not watching shit.

Jackie Gleason, I could easily do without.

[blogslut]

58. May I recommend

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056017/

If you can find it.

[eridani]

51. Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap

The inverse being that 10% is good, and 1% is really good. This applies to TV as well as any other medium. There's lots of good stuff on, but the reason I don't watch TV in real time is that I don't have the time. What I see depends on what family and friends feel like recording; I'm more than willing to take advantage of their editorial skills.

Hey, Dolores Umbridge not withstanding, I must confess I am a sucker for sappy kitty kitsch. Every one of us probably has a thing about something that others consider lowbrow.

[Dark]

52. How do you feel about people who watch fundamentalist televangelists?

[cgrindley]

54. They're not snobs, you just have bad taste

why not tell people they're idiots if they like reality tv. They *are* idiots if they like reality tv, you know.


PS New Age music, like everything else New Age, really really sucks

[Bongo Prophet]

57. Self-validation, defensiveness and some ideas on handling that...

I have found that people with discriminating tastes developed over time are not only discovering what they like and don't, but also reacting to popular culture that they find distasteful. They may even have some resentment built up from being treated as a "strange" person in conformist society. So, a self-validation armor can build up. Guilty of that myself. I can look at this from a pseudo-snob's POV...

Mutual respect is important. Communication is important. So, developing an intellectual justification and reasoning behind media choices can be beneficial. Developing an intellectual toolset of rigorous defense can come in handy. Opening a safe area of discussion can be done, but since you are put in a defensive position at outset, you might have to push back first, to get some common ground on which to build.


Perhaps most importantly, let said friends know the goal is mutual respect. But also, that judging people by their media choices is, well, kind of shallow. ;)
Then give them some things to ponder.


First off---
Dismissing an entire medium is silly - especially without definition of terms, some discussion of the content, and the wide variety of that content.
Put in terms your friend would relate to, apply the same standards to film or printed word. Hate film because some are bad? Does a film become bad when shown on video, or digitally? Why? What exactly is lost, and is that the most important aspect? Music- live or recorded, or via different medium -does it lose its transcendent value? At what point, and to what degree?

"TV" and "Internet" are primary targets for a broad brush of harsh judgment. Ironic, that! New mediums always come under fire, usually by proponents of earlier media. I read that in a book once.
"TV is a means of mass brainwashing." Of course it can be. As is print and radio and music and the stories we tell each other.
"Ah, where did you find THAT info, on the internet??" -- Yeah, we have all heard that one.
If you read it on the net you know it is...what? More true, less true?


It should be obvious that it isn't so simple -broadbrushing mediatype or genre lends little light. Discuss their reservations, and yours - maybe there is no common subset of specific interest, in which case it pretty much ends with a live and let live impasse- but a meta discussion can be entertaining as well as bring some issues into focus. It is well worth undertaking - especially if your friends have insight and humor. Work from common interests outward.


On subjectivity------

Heck, everybody knows this :) -- In all the arts, it is the VIEWER that is the final artist. (Creators > medium > Viewer) The viewer is an active participant in interpretation, connections, cultural context, and so on. Whether they are aware of it or not, it happens. The SAME artifact can be great or mediocre in the mind of the viewer depending on that persons media literacy, biochemistry, education, mood, etc. etc.

Consider kitsch - by the active choice of the viewer to approach a work with ironic detachment, one *magically transforms* "schlock" into "Art". Wow!
Who makes the grass green, huh? We do, we do.

So, let them know that a well written show is mere fodder for your own creative addition and interpretation. If they don't see it, well - some people don't GET Beethoven, or Pollock, or hiphop or whatever. Sometimes it takes time and reflection, perhaps even training to appreciate art, music or literature. They will have to agree. Let them know that your intelligence is an active partner in the process. SF is great basic fodder for bigger ideas. As fantasy, drama, comedy, etc. Even stupid can be made smart sometimes, eh? And smart things fall flat on some people for whatever reason.
Bottom line, let them know they may be missing some elements in the bigger equation. Add that you respect their opinions on the things they know about. Implied here is that they should respect your sphere of knowledge as well.


One thing that has worked for me is the idea of "guilty pleasures" as a category in which to put each person's grey area media choices. Most people have some subset of things they like that are known to be seen as lowbrow, or lower than some standard in their head. Guilt is really used playfully here. It makes a safe zone to talk about something one or other of you likes but doesn't feel the need to defend. If they don't have guilty pleasures, well...tease them a bit. 50's horror? Come on! Vivaldi, really? You know their tastes, so have fun and keep it light.

If some genre moves you, invigorates or inspires- then it has value. If it lets you into a bigger wold, is an escape from reality for a bit, recharges you- it has value. Communicating that value and sharing it can transcend the issue of the source of that inspiration. Welcome your friends' insights into what their media choices bring into their own lives, and try to relate these things to each other. This is a very positive path that can hold great riches all around.

And that is the point of even discussing media or any other aspects of our lives with friends, right?
WHat's the point of having smart friends if not to share ideas and have fun with life?

[Forkboy]

59. Like I'm going to tell YOU the answer.

:evilgrin:

:hide:

[hyphenate]

60. Just a quick note to everyone on the thread

that I haven't answered yet--I'll be back later this afternoon (early evening) to respond--I just have to do some things late this morning and such. Thanks to everyone, though, for your insight and I look forward to more engaging discussion!

[LeftHander]

63. Steve is not a "snob" he right about TV....and you know it...

But you are hooked on it. It is like a drug. Steve is not a "snob". He cares for you and hates to see your ruin your brain and waste your time on television.

Steve likes "B" movies because they are campy, entertainment that he "chooses" to spend time with. Television, random watching, simply sitting down and surfing until you find a show (which by the way is how most TV is watched) is a passive activity it does not allow you to plan, create and imagine. YOu simply turn it on and start watching.

Steve collecting crappy old movies is a active hobby. One that he probably spends time talking about with other fans of those movies on various internet sites. Some of those "B" movies also influenced later directors like Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Many scenes from old 50's horror flicks re-appear in huge critically acclaimed movies.

I recommend seeing the world from his perspective sometime. It is easy enough to do. Turn the TV off for 30 days. Do not watch it at all (except for emergency weather information if needed)

If you do this I can be 100% sure that when you begin watching TV again you will see it differently and you will understand why your friend prods you about watching TV. Because he cares, enjoys your company and wants to talk with you not at you watching the TV.

People that do not watch TV are not snobs. They simply find it is a waste of time and does nothing to enrich their lives. They also recognize it stopped reflecting culture long ago and started projecting it. TV changes us as a society and not in a good way. It makes us collectivly stupid and allows people like our wonderful President and the men that put him their a medium in which to sway public opinion. Television skews reality toward television's reality.

TV is not real. It is entertainment created to sell consumer goods. It creates a culture of television in our real world so we buy into all that is advertised. And all that is advertised is not always consumer products. It is a war, it is lies and propaganda designed to quell dissent and passify the masses.

YOu can call me a snob too if you want. But only do so after you turn your TV for 30 days.

Oh thanks BTW for writing and sharing this...I think TV is really a major problem in our society and the LESS people watch it the better off we all will be.

[Occulus]

75. Most of the time, my TV is a computer monitor

which occasionally doubles as a television, mostly for shows on the Sci-Fi channel which are currently taking a lamentable break or have recently ended (the Stargate franchise, Battlestar Galactica, and Farscape being three of several).

I never watch network television, and get almost 100% of my news online.

Television is only a major problem for those who allow it to be. You, I would say, are projecting rather heavily in your post. Film doesn't allow you to plan, create, or imagine. You go buy a ticket, sit down, and get fed someone else's creativity and call it a "value".

Meanwhile, I decided to write a TV series of my own and am currently working on the first draft of the pilot eppy. I found a place to pitch it online, and when it's done I fully intend to do exactly that. My inspiration to do so was a decided lack of good science fiction on television, Sci-Fi channel's jewels notwithstanding.

Many people say the same things about video games you said about television. They're even more wrong than you are: most PC games made today- the really good ones, anyway- have some capacity for user modification; Will Wright's upcoming game SPORE is based on that concept, among others. The Doom/Quake franchises from id Software, as well as the Unreal series from Atari, helped catapault the first-person-shooter into legendary status. Unlike both film and television, the end-user-mod capability allows the gamer to create a game of their own, if they like. In at least one case I know of, that has ended up being a commercial product of its own (Couterstrike, for Half-Life, by Valve Software).

I don't really see television any differently than I did before my TV turned into a monitor. The difference is, I watch less of it because I use it as a computer monitor, and generally not as a television. Still, my guess is, you've never seen "Deadwood", or "The Closer", or even "Monk" (which is a fantastic show with some really good characters).

Your argument can be fairly applied to news or to talking heads, but to apply it to everything on TV is just over-the-top. You're not even being a snob, here. You're simply wrong.

[LeftHander]

81. Call it like I saw it....TV is wrong....

The damage it has done to every corner of our culture is pretty clearly evident.

It has help facilitate the change our culture has undergone from post WWII to today.

I for one happen to be old enough to remember a time before widespread television poisoning of culture. The generation before me fell into it and are represented by the regressionist selfish "greatest generation"...yes they sacrificed for us in WWII but they then set the stage for rampant consumerism and excess that their children so enjoy.

Without TV McMansions, SUVs, Big Box retail, big box religion our broken democracy all would be non-existent.

So now after being raised on TV, I gave it up. going on two years now. And when I see ANY SHOW. It smacks of something that I don't see in everyday life. It IS UNREAL as Unreal is.

I prefer the company and interaction of people rather than a glass teat. I also prefer the community of people doing real things for each other rather than watching make believe melodramatic segments squished between commercials for boner pills. Or totally rude and crude celebrity watching and infomercials.

Call me over the top. I don't care but I am afraid I am not wrong on this. Humanity is better off with very little or no television.

You are unlike most people you choose to watch what you want to. That is the first step to letting it go.

Just let TV go. After a while you don't really miss it and don't really "NEED" it.

[Chovexani]

126. Thank you so much for posting this.

Whenever someone bashes video games, I always have to point to the Final Fantasy games as the one thing that has probably had the most dramatic impact on my life. I grew up on them, and they were what sparked my interest in writing--something that would be a life-long interest. Long before I even knew what the term fanfiction was, I was writing stories about those little pixelated knights and wizards and princesses. They also led me to make some of my dearest friends, who are to a one smart, funny, and extremely creative people. Many are artists and graphic designers. Yes, there are stupid people who game, and gaming does nothing to help their stupid, but you know? Some of us talk in cat macro because it's funny (or at least we think it is) and not because we think "I can haz cheezburger?" is grammatically proper.

Well, about the TV thing. What the snobs fail to realize is that while TV is pabulum for the masses, some of us can walk and chew gum at the same time. My iTunes playlist features both Queen and Rachmaninoff. My DVD collection includes both In Living Color and Who Killed the Electric Car. I'm one of those pop culture junkies who appreciates it in an ironic sense. I used to hang out at Fametracker.com and Television Without Pity. I've watched the worst possible shit imaginable (the first season of Joe Millionaire, for instance), solely to mock it with people. Why? It's fun for me. :shrug: Civilization didn't collapse when the comic book was invented, or rock 'n' roll, or anything else people with sticks up their asses hate.

Random note: by god, I love the Amazing Race. Anyone with anything bad to say about that show has to answer to me. :P

[WI_DEM]

85. how about just live and let live. If someone wants to watch TV fine, if they don't great.

[bettyellen]

106. wow, how much TV were you watching for fuck's sake?

ex addicts can't believe that many of us are not.
get a grip, would ya?

[MilesColtrane]

66. If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving.

I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!



"I've gotten WAY sick of having my own choices laughed at by some people."

Be sure to tell your friends that.

If they continue, point out in every instance that you love them despite their snobbery and condescension.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

68. You have never laughed at someone doing something stupid?

People think stupid is hilarious.

[LeftHander]

82. Garson a Meerkat please....nt

[WritingIsMyReligion]

67. I think TV is stupid as hell, but then again, I'm not a TV kind of person.

I also would agree with your friend Steve that TV is banal and that most music worth listening to was made before the disco craze, though I'm less rigid on that, mostly because some good trash party music came after '75 or so.

Some more traditional intellectual types have a hard time indeed with popular culture, mostly because they see it as leading the populace into banal, wasteful directions. America undoubtedly has a rather decisive anti-intellectual bent, so it's hard, I'd say, for people who consider themselves intellectual to stand by and watch people they love falling into what they consider is a pool of corporate-esque kitsch, just as it's hard for fundie Christians to stand by and watch people they love falling into what they consider is the heart of hell and sin and eternal torture. Fundie Christians have the right to believe what they believe, and the right to talk to others about it, they don't have the right to continually proselytize after someone has expressed complete uninterest/defiance towards their worldview. Intellectuals have all the right in the world to listen to music from just one year if they so choose, to turn off TV completely, but they don't have the right to be condescending snobs about it either. Ultimately, it's a rather fine line most people walk. Fundies have the right to express their beliefs, though not on the open and tawdry infringement of other people's beliefs, but those beliefs should not in any way be immune to criticism. Intellectuals have the right to criticize the brainlessness of modern popular culture, but they don't have the right to be condescending about it.

[SteelPenguin]

71. I mention this in post 70

But it's about the trilination of Mind, Body and Spirit.

It sounds like these snobby friends are confusing their minds with their spirit. And why not, since they're sort of just false concepts anyway, but lets run with it....

A bad 50's B movie isn't helping your mind or body. If he watches it and loves it, and it makes him happy to talk about it, it's increaseing his spirit. Not his mind. He's not learning anything from watching "Zombie Clown Ninja's From Mars" and sitting their the whole time isn't helping his physique either. Same for someone who listens to Jazz. Unless he's applying what he's listening to to his performance, he's just helping his spirit as well. The part of you that helps you be happy.

Neither is better or worse, and everyone's spirit gets refreshed in different ways. Some by music, or movies, or television, or art, or walking, or fishing...it's endless because everyone is different. To say that your way of infusing your spirit is 'wrong' in some way is to not understand the purpose of these activities.

Why do people degrade other people for it? Because they're self-centered and can't understand that there is more than one way to do things. For him that works, and that's great. To be unable to admit that other people will need other things is just stupidity.

[Katherine Brengle]

78. It makes 'em feel gooooooood.

Seriously.

[iverglas]

80. I'm right there with you

Slumped in a chair, eating supper in front of the tube. With the co-vivant. Neither of us is stupid, neither of us is intellectually lazy, in fact I have no doubt that we're the smartest and most thoughtful pair of people that most people would hope to know. I also think of a young friend of mine in DC, who decided half-way through a doctorate in, yes, nuclear physics that she'd rather go into international relations and work on arms control, and entered a graduate program in that field. A couple of years ago she was worrying about how she never read anything for leisure any more, and preferred watching TV. Hah, I said. Join the club.

I read everything I could get out of the library when I was a kid. Summer was for sitting in the basement rec room with books, not wasting time outside. Historical fiction and science fiction/fantasy, all they had, twice over. Mind you, an old B&W movie on TV didn't go amiss, either. I got older, and read every mystery novel ever written. Then ... I stopped.

These days, in my house, we're lucky that we both love TV, and mostly the same kind. There's the usual male/female action/drama conflict (I won't watch Sopranos, he won't watch my Brit dramas). We talk to the TV, fall on the floor laughing at the TV (even when it doesn't mean us to), predict what's going to happen on the TV ...

I'm very visual in my information-absorption process; he's more aural (he's the musician, I'm the one who got bored to tears learning to play piano, and falls asleep at concerts unless I'm close enough to see what they're doing). We both like colour and design, though, and just get a kick out of commercials where they're used well, even. And fine old black and white movies, just for the fineness of the black and whiteness.

I love exactly what you do -- a plot, characters, preferably a mystery and/or a novelty. A Brit police procedural, or an STNG first encounter. Because it's something to think about.

I read all day. I read research reports and policy papers and legal decisions for work, I read whatever comes along when I want to know about something I happen upon at DU or the like. (I seldom read a thread without looking something up to find out about it.) For long hours. I don't want to stop thinking when I knock off, but I kind of do want to have to make a little less effort. Feed me something to think about, please. And yeah - to entertain me. I deserve it. And anyone who thinks that something like the Homicide series wasn't high-quality entertainment just like a Jane Austen novel or a Graham Greene novel (I'm fond of both, actually) isn't high-quality entertainment is just trying too hard.

I'm sure there are people who stare and follow the action and do no more; make no effort at all. Me, I often miss entire scenes of what I'm watching, because something started a wheel turning in my head and I followed it off down some speculative tangent and got lost. I love my VCR. No commercials, and rewind when I realize I've been staring and not seeing. I interact with what I'm staring at. And I find that easier to do with something on the screen than with something on a printed page, frankly. And that's partly just the way my brain operates. Other people's may work differently. Good for them.

Now, I'm with your friend Steve on the music, although my cut-off date is about 1971. ;)

But if I'm doing the dishes, I don't want music, which just leaves me being bored, because my brain just doesn't find anything there it can do anything with; I want something that is going to feed me something to think about. Radio works, TV works. But for the most part, I want something to look at; that's just the way I am. And if you are too, good for you too!

People who think reading, or listening to music, is the be-all and end-all of everything need to remember that there are people who read supermarket tabloids and people who listen to Britney Spears. Just as there are people who watch American Idol. You don't watch American Idol any more than your friends read tabloids or listen to the top 40. Mind you, I do watch Big Brother. And I do read tabloids. And I watch absolutely fabulous documentaries on important current and historical events, and I listen to jazz. And I'm being a snob, I guess, but really, there are degrees of everything, and there are things on TV geared to every degree of intelligence. Just like there are books and music. But like you say -- there's really no need to tell people who watch American Idol they're idiots, although I do berate my best friend occasionally for watching nothing but CSI and The Food Channel. Yeesh.

But as to your actual question -- "Why is it that some people must raise their own worth while degrading everyone else?" -- I think they're probably really just stupider than they like to think. They actually lack intellectual curiosity, and probably use their brains less while reading their high-class literature and listening to their high-class music than people like you and me do when we watch The Space Channel. They may simply not understand that for someone like me, music is really just noise, for instance; good noise or bad noise, there's nothing there I can think about, because I just don't hear it the way some people do. They may assume that everybody's the same, just to different degrees, so if somebody likes things that are different from what they like, they must not have the capacity to like what they like. They might even like what we like, if they gave it a try. That's the part that is truly weird: not trying new things is the hallmark of a very boring person. Maybe they wouldn't like them. Fine. But to put that down to their superiority, y'know, I dunno. Boring and proud of it, it seems!

Invite them for dinner, and make them watch TV. Well, I've tried it with my TV-snob PhD in old French films brother, so I should know that won't work. I dunno. I think there's probably just something wrong with their brains.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

90. People who don't like TV "lack intellectual curiosity"?.

That's the most hilarious thing I've heard in a while.


"Make them watch TV".

So you would deliberately subject a guest in your home to something you know they don't like?


"I think there's probably just something wrong with their brains".

Did you even read what you wrote? That's worse than what the OP was complaining about.

I don't have any proof but I'd be willing to bet that people who don't like TV are more likely to be liberal than conservative.

[cherokeeprogressive]

97. As if that means a Tinker's damn. eom

[iverglas]

100. yup

You show me someone who disdains television who has EVER watched any of the programs I watch, and I'll show you someone not telling the truth.

Make them watch TV.
So you would deliberately subject a guest in your home to something you know they don't like?

Not likely. I would also never invite someone to my home who was unable to distinguish between a facetious suggestion and a serious suggestion.

I think there's probably just something wrong with their brains.
Did you even read what you wrote? That's worse than what the OP was complaining about.

Again ... I wouldn't invite someone to my home who was unable to distinguish between a facetious statement and a serious statement.

Or, in either case, someone who pretended not to notice which one was in front of his/her nose.

My PhD in old French films brother (his actual interest being old popular Latin American films - ah, that distance whatchamacallit -- in this case, the distance being sociopolitical) watches things on TV - things that he uses the TV to play from DVD. Old French films. Gosh. And I watch filmscripted Lillian Hellman plays on Turner Classic Movies. Watch on the Rhine; Dead End; The Children's Hour. Hmm. I'm seeing a really really big difference here. I pay for them by the month, he rents them individually. I'm such a lowbrow.

Some people go out to watch movies; I stay in to watch movies. I actually don't like going out. I have PTSD and a kinda free-floating fear that makes me more comfortable at home most of the time. Some people see a huge difference between reading The Quiet American and watching the movie on TV; I've done both.

My mother is 77. She watches a lot of the same stuff on TV as I do, a large chunk of that being BBC dramas of varying degrees of seriousness. She was also a big Homicide fan. Ever seen it? Ever been struck by how one episode could be the most wonderful evocation of the world of Tennessee Williams, and the next a pure character study, and another a stone whodunnit - and then one that gets all nudgingly self-referentially focussed on its media navel ... with some decent social commentary following the cops around most of the time? And funny. Funny is good. And full of real culture - real, genuine, local US flavour, something that's increasingly hard to find in the real world these days.

Anyhow, my mother is 77. She lives on her own in a senior cits' building, a few blocks from where my sister and her kids live. My mother could live in my spare apartment if she wanted to, but she doesn't; I live 300 miles away, where I need to live for my very specialized work, and she doesn't want to live here. She wants to live on her own. I wonder what a 77-year old widowed woman who wants to be independent would do with herself 24/7 if she didn't have the television for information and entertainment?

That's what life really is like today. People live to be much older than they used to, and they don't live with multiple generations and spend their time rearing their grandchildren and getting on one another's nerves. My grandmother lived in her own house until she died at 98, just the way she wanted to. She too watched some of the same things I did. One of our favourites was Due South, a hilarious series about a Mountie in Chicago that the viewing public in the US never quite understood, but that became iconic up here. Paul Gross, the hero, made an appearance on Canada Day to sing a song he'd composed for the show. More recently, he has starred in several seasons of a terrific comedy - the highbrows in NYC all love it, at least the ones who own televisions, and we know they mostly do - about life behind the scenes at the Stratford Shakespeare theatre, by another name, of course. It's called Slings and Arrows. You can buy it on DVD, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to risk having your brain cells killed off.

It's wise to use one's brain cells as one ages. Wards off Alzheimer. My partner's mother does crossword puzzles and sudoku daily just in case, since her mother had Alzheimer. She also watches Coronation Street, and all the figure skating and dressage competitions she can find on the dial. She's too frail to actually go to an arena to see those things, and it would cost her a fortune to do it anyway. So I suppose she ought to just resign herself to her fate, and knit something.

Me, I do the cryptic puzzles in Harper's, and I watch the new CBC spy vs. spy drama Intelligence. I have no idea how yer average member of the viewing public follows the twists in that plot; my brain is exhausted after an hour of trying to remember which bad guy is working for the FBI and which one is working for the RCMP, and trying to figure out whether that other one is a CSIS mole who is really working for the DEA or is going to turn out to be some kind of triple agent.

You may not find that interesting. Bully for you. You may have things you like to do when you're not working or doing the dishes that you find interesting and entertaining. I might find them stupefyingly boring, or utterly pointless. Wanna tell me what they are, so I can make fun of them and tell you how you're a tool of the ruling elite?

Maybe YOUR television is crap. I like some of it, but I also get to watch a whole lot of things that you've never heard of and will never see. Check out http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/ -- find the archives. You can watch some of the stuff on your computer, if you want to make it your little secret. Here's one, first up:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/archives.html

Wednesday March 1 2007
THE LIES THAT LED TO WAR
Since the US-led invasion four years ago, the fifth estate has covered Iraq and the war on terror from virtually every angle--the military, media, intellligence, politics--revealing aspects of the story that you didn't find anywhere else.

Now, as the White House warns about the latest threat in the region, this time from Iran, we go back to examine the deception, suspect intelligence, even lies that convinced the world of the rightness of targeting Saddam Hussein.

How about:

Wednesday October 4, 2006
LOST IN THE STRUGGLE
For almost a year, three young men who grew up on the rough streets of the Jane and Finch area of Toronto, gave Gillian Findlay and the fifth estate unprecedented access to the complexities that make up their neighbourhood and their world. For these three friends--Chuckie, Burnz and Freshy--the Jane and Finch area is a tough world to navigate, an even tougher one to escape. It is a story that will resonate in cities across the country.

It was either that program or another CBC documentary series where I saw Dark Side of the Moon. But I know I shouldn't have. I thought it was hugely entertaining, and worthwhile. But I know I shouldn't have.

And all that is without even mentioning STNG first-contact tales. My faves. What if ...


ANYONE who would intentionally cut him/herself off from any source of the kinds of information and entertainment and brain fun that I make a point of accessing via TV ... well, yes. Must have something wrong with his/her brain.

I don't have any proof but I'd be willing to bet that people who don't like TV are more likely to be liberal than conservative.

Whoa, I'll bet that was supposed to hurt. Here's one for you:

Artist: Ochs Phil
Song: Love Me, I'm a Liberal
Album: There But for Fortune

I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal


Put down the old DAR, put down the boob tube ... putting down, a favourite pastime of "liberals". Sure glad I've never been one.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

105. Facetiousness, like humor, is in the eye of the beholder;;

"""You show me someone who disdains television who has EVER watched any of the programs I watch, and I'll show you someone not telling the truth."""

Telling the truth about what?


""Not likely. I would also never invite someone to my home who was unable to distinguish between a facetious suggestion and a serious suggestion."""

Much nuance is lost in written communications. I've read far more than enough truly crazy things on the intertubes that were said in all seriousness not to take much of anything as being a facetious comment.


""Again ... I wouldn't invite someone to my home who was unable to distinguish between a facetious statement and a serious statement."""

And one person's facetious comment is another persons firm conviction. How do you tell the difference in a text medium?

"""Or, in either case, someone who pretended not to notice which one was in front of his/her nose."""

Pretending not to notice what?

[iverglas]

108. I'll bet you'd agree

who say that people who watch TV are more likely to suffer from a declining attention span than those who don't. Just as you say we're more likely to be "conservative" than those who don't.

Given that you seem to be saying that you don't watch TV in any significant amounts, and yet you apparently managed to make it through only the first 10% of my post or so, I wonder whether I should suspect that you are a secret television addict after all.

Actually, it seems you didn't make it quite that far even.

Or, in either case, someone who pretended not to notice which one was in front of his/her nose.
Pretending not to notice what?

Well. "Either case" would be (a) facetious suggestion, (b) facetious statement. Pretending not to notice which of (a) facetious, (b) serious was in front of his/her nose in either case.

I wouldn't invite anyone into my home who couldn't recognize either one, *or* who pretended not to recognize either one. (That's the thing that's really hard to determine in written communications sometimes.)

Much nuance is lost in written communications.

Yes. It is therefore always wise to ascribe the stupidest and/or evilest possible meaning to anything that is susceptible to more than one interpretation.

You show me someone who disdains television who has EVER watched any of the programs I watch, and I'll show you someone not telling the truth.
Telling the truth about what?

Uh ... about disdaining television. Or ever having seen anything I watch on it. (Where the "someone" obviously referred to someone of the ilk we are considering here.) Your choice.

You know, kinda like you show me someone who says s/he tried my homemade chocolate cheesecake and didn't like it, and I'll show you someone not telling the truth. About either trying my cheesecake or not liking it. I think this one's often called "hyperbole".

Now, after you've rested up, maybe you'd like to address something I actually said in response to your actual substance. Not that you really had much, your post having consisted of nothing, beyond the little contretemps about rhetorical devices, other than dismissing what I initially said with a wave of a supercilious hand, and attempting to insinuate something about the political leanings of people such as moi.

Please don't think I'm angry with you. That would be just another of those "Much nuance is lost in written communications" things, I assure you.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

112. I read your post,, some of it I agreed with..

Some of it I disagreed with.

And a good bit of it wasn't relevant to the discussion, IMO.

There are good things on TV, but you have to admit that the audience for such things is pretty low and that most people jut plop down and channel surf until they find something not actively objectionable.

[iverglas]

114. I'll repeat what someone else said on this point

There are good things on TV, but you have to admit that the audience for such things is pretty low and that most people jut plop down and channel surf until they find something not actively objectionable.

THAT is what is wholly irrelevant to this discussion. What "most people" do has nothing whatsoever to do with what the author of the opening post does, or was talking about, or what I do or was talking about.

Or with what the self-appointed members of the pseudo-élite dissing his choice of leisure activities were saying.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

120. I'm glad that you never

Feel yourself superior to anyone in any way.

But most of us do think we are superior to someone else in at least *some* way.

[NC_Nurse]

88. Don't you KNOW?

:eyes:

:P

[SmokingJacket]

89. Insecurity -- period.

Snobs secretly feel inferior to other people, so they have put down other people to push themselves up. Same with grammar nazis -- they're often the same people.

Point it out to them and they'll shut up, maybe even have a revelation or two and get a personality makeover. It could happen!

I don't watch teevee mostly because of the ads. But there are some great shows -- I get them on DVD.

There are also plenty of crummy but addictive shows that I tend to watch for hours and hours and hours... so, no cable for me. But I don't judge anyone who watches it.

[Redstone]

104. I don't watch TV, and haven't for many years. But that doesn't mean that

YOU should not watch TV.

To tell you the truth, I'm kind of afraid to turn the TV on; with the advent of cable, there's SO much good stuff to see that I'm worried I might not ever turn it off.

God help me if I ever tune into the History Channel...

Redstone

[Megahurtz]

110. LOL!

:spray: There are tons of people on D.U. exactly like this, condescending and
making snide comments, throwing their intellect around as if they are better than!

>>"Why is it that some people must raise their own worth while degrading everyone else?"<<

Seriously, I'd like to know the answer to that question too.
Perhaps those D.U.ers can answer the question.
You know who you are. :hi:

ROFL! :rofl:

}(

[The Vinyl Ripper]

115. So....

What do you think of freepers?

Do you respect their intellects?

[Megahurtz]

117. If They Act

in the same way I'm describing, no. What I don't respect is a person
throwing their intellect around as if they are above another,
if you know what I mean. It's pretty rude no matter who they are.

[jpgray]

121. People who need to objectively justify what entertains them need to deal with their insecurities

Both the people who pompously bash TV as a wasteland of stupidity watched by stupid people -and- the people who push their intellectual bona fides on you to try and "prove" that smart, cultured people enjoy TV. Neither is necessary, and both are very tiresome. If you feel the need to justify what you like and don't like as objectively good or bad, odds are your identity is pretty fragile.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

129. Why is seeing the Emperor naked "pompous"?

[JVS]

133. Some people labor under the delusion that being printed on a page makes drivel "intellectual"

It's not about medium, it's about content.

[historian]

134. consider this

In this era of mindless entertainment, mediocrity and hero worship of shallow characters, the scapegoat is TV. By claiming not to watch TV because it is stupid or otherwise brain damaging is a cry of help in my opinion. "Help I'm too intelligent for this day and age." If you, on the other hand, allow others to do as they please without passing judgment then you are far superior to them and if you succumb to their pettiness you will lower yourself to their already low standards. So good for you I say and keep up the spirit.