Smashing Telly
It was Neil Postman ("a civilized man in a century of barbarism") who said that we were amusing ourselves to death. Graham Greene warned artists about "the pram in the hall", but Postman warned society abut "the box in the corner". Smash it, he urged, before it's too late.
Smashing Telly sounds like the realization of Postman's dream, but when you discover that it is another idea from the forge of the talented David Galbraith, well, you know it's not going to be that simple. In fact, in David's words, "Smashing Telly is a hand edited collection of the best free, instantly available TV on the web. Not 30 second clips of a dog on a skateboard, or the millionth person to mime the Numa song, but full length programs, with a focus on documentaries and factual programs. Smashing Television, not Gimmick Television."
Maybe, but TV has let us down too often in the past. In his tribute to Neil Postman, Jay Rosen wrote: "Television, he always said, is inhuman to children because it gives them answers to questions they never asked. It did this for purposes of control. Educational television — Sesame Street — was not the alternative; it was the worst offender. This view denied a lot of people, including educated liberals, comfort. To him that was education." Think about that before turning on the telly.
