Returning To the Comfort TV Ages

 

Sometimes ideas for this blog come from the most unlikely places.

I’m about halfway through a book by Rémi Brague, an eminent Catholic philosopher and theologian, with the title Curing Mad Truths: Medieval Wisdom for the Modern Age. Its thesis is one that would likely seem ridiculous to most people now: there are ways in which we (the collective human “we”) were better off back in the Middle Ages than we are today.

What? Return to the days of the Bubonic Plague? Feudalism? A Billboard Hot 100 with nothing but Gregorian chant? What could be more absurd? But as Brague explains, it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition - we should be able to recognize beneficial aspects of life from a time long past, and advocate for their return, without having to also retain the things that have been rightly discarded over time.

Let’s draw a parallel here to a far more recent period in history – the one that produced the television shows discussed in this blog. 

 

They may just be decades old instead of centuries, but watching them now we can already see profound differences between how people lived then, and how we live now. And at the current accelerated rate of cultural and technological evolution in which we find ourselves, we are likely to be subjected to more such changes with each passing year. 

 

Have the changes all been positive? Or have we, like our Middle Age ancestors, sacrificed aspects of wisdom, values and beliefs in the name of progress? 

 

Surprisingly, Brague draws upon television to advance his argument, when he compares the series Sex and the City to the Manhattan Project. Where one unlocked destructive nuclear forces that resulted in the atom bomb, the other glorified unbridled promiscuity that has done immense harm to family, society, and even sexuality itself. 

 

That won’t be a perspective shared by everyone these days, but it will seem like a valid point to those of us who prefer to watch television from the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. And it reminds us once again of the impact television can have on the way we live. 

 

I’ve said before (and I’m hardly the first) that TV is better suited to reflecting our culture than shaping it. But when certain beliefs and ideas take hold, television can elucidate them to a receptive audience, particularly among the young, and reinforce them as right and proper, thus segregating those with contrary beliefs into a faction to be shunned for their unenlightened views.

 

What were the beliefs and ideas that television promoted in the Comfort TV era? If these shows are still a part of your life, it won’t take long to come up with those answers. 

 

What got the kids on sitcoms in trouble? Telling a lie; hiding a misdeed from a parent; coveting something that, if acquired; would be potentially harmful; not getting involved when someone needs help. And in how these situations were resolved, through behavioral correction tendered with love and forgiveness, viewers saw the strength and support that could be derived from a strong and supportive nuclear family unit. 

 

Cop shows and legal shows not only stressed how crime does not pay, they also showed how society could only function when those seeking to destroy it are separated from it. There was nothing controversial about police or prisons; their responsibilities could be difficult and unpleasant, but they were essential for keeping homes secure and streets safe. 

 

Medical shows upheld the sanctity of life, thus underscoring why doctors fought so valiantly to preserve it. 

 

Westerns, a dominant TV genre in the 1950s, promoted the benefits of replacing lawlessness with structure and order, and the security derived from territories joining the union and fairly electing representatives to advance the welfare of its citizens. 

 

Is our current culture, and how it is reflected in today’s scripted TV shows, sending the same messages? You tell me. 

 

I think they are still asking the same questions: What is essential? What is beneficial? What raises us up? But they are not proposing the same answers. And there are consequences to changing bedrock certainties that have endured for generations. And we are currently coping with the fallout from these upheavals. 

 

Let’s return one last time to Brague and his observations of how we’ve changed since the Middle Ages. Of course he acknowledges the real and remarkable human achievements that followed. But he also suggests that, with our ever-increasing focus on materialism, and our banishment of not just God but also any significant meaning from the universe, “We absolutely must be able to tell why the existence of human beings on this earth is a good thing.”

 

I wouldn’t look to Greta Thunberg or other climate zealots for justification. They think the planet was better off without us. But television used to have answers. It doesn’t anymore. To those who recognize this, no explanation is needed. To those who do not, no explanation will suffice.