All My Babies’ Mamas - Has reality TV gone too far?

[JimJericho]

As far as I am concerned TV went too far several years ago. When shows like Jerry Springer began having high ratings I knew the country had hit a new low in it's moral make-up. Now it seems we are descending even more rapidly than ever. Because of the moral condition of society people are eager to consume anything that comes along without any thought about what it's doing to their spirit. And all TV executives appear to be concerned about is how much money they can earn. It doesn't matter to them that the shows are slop. We live in very wicked times.

[blacksinow]

I have to be honest, when I had heard about this show I had thought "Wait, did Maury Povich make a reality television?"

[DeadManReedeemed]

TV has lost its mind.

[ChickenSoup]

As far as I am concerned TV went too far several years ago. When shows like Jerry Springer began having high ratings I knew the country had hit a new low in it's moral make-up. Now it seems we are descending even more rapidly than ever. Because of the moral condition of society people are eager to consume anything that comes along without any thought about what it's doing to their spirit. And all TV executives appear to be concerned about is how much money they can earn. It doesn't matter to them that the shows are slop. We live in very wicked times.

People were bad in the "good old days" too, you know. I mean to be encouraging, but I also get uncomfortable with people thinking that people only recently began to lose a moral compass.

[Chozon1]

It's not that recently people have lost their moral compass, it's that recently it has become culturally acceptable and popularly watched television.

Poo has always happened. Poo has not always been spread around for everyone to consume and enjoy and make lots of money.

[ChickenSoup]

Yes, yes it has.

[Chozon1]

Yes, yes it has.

On this scale, with this much acceptance (and I don't mean wink/nod "It happens" but "Hey, I love this show and you should watch it too), and this much apathy towards evil? That as a culture, not simple a region or village or town or gender or class, but as a culture it was accepted and consumed?

Not to be a jerk, but I believe you to be wrong in this...People have always sinned, accepted it, gossiped about it and enjoyed it. But it's logically impossible that it has been consumed, enjoyed, or witnessed on this scale before, simply because the transmission and reception methods have not existed until now. In times gone by, people were murdered, raped, hired prostitutes and stole. But in no time until now did these things happen for everyone and their grandma to see, in reality or pretend, in the newspapers, TV, books, music, and internet which are freely available to all and constantly on and running.

As tired as you get of the "it was never this bad before" arguments...I think I get equally grumped at the "no, you're just being blind to history" argument. History has very little to do with it.

No offense, and I truly apologize if the tone of this post is anything but neutral.

[delve]

Just because it has an international stage doesn't make it new.

200 years ago you'd have been clucking your tongue at the goings-on across the village. Just because rumor was the TV of the day doesn't make it any less degrading. Humans have not suddenly become any more prone to sanctimony than they've ever been.

The trouble I see with TV/YouTube is that children can consume it easier. Rumor at least has the benefit of trickling to children less. This is concerning, certainly, but in part it's concerning because our children today have the time to consume media. In the past they were worked as much, or nearly, as adults. I consider it to still be net benefit. History has, in fact, quite a lot to do with it. You cannot measure progression or change of any kind without considering history.

[ChickenSoup]

Yes, yes it has.

On this scale, with this much acceptance (and I don't mean wink/nod "It happens" but "Hey, I love this show and you should watch it too), and this much apathy towards evil? That as a culture, not simple a region or village or town or gender or class, but as a culture it was accepted and consumed?

Not to be a jerk, but I believe you to be wrong in this...People have always sinned, accepted it, gossiped about it and enjoyed it. But it's logically impossible that it has been consumed, enjoyed, or witnessed on this scale before, simply because the transmission and reception methods have not existed until now. In times gone by, people were murdered, raped, hired prostitutes and stole. But in no time until now did these things happen for everyone and their grandma to see, in reality or pretend, in the newspapers, TV, books, music, and internet which are freely available to all and constantly on and running.

As tired as you get of the "it was never this bad before" arguments...I think I get equally grumped at the "no, you're just being blind to history" argument. History has very little to do with it.

No offense, and I truly apologize if the tone of this post is anything but neutral.

The Romans had live, uncensored, horrifying violence in the form of the Colosseum (included the ever-popular gladiatorial games), infanticide was common, the divirce rate rivaled America's, Nero was said to have used burning Christians as torchlight... the Greeks had rooms in their houses were wives were generally not allowed to go--why? so the husband's could have their man friends over and have le bisexual relations. The whole concept of Greek history and its study requires an accptance of the fact that dudes were doingthings with dudes and ladies all the time.


Yes, Chozon, it is logically possible to assume thatwe are not on a downward spiral. You only have an increased awareness of the goings-on of the world in this day and age. No, the world of yesteryear had no TV, but it had plays and such related things, and they could get pretty racy.



Did you know that Loki, the Norse god of chaos, was raped by a stallion and birthed an eitht-legged horse that would become Odin's steed?

Look, the world is full of yuck. It always has been. Heck, there's literally never been a period of human civilization without porn. Also, we honestly live in pretty enlightened times. We have shows about pregnant teens in our country, but we also learned that Indians have souls (no seriously, this was a subject of debate for way too long), slavery is horrible, and women should be allowed to vote and own property because they're people too.

At worst, it's a lateral shift. We just know what goes on EVERYWHERE now and are reminded that the world is a scary place. People of the past had the blessing/curse of blissful ignorance of the world outside of their immediate surroundings.

[ChickenSoup]

Also it is way too late at night for me to care to correct my touchscreen-induced typos

[Chozon1]

Soup...the US alone, disregarding the entirety of Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the rest of the world, is roughly three times the size of the Roman empire, and has about 6 times the population. Of that population, I'd wager most have access to TV and internet, and and even larger percentage radio and other random media outlets. We have a population of the world reveling in the same stuff they did then, but on a larger scale. Believing the world has only shifted laterally disregards the body count of the modern world compared to the old one.

Two, though the violence in the coliseum was real and thus worse, you'll find equal graphical content on CSI or Showtime most any time. Worse, even. Argue this if you want, they didn't have chainsaws in Rome. And this too, is consumed by men, women, and children in equal measure.

Three, consider that knowing Indians have souls is sort of a null point ( I agree it was debated way longer than it should have been), since in the societies you're talking about, that wasn't even a concern. It appeared hundreds of years later with the rise of Western civilization or something. Nor women voting or owning property, since I believe in Rome they were allowed to do both (I'm fairly positive on owning property, but I wouldn't place money on voting).

Soup, my entire point here is that it's mostly kids who believe the world hasn't gotten worse, and old peoples (who have lived thrice or so our life span) who believe the world has gotten worse.

The few grumpers aside, that should tell you something. They've got experience you don't and I don't. So I don't appreciate getting /debated over it.

[ArchAngel]

You know, you can't say you don't appreciate getting debated on this when you wholeheartedly participate in this said debate.

Also, people do not hold objective stances of their own personal experience, nor is their personal experience characteristic of the various settings of the time. That's one reason why personal experience is almost always inadmissible: it's fraught with confirmation bias and non-random sampling.

[delve]

Soup, my entire point here is that it's mostly kids who believe the world hasn't gotten worse, and old peoples (who have lived thrice or so our life span) who believe the world has gotten worse.

By the way, I appreciate this. I haven't been called a kid since I grew out a goatee and discovered my facial hair is graying

[ChickenSoup]

Soup, my entire point here is that it's mostly kids who believe the world hasn't gotten worse, and old peoples (who have lived thrice or so our life span) who believe the world has gotten worse.

You seemed to communicate that the point was that never before has society has such universal acceptance of immorality, and my point was that such a viewpoint is naive and useless

[Chozon1]

Soup, I can't do this with you. Continuing this conversation would make me want to run my face into the floor repeatedly.