"You know nothing of the Visgoths!"

Welcome again to blog land with a more substantial actual blog.

After a passing reference next post, more West Wing. Last week, I watched an interview with Aaron Sorkin in which he was asked about creating the show and he said that parts of it were largely wish fulfilment. This isn't because Bartlet is the dream president especially when the reality was Bush Jr- though I am sure it was part of it. Sorkin's point was that the show presented a world where people were comfortable with a heightened level of public debate and where intelligence was something to be esteemed not derided. The West Wing was one of those rare TV beasts which refused to treat its audience like idiots but like most programs of this ilk in many parts of the world it was not treated well by programmers. In Australia it was shown at a crawling pace for the first four seasons at 10.30pm opposite other programs that would at other times pull similar (if not the same) audience members before being abandoned and being lost in the wilderness for YEARS. The Australian fan had to buy DVDs or wait until several years later when the show was bought by another station to see its conclusion. This was same problem faced by many a program for the discerning Australian TV viewer who didn't have pay TV and I'm sure it a problem the world over, and that is just for the shows that actually make it to air at all or just for a season (Sorkin's Studio 60 which should have been attractive viewing to all West Wing fan lasted only a season and is still yet to be shown on Australian TV despite being available on DVD- if you get the chance grab a copy it's great). So the question I ask is, why are we so uncomfortable with Aaron Sorkin's wish fulfilment? Do we not want to be faced with an intelligent world which embraces public debate?

I can't offer a proper answer to this problem but it is definitely worth thinking about. In the most developed "societies" in the world, we are content to send large chunks of our lives turning our brains to mush on a constant diet of instant gratification, junk food, reality television, bland pop music, Stephenie Meyer novels, internet "friendships", blockbuster movies and bad sitcoms. I do not claim to be innocent on many these counts what with having a soft spot with some of the most appalling reality TV and I spend a lot of my time networking 'socially' through various parts of the web- the appeal of Two and a Half Men is completely lost on me but I do like me a bit of The Amazing Race. This isn't it though. I think that the constant brain drain of modern society is in many ways a symptom rather than the root cause. The problem lies with how we think about the world.

People nowadays are content to live in boxes. We may have the shortest attention spans in history but we also have the smallest comfort zones and the littlest desire to step outside them. We have little knowledge of the world outside our box and we are happy with that. A few years ago, a study in the States showed that most college students couldn't locate Iraq on a map. People, not in the States, found that hilarious but the questions remains could they find it? Personally I doubt the average individual in any part of the world aside from the Middle East would be able to locate Iraq on a map. We do not strive to understand the world around us. We do not question things. We do not explore things. We are often a people either without strong ideas or with half formed ideas. How can we strive to have a heighten level of public debate when we don't understand our own views let alone the views of others?

So that is my challenge to the world that failed to embrace the dream of The West Wing. Seek to understand all aspects of the views you profess and those you disagree with and always being willing to engage in rigorous informed debate with those you disagree with. Do not let reality TV suck you into believing that the stupid and loud should be your focus but remember that the human race has also bought us Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Abraham Lincoln, JFK....and of course The West Wing. We are made in God's image- let's not waste that image on endless reruns of Two and a Half Men.