Is TV responsible for today's society

[MIXONE]

What a load of generalised crap.Utter bullshit.
Referring to jimjim's dribble.

[JimO]

What a load of generalised crap.Utter bullshit.
Referring to jimjim's dribble.

you can have your opinion i can have mine.......who is responsible for most of the bashings, rapes, violence, theft

[Nasty]

who can be bother ... attitudes suck ... and that is where the problem is.

[DEATH_INC.]

I blame the lack of parenting too.
Our society is making things shit, no-one will accept responsibility for their own actions, and our leaders have no accountability for their actions either.
Our kids think this is normal so don't accept responsibility either.
'He had a rough upbringing' is NOT an excuse for taking other peoples basic rights.
Stop making excuses for scumbags.
Everyone knows right from wrong, and if they don't then there's something very wrong with our world. Make 'em learn there's consequences for their actions.
Bring back discipline!!
And stop blaming the fantasy world that is TV. And the internet for that matter. We had fantasy books long ago, but we knew right from wrong, because we knew there was a consequence for what we did.

[Flatcap]

What's wrong with today's society?

It looks pretty damn fine from where I am sitting

It might be somewhat different, but is it really any worse than 10 or 20 years ago? I think not...

[BBzz]

And I blame the lack of parenting.

Fear call but where do you think parents get there parenting skills from?
I don’t think they have it from birth.
We live in a society that is consumer driven we are concerned about what we have, more than the problems next door are having, I think that is partly fuelled by TV but the whole advertising machine has a big part to play.

The world we live in at this time?

[CookMySock]

I think TV is to blame, but not for that reason. I think people can generally seperate fantasy violence from real violence.

What I do find a problem, is the media whittling away at our self-esteem by posting horrific acts that we DO feel strongly about - that is very real violence indeed. This type of material should never be shown, in my opinion. Further to this, these acts are portrayed as "normal" in our society, normalising us to them, when the fact is that these are really isolated incidents.

I am often left feeling quite distressed after watching the news, and I turn it off in disgust.

Even modern popular music, which I enjoy very much - the lyrics are often catastrophic, and deeply destructive if we put too much stead in them - yet they are played day and night on all the radio stations, and in most workplaces. Like the old toothpaste advert - "it DOES geet eeen".

For myself, I "take care what I think", and try and keep things in check. It's all I can do in a sea of emotion - but I'm a mess, so oh well.

I believe the media has a lot to take responsibility for.

DB

[Oakie]

PlayStation type games is part of it although I don't think there is only one cause for the current state of things. Death-Inc mentioned consequences. In Playstation type games you can race cars around city streets, die and then just press the re-set button so no consequence for screwing up
Alternatively there are many games where you are actually rewarded for killing people. Yes its only a game but it creates a mindset. I could go on but you get the picture.

HOW-BLOODY-EVER... CHECK THESE QUOTES OUT:

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have
no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all
restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are
forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[he was being ironical there and meant disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"

The language does give it away a bit but:
the first was from sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in 1274 AD
the second is from Hesiod around the 8th century BC.
the point being that throwing up our hands and despairing of the youth and therefore the future of society 'today' is by no means a new thing...and society has still not destroyed itself

[Oakie]

Hmmm. Let me pose this. The title of this thread was "Is TV responsible for today's society?" It could just as easily be "Is society responsible for today's TV?" Is it wrong to blame TV as perhaps TV is just reflecting what we already are???????

[The Stranger:Me]

PlayStation type games is part of it although I don't think there is only one cause for the current state of things. Death-Inc mentioned consequences. In Playstation type games you can race cars around city streets, die and then just press the re-set button so no consequence for screwing up
Alternatively there are many games where you are actually rewarded for killing people. Yes its only a game but it creates a mindset. I could go on but you get the picture.

No, I don't get the picture.
Look at our history. Far more pain and suffering has been inflicted in the name of religion and/or for greed and for power in times and places where no TV or play station exists. In fact, I would appear that one could build a case for these devices, it would appear that they pacify society.

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have
no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all
restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are
forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[he was being ironical there and meant disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"

The language does give it away a bit but:
the first was from sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in 1274 AD
the second is from Hesiod around the 8th century BC.
the point being that throwing up our hands and despairing of the youth and therefore the future of society 'today' is by no means a new thing...and society has still not destroyed itself

Exactly!
But, I would go a step further.
I look around and I see so many fine, honest, hard working young people with hope and dreams that I find it very inspirational.

Perhaps it is those whom don't see these people, and instead moan and complain about the youf of today instead of participating and enjoying it, who are responsible for dragging it down?

[The Stranger:Me]

Our society is making things shit, no-one will accept responsibility for their own actions, and our leaders have no accountability for their actions either.

Got to agree with death here big time.
Like it or not, people learn from our leaders and actions do speak louder than words. If it's good enough for the PM to commit fraud and get away with it, it's good enough for us all isn't it?
If it's ok for politicians to have 5 drink driving charges, why shouldn't I? Drink driving is ok.
Speeding, of course speed is bad, we believe you, unless of course you are running late for a rugby game in which case it is ok.
Lead by example!

[MGST]

Got to agree with Death.

One can't help but wonder if the justice system grew some balls and punished people properly ( and perhaps even harshly ) if people would then think twice before committing acts of crime? You would only have to show a few hangings / electric chair executions / lashings with the cane etc on TV for people to get the idea that you are serious and this is what is waiting for you if you choose to partake in unsavory behaviour / activities.

And jimjim (?) has a point about the Treaty of Waitangi. Maori ( at least the radicals ) are forever going on about how the white man has persecuted them, it's not their fault, blah blah blah. These people need to wake up and get over it. Crying over spilt milk won't achieve anything. They need to put it behind them and move into the current time frame, not still be living with greivences from 2 centuries ago. The other problem is the Government is pandering to them by letting them carry on with all this crap and giving them millions and millions of $$ and half the countryside and lakes and foreshore etc etc. Its total bullshit.

[Number One]

Corporal punishment was banned when I was in primary school ..

Aye? Then how come I got the strap when I was at Primary school? (first day infact) You a bit older than I aren't ya love....

BULLRUSH! Now there was some fun. I used to love taking on the boys and getting tackled by them then wasting the girls!!! :devil:

IMO there are a lot of things feeding into the problems we are now facing. I do think media/TV desensitizes us. I also think there are some pretty sad and unhelpful messages being pushed too.

[Oakie]

No, I don't get the picture.
Look at our history. Far more pain and suffering has been inflicted in the name of religion and/or for greed and for power in times and places where no TV or play station exists. In fact, I would appear that one could build a case for these devices, it would appear that they pacify society.

Yes, but that was done for real with real consequences. My point was (and seeing you raised religion) that a kid today can hire a game pitting the Crusaders vs the Saracens (Christians vs Muslims) back in 1200 AD or whatever, can play either side and can mercilessly hack the others to pieces with their sword. This may give some a mindset that a certain behaviour is just fun and OK. A small minority will take that fun to the streets so I believe that those games do more harm than good. Apart from the fact that the PlayStation generation are lard-asses because they've forgotten how to go outside to have fun. (Feck I sound old!)

[McJim]

I blame peer pressure - people drink too much fluids and this puts unnacceptable pressure on their pee making them short tempered.

Seriously though kids learn what they live and a lot of the nutters have had violent childhoods where they've been shown by role models and there peers that violence and tantrums are acceptable.

No one takes TV seriously - if they did they'd all be talking in yankee accents.