TV Bites Back

Summary: Newsweek's online front page for May 27, 2005 featured an interesting story about a program called TV-Watch. It's a program sponsored by members of the entertainment industry to attempt to keep government out of the censorship business. Instead of governmental censorship, it promotes equipping people (especially parents) to make wise media choices.

This program promoted educating parents on how to use devices like the V-chip and strategies such as family TV watching and family discussions about what is watched. The surprise is that this program is sponsored by television network moguls. The key here is that they don't want the government sticking its nose into private business, even if that private business is broadcast on public air waves.

Putting aside my skepticism about big-business, I have to day that at first blush I agree with the tenants of this program. The principle of subsidiarity is too often ignored by the Right and the Left in American politics. Here is a group that is promoting subsidiarity and media morality. It deserves some thought. However, I do have some questions that may just challenge this program.

First of all, the people quoted in the articles seem to assume that government cannot come up with universal standards of decency. Is this because no universal standards for decency exist, or is it just because government is too inefficient to think clearly about it? I may agree with the latter statement. However, my guess is that the article is actually intimating the former. For example, here is one quote from the article:

Why should we trust government to come up with the standards? Standards for who? I can’t even agree with my wife about what we ought to watch on television. Do you really think government is going to be able to come up with a standard for all of us?

This quote seems to reflect the typical attitude of modernist and post-modernist thinkers. These are philosophers that I want to more deeply explore this summer. One of the main assumptions of these philosophies is that no universal standards exist. Standards are personal and are for the most part useless. This is one of the most difficult areas of impasse between Christian believers and "modernist" and post-modernist" thinkers. Catholics especially believe in a universal human nature, and in universal standards that can be drawn out of a careful study of human nature. Universal standards such as "decency" are possible.

However, sin and fallen human nature sometimes make it difficult to judge what those standards are. The documents written by our country's founding fathers make it clear that they expected government to have the ability to make such judgments. However, those same documents clearly show that the founding fathers disagreed about to what degree government should shoulder such a responsibility. It was also up to the people to decide on such standards through the public square and in private settings.

I have no problem putting the responsibility of judging standards of decency into the hands of parents. However, I question how effective such an approach will be without the support of either the government or (better yet) the willing support of the networks. Even with the V-chip and other technologies, even with better education, would we and our children be protected? Would young children be protected against immoral advertisements? Such advertisements come on even during "family-friendly" programming. Would parents be able to know when a certain episode of an otherwise "safe" program may contain offensive material? How would a V-chip or a ratings system have protected young eyes from Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl? No one watching the Super Bowl expected to be subjected to an act - accidental or purposeful - of exhibitionism.

If the answers to these questions would be "no" then this solution is insufficient. When networks are driven to "push the envelope" because of the erroneous yet viral belief that "sex sells," the ability of families to protect themselves from indecency, violence, and harmful attitudes is seriously handicapped. Exploring options such as better parental training and technology such as the V-chip should be the first step. However, as much as I would like to keep government out of it, it is the duty of government to protect our families when private measures are weakened by greedy and unscrupulous media producers.

In the love of Christ,

Brother Thomas