Television presents
a serious dilemma. Not to watch it is to condemn oneself to social isolation,
severed from popular culture and from the heroes and idols of the crowd.
To watch it is to give up the life of the mind and to join in the collective
degradation.
Ever since the birth of Sam, therefore, we have periodically debated
whether or not we ought to acquire a telly, perhaps to be kept in a
corner of the library with a cloth over it, or to be turned to the wall
and secured with a padlock. Always, however, we have resisted the idea,
knowing that if our farm is an island of peace and stability this is
because everything that happens here (apart from accidents and disasters)
is our doing. Nothing human intrudes on us without our wanting it, and
the world's madness can be ignored if we choose. Why give up what you
do value, simply to be in touch with what you don't?
But what about our children? They, at least, should be versed in the
surrounding culture: such is the orthodox view, and when psychologists,
educationists, politicians, and gurus all concur in an opinion, who
are we to resist it, just because it is false?
Fortunately our three-year-old son has solved the problem for us, and
also helped us to overcome the enormous cultural gap that separates
us from our neighbours. Sam, who spends much of his time in other people's
houses, has introduced us to television, not as a fact but as a game.
Instead of demanding that we acquire a telly-screen, he pretends that
we already have one. It is located in the cast iron facade of the wood-burner,
and its invisible knobs are attached to the panel above. Making use
of the remote control from the CD player, Sam is able to summon his
favourite images on to this screen, and also to introduce us to the
culture of watching.
The first pre-requisite of this culture is background noise. Sam tends
to select "The Last Clarinet," not because he follows the
story but because Paul Englishby's felicitous music has an episodic
character suitable to the little screen. Once the music is playing,
Sam summons his parents to sit down. At our first attempt to play telly,
we sat upright on the sofa, as we do when reading, causing him to howl
with dismay. 'That's not how you sit for telly,' he cried. 'You've got
to lie down.' He demonstrated the TV slouch, as he has observed it in
his sociological field-work, and commanded us to copy it. After a few
attempts we got the hang of it, and were able to maintain the posture
for several minutes, while staring at the wood-burner from vague and
cloudy eyes.
'You need some food,' Sam went on, after judging our postures to be
satisfactory. 'Maybe some biscuits or a banana.' Returning from the
kitchen with provisions, he thrust them into our hands and commanded
us to watch as he fiddled with imaginary knobs and uttered electrical
fizzes and crackles.
Finally everything was ready for the great event, and, backing away
slowly to his own chair, Sam settled in the required posture, pointed
the remote control at the burner, and pressed one of the buttons. 'See
there's a big digger,' he announced, 'and its coming down the road.
Only the 'ment mixer's in the way. And they're going to have telly-tubby-toast,
they're singing...'
After a minute or so of this, he handed me the remote control, suggesting
that I select a programme. I pressed the button and continued the story
of Henry and the benign water-dragon, at the point where we had left
off. There on the screen is the dragon's pond, with the willows trailing
their leaves in the water and the frogs gently croaking. Henry is coming
up the hill to ask the dragon's help in his next adventure. You can
see some of the horses, and the sheep that's stuck in the bush under
the oak tree. Gradually I settle in to the narrative, while Sam gets
up from time to time to adjust the brightness or turn down the noise.
This game is now a regular occurrence at Sunday Hill Farm, each of us
taking it in turns to supply the story that will bring the burner to
life. Everything that one hates about the telly — the sensationalism
and vulgarity, the shapes, colours, sentiments and manners, the invitation
to give up thinking, feeling, doing, or imagining and to become a passive
moron instead — all this has been eliminated from our cast-iron
screen. Our telly is the distillation of our own imaginative powers.
It is not something that happens to us but another thing that we do.
As far as Sam is concerned it also has a great advantage over the story-book,
which is that it makes us adopt the helpless posture that he has seen
and admired in neighbouring living rooms, and which neutralizes our
claim to be in charge of things. In front of the telly we are all children
together, and his programmes enjoy equal status with ours.
Of course, there will come a time when Sam will clamour for a real telly.
Until that day, however, we shall use the pretend telly to develop his
imagination, hoping that he will acquire the most important of all creative
powers, which is the ability to live with a telly without ever turning
it on.
Roger
Brinkworth, near Malmesbury, England
____________________________________________
