| The psychologist was staying in a hotel in the suburbs. | | | | by the word?" |
| Sam called him up and made an appointment. When | | | | "I think so," Sam replied, "But I'm not very clear about it. I |
| Sam arrived at the hotel, the psychologist was sitting in | | | | do agree that it's sometimes hard for me to |
| the lobby chatting with an old lady. In five minutes, he | | | | differentiate between the real and imagined." |
| got free and came towards Sam. He shook hands | | | | "I have done a lot of research on this and have spent |
| with him and asked him the purpose of his visit. Sam | | | | almost all my life learning about it. I think it is a very |
| gave him a brief account of what he had been going | | | | important subject. I'll give you some facts. Did you |
| through lately and also commented on the article that | | | | know in America, children and adolescents spend 22 |
| the psychologist had written and how it made him feel. | | | | to 28 hours per week viewing television, more than |
| "Your problem may not be directly due to the effects | | | | any other activity except sleeping? That means that |
| of television, as I mentioned in that article, but it is surely | | | | by the age of 70 they will have spent 7 to 10 years of |
| related. Television is definitely a cause but it is not the | | | | their lives watching TV. On average people watch 5-6 |
| only cause. It is the conditioning effect of the | | | | hours of TV every day. This figure is only an average; |
| environment, which includes television, amongst other | | | | many people, especially children, watch far more than |
| things. However, television may be and usually is the | | | | this. This not only programs their minds from an early |
| most powerful and potent medium of conditioning. It is | | | | age, but may also damage their brains, causing them |
| when one becomes slightly aware of it and sees the | | | | to grow up and behave more like an animal than a |
| actual truth of it, and not as an idea or theory, that one | | | | human, thus driven by basic desires such as sex, |
| becomes afraid and fearful. It affects the personality in | | | | violence and food." |
| many ways causing depression, anxiety and a sense | | | | "That's astonishing. But not all people watch TV. Would |
| of dissociation." | | | | you say that even the people who don't watch much |
| "I don't quite understand what you mean," Sam replied. | | | | TV are prone to some kind of passive effects through |
| "Do you mean that we are conditioned, as in | | | | others who do watch a lot of TV?" |
| programmed, and we are not what we think we are | | | | "Yes, I would say that. It is infectious. After all, it's |
| but are what various sources have molded us into, | | | | collective subconscious, not just an individual |
| including television, which you say is the most potent | | | | consciousness. What affects others affects you too. |
| and powerful amongst these mind manipulators?" | | | | More than any other single effect, television places |
| "Yes, that's what I'm saying, partly. Most of us like to | | | | images in our brains." |
| think that our own minds and thought processes are | | | | "Yes, I remember having some dreams which I couldn't |
| impenetrable. We like to think that other people can be | | | | quite place. Then I recalled that the images I saw in my |
| manipulated, but we cannot. We believe that our | | | | dreams were a part of some TV show I had seen a |
| opinions, values, ideas and beliefs are totally | | | | couple of years ago." |
| autonomous. One of the principal tools in the mind | | | | "I think that psychologically, we are still at a very |
| manipulation arsenal is television, the cultural arm of the | | | | primitive stage. We have not yet learned to distinguish |
| established industrial order. Television, the drug of the | | | | in our minds between natural images and those which |
| world, maintains, stabilizes and reinforces ideas, | | | | are artificially created and implanted. That is why I said |
| attitudes and behaviors through its programming and | | | | our education should teach us that the word, the |
| advertising." | | | | image, the idea is not the real, is never the actual." |
| "But don't we learn from our environment, doesn't | | | | "Yes," said Sam, "I think I'm beginning to see your point." |
| watching television educate us, inform us too?" | | | | "TV has everything to program your mind. You know |
| "It is important to differentiate between education and | | | | what that means? It means you are conditioned, |
| conditioning. Does TV educate or does it condition us? | | | | programmed by outside sources, like a computer is |
| Education is when you are involved, critically examining | | | | programmed. That means that the brain becomes like |
| everything and seeing the facts of them and not just | | | | a machine, accepting, recording and working within the |
| receiving and accepting blindly. You may think that TV | | | | program, never free and never original. Therefore, TV |
| does no harm because you know it's not real, but did | | | | can be and usually is used to program you into |
| you know that your subconscious believes it to be | | | | behaving, reacting, responding as per the program. It |
| real? Do you know that they don't teach us one very | | | | may seem fantastic when you hear this but it's the |
| important thing in schools, which is: the word is not the | | | | truth." |
| actual. The description, the image, the word, the symbol | | | | "But it's hard to believe. It still seems to me like fiction, |
| is not the actual. We are not taught that and our brains | | | | like in that movie, Matrix." |
| are not able to differentiate between them. That's why | | | | The above extract has been taken the short |
| we think that the word is the thing. How many of us | | | | story,"Television and Conditioning", featured in the book |
| think that the word 'love' is love? Aren't we conditioned | | | | - To Think or Not to Think and Other Stories. |