What is Television?

[Qish]

this is from a book im reading called The Foods of the Gods by Terence McKenna.



I typed this up my self, so there might be some typos i missed, sorry about that.











"Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of
content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it
inevitably a tool of coercion, brainwashing, and manipulation.
Television induces a trance state in the viewer that is the necasary
precondition for brainwashing. As with all other drugs and
technologies, Television's basic character cannot be changed;
television is no more reformable than is the technology that produces
automatic assault rifles.



Television came along at precisely the right time from the point of
view of the dominator elite. The nearly one hundred and fifty years of
synthetic drug epidemics that began in 1806 had led to disgust at the
spectacle of human degradation and spiritual cannabism that
institutional marketing of drugs created. In the same way that slavery
eventually, when no longer convenient, became odious in the eyes of the
very institutions that had created it, the abuse of drugs eventually
triggered a backlash against this particular form of piratical
capitalism. Hard drugs were made illegal. Of course underground markets
then flourished. But drugs as stated instruments of national policy had
been discredited. there would continue to be opium wars, instances of
governments coercing other governments and peoples to produce or buy
drugs-but in the future these wars would be dirty and secret, they
would be "Covert."



As the intelligence agencies that arose in the wake of world war 2
moved to take up their "Deep cover" positions as the masterminds of the
international narcotics cartels, the popular mind was turning on the
television. Flattening, editing, and simplifying, television did its
job and created a postwar American culture of the ken-and-barbie
variety. The children of Ken and Barbie briefly broke out of the
television intoxication in the mid-sixties through the use of
hallucinogens. "oops," responded the dominators, and they quickly made
psychedelics illegal and halted all research. A double dose of TV
therapy plus cocaine was ordered up for the errant hippies, and they
where quickly cured and turned into consumption-oriented yuppies. Only
a recalcitrant few escaped this leveling of values. Nearly everyone
learned to love Big Brother. And these few who dont are still clucked
over by the dominator culture each time it compulsively scratches in
the barnyard of dust of its puzzlement over "What happend..."











Im not saying i agree with all this, but it doesnt take a brilliant mind to see the wisdom and logic involved in this writing.



It also presents an interesting question, "What is television" which
presents many more subquestions, like was it invented for manipulation,
was it designed by any one mastermind for any given purpose...ect



I dont believe tv to be created by evil, but i do see it as doing the work of a truly disgusting force.



parents these days dont even know there is a life outside of tv, the
roles that are presented, their kids...they feel that if they arent
living a life off of mtv's "The Real World" that they arent living a life.



99% of tv is simply made to brainwash people into buying garbage people dont need or really want.



People here in america (and maybe the rest of the world) are completely lost, alone, and feel unloved i think.



America doesnt have brotherhood, we have greed and ego. We have people that only know what they absorb, they create nothing.



We spend billions of dollars on bombing people, When money should be
spent on philosophers like Jiddu Krishnamurti, who i believe, if he had
been given more attention could have brought on world peace.



And the very worst part of it all is that the first step to making change, is caring...and no body cares.



When i meet people in person, i try to get personal with them. I ask
them if they feel loved, if theyre alone, what they fear. People decide
that theyll be happy if they can be normal, and they base normality on
tv, they feel alone if they cant be something other than them self. It
really isnt hard to talk to people. When youre alone, youll convince
your self of things, whether it be tv or trends or politics or drugs,
anything to cure your self...whether you are just throwing a rug over
the mess or actually cleaning it up, people will take what they can
get. its at this point manipulation comes into play.



and were all susceptible to it.

Edited by: Qish

[phenethylamine]

television rules the nation
-daft punk

[uqlfy]

Television is no more inherently evil than a newspaper. It is the ends to which it is used. Same for drugs and sex.

Its funny how in my line of work when I call someone for
business and they go into this tirade about they dont like being
solicited in their home during dinner, yet I hear the TV in the
backround.

[Qish]

Yeah, i dont think anything should be forced upon anyone, people should
just be smart enough to do the right thing (like what drugs to do, who
to have sex with, what crimes to comit, what countries NOT to bomb,
what food to eat, what tv to watch)



sadly people arent smart enough to do the right thing,



although i think all these wars, war on drugs, war on crime, war on
poverty ect ect, could all be solved with a war on bad-parenting.