Are Your Thoughts Your Own?

[Nachtengel]

by John Young

"The theater's a form of hypnosis. So are movies and TV. When you enter a movie theater you know that all you're going to see is 24 shadows per second flashed on a screen to give an illusion of moving people and objects. Yet despite this knowledge you laugh when the 24 shadows per second tell jokes and cry when the shadows show actors faking death. You know they are an illusion yet you enter the illusion and become a part of it and while the illusion is taking place you are not aware that it is an illusion. This is hypnosis. It is trance. It's also a form of temporary insanity. But it's also a powerful force for cultural reinforcement and for this reason the culture promotes movies and censors them for its own benefit." -- Max Pirsig

Welcome to Western Voices. I'm John Young with European Americans United.

I have never watched much television. Even as a child I saw little TV and, in retrospect, I am glad for my father's strict rules regarding what he called "the idiot box." As an adult, I see even less. Primarily, I have always thought of television as a waste of time that draws people into a fantasy world and separates them from real life. The time of our lives is finite, so every minute spent doing one thing is a minute we can't spend somewhere else. That time can't be spent on increasing our skills, bettering our health, building real-world bonds with real-world people, or improving our world.

I won't deny that entertainment, in and of itself, can have a certain value. But when television becomes such a central aspect of our lives that it not only consumes over 30 hours per week of the average man's time; but it also occupies a central physical location in our homes as though our lives are arranged around it, it has transcended entertainment to become nearly an object of religious devotion. The TV is the family altar. After all, there are more televisions in this country than people. One in four children under the age of two years has a TV in his or her bedroom. That's right -- 25% of toddlers under age TWO have a TV in the bedroom. That's in spite of the fact that the American Council for Pediatrics recommends that children under age 6 see no television whatsoever.

And there is a reason for that recommendation. Television poses danger to both body and mind.

Continued: http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=8254

Audio: http://www.westernvoices.com/audio/j...g/hypnosis.mp3

[Huginn ok Muninn]

Television itself is a neutral, it's who controls what you see that is bad. It's a very dangerous tool, however, and I agree completely that children under 6 should not watch it at all. The thoughts of young children should be off limits to outside interference.. the foundations of their minds should reflect the family they come from.

[Erlkönig]

It would have been beneficial if this guy pointed out the connection with watching tv, and inducing alpha brainwave activity, which is also stimulated by relaxation and meditation, this explains why people find it easy to endlessly watch TV, when in alpha brainwave mode a person is also more suggestible. As opposed to beta brainwaves, which are associated with active logical thought and concentration.

[Méldmir]

What are really our "own thoughts"? We were born without them, and we received many thought concepts from our parents, and also ALOT from society. That's why many kids grow up to be multiculturalists. Nowadays, I just observe society as it is, and thoughts spring to mind that reflect what I see.