|
TAYLOR MAN ABOUT LONDON |
 |
|
HAS MY COUNTRY GONE BRAIN DEAD? |
ANSWERS AT BOTTOM OF PAGE |
Help us, please!
We're going dumb!
By ROBERT TAYLOR
of TheColumnists.com
I hear that we Brits are quite popular in the U.S. at the moment. Something to do with helping out in Iraq while our European neighbours preferred to snipe from the sidelines. I hate to puncture any popularity we may be enjoying, but I’m amazed you Americans have got any sense out of us at all.
Because Britain is dumbing-down at a disturbing rate.
Some Brits are fond of looking down their noses at what they see as the banality of American popular culture. They have about as much right to do that as an asthmatic snail has to call a bronchitic tortoise a bit slow. Many adults in this country have the interests and enthusiasms of small children, with fascinations that stretch only to mobile phone games, reality TV shows and celebrity gossip. Most care only about which pop singer is sleeping with which sports star and who’s going to be murdered in which soap opera.
On the train last week I witnessed a fully-grown man playing a game on his mobile phone involving flashing lights and little explosions. While I stared in open-mouthed amazement, nobody else seemed to think it odd. I bet they would have found it odd if he’d been pushing a toy car around the carriage.
The BBC’s flagship channel, BBC1, is leading the dumb-down charge. Encouraged by the government to compete for more viewers, it’s showing a succession of programmes that fail to challenge the intellect of the family dog. Typical prime time programmes comprise a situation comedy, a quiz show, a medical or police drama and a chat show. BBC 1’s diet for the nation is ice cream for every course.
Not surprisingly, we have an increasingly ill-informed population. Every so often, the press publishes some shocking statistic about the ignorance of your average Brit. Something like only two per cent of people know that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, or half of all Brits think Richard Wagner plays in goal for Bayern Munich. That sort of thing. But nothing comes of it. We all get shocked, then forget about it.
And the knowledge that people don’t have about Charles Dickens (actually he’s a bad example, because I’ve never been able to get beyond page 50 of any of his books) they more than make up for in their knowledge about technology. I recently picked up a magazine publicizing the London Computer Show. This publication is aimed at ordinary people yet assumes a staggering level of technological knowledge. Acronyms and jargon abound, wrapped in a quite appalling enthusiasm for the product in question. “Compaq iPAQ H3950 Pocket PC + Kane - CarPilot with 128Mb memory card!” That’s Double Dutch to me, but obviously makes compelling sense to today’s toy-mad consumer.
It used to be different. When I was growing up there was always a “period drama” on Sunday afternoons on the television. And my whole family watched it. Those were the days when the BBC was still the nation’s moral guardian, not-to-say role model and teacher. So in the 70s, television’s lead entertainer was an impersonator of politicians. Nowadays, with the BBC forced to appeal to the lowest common denominator, few people know who the politicians are, and many of those that do judge them on whether they look and sound nice.
The contrast with France is very telling. France has come in for a bit of a battering recently, and I find Chirac’s self-regard truly painful, but the French respect knowledge and learning. Your average Frenchman knows who Delacroix is, has listened to Berlioz and has read Balzac, even if only at school. Your average Brit hasn’t got a clue who Sibelius is, thinks Titian is a chat show host and has heard of Shakespeare only because “that tasty bird Paltrow” was in a movie about him.
We all know that it’s easier to put your feet up in front of a soap opera than to tackle a Dostoyevsky novel. Actually Dostoyevsky’s a bad example, because I’ve never managed to get beyond about chapter three in any of his books. But we all also know that appreciation of the arts and an understanding of politics and world events bring with them all the greater rewards for the effort that’s put in.
All this makes me sound like an insufferable intellectual snob. Nothing could be further from the truth. My tutor at college referred to me as “that philistine,” and I love watching sports. But there’s got to be a balance.
Unfortunately the British government wouldn’t dream of encouraging a more intellectual streak in the population. Though so ready to interfere in Iraq, it takes a completely non-interventionalist approach to its own people. It wouldn’t even consider doing something that might disturb the population’s slobbish slumber, so desperate is it for the voters’ approval. In any case we Brits have become quite absurdly cynical about anyone in authority, with the resulting belief that government should stay out of our lives.
So governments over the last 20 years have increasingly seen their roles as economic rather than social--to set the conditions in which a free market can most effectively operate. Added to that, the private sector is so devilishly good at getting us all to obsess about material possessions that we forget about learning and higher-order needs altogether.
The Romans used to placate the masses by giving them “bread and circuses,” and the British political elite, knowingly or not, are ensuring the population’s continuing contentment by allowing them hamburgers and reality TV.
Such a philosophy is fine so long as you are prepared for a nation of complete idiots. Some don’t see this as a problem. I was having a chat about this with a chum of mine in the pub a few weeks ago. He said that it didn’t matter much to him whether people were ignorant or not, whether they were trying to better themselves or not, so long as they were law-abiding citizens. The libertarian half of me agrees with him that we should leave Mr. and Mrs. Slob alone. But the “I know best” side of me despairs at the sheer waste of it all. This side of me wants the BBC to set an example--to tell people that they’ll watch Jane Austen dramas on a Sunday afternoon. Actually Jane Austen’s a bad example because I’ve…..oh, never mind.
The irony is that the political elite claims to be concerned about the depoliticisation of the population. They claimed to be shocked that more people voted in last years’ TV show “Pop Idols” than in the general election the year before. But what’s the use of moaning about people not voting when you spend the rest of the time encouraging them to have the perceptive faculties of an Iraqi Information Minister? On what basis will such people be voting? Complete ignorance.
The politicians need to get people to take an interest in the world around them, and then encourage them to vote. The cart can’t come before the horse. Otherwise an ill-informed electorate will give an ill-informed result. (Just as an aside, an electoral system suggested recently by one wag is to have a five-yearly vote on whether there should be an election. If less than 50% of the population turn up to vote, the elections don’t take place.)
First up, we need to decide
what sort of society we want. Do we want a
bread-and-circus society, in which the mass public is fed, watered,
entertained but otherwise allowed to revel in ignorance? Or do
we want a society in which people are encouraged to expand their
minds and take an interest in the world around them? The first
is better suited to hands-off government and an implicit acceptance
that the country must be governed by an intellectual elite. The
second requires active governmental intervention and a stated
desire for people in general to take a full and democratic role
in the future of the country.
But what we cannot have is a political elite bemoaning a depoliticised electorate, but doing absolutely nothing to change it.
So, as Britain sinks further into an intellectual coma--as the lights soothingly dim--I’m inclined to ask whether America might be persuaded to liberate us from our ignorance. Is the Harvard-educated George W. the man to do it? Would he put us next on the list after Syria?
Please consider it. We
won’t mind.
©2003 by Robert Taylor. The illustrations are from IMSI's
Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael,
CA, 94901-5506, USA.
|
|
|
That hairpiece in "Shakespeare in Love" fooled you, didn't it? 2. This famous person is clearly (C.) Winston Churchill. Brian London only swelled up like that right after Ali beat the crap out of him. Sure, Caine is putting on a few kilos, but not that many! 3. That's plainly a scene from "A Christmas Carol" involving that little crippled kid named Jimmy something or other. to America and get a job in the White House writing speeches for Pres. Bush. |
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Robert Taylor. To send an email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |