“In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest
where no-one sees you, but
sometimes I do, and
that sight becomes this art.”
― Rumi

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Prime time Alien TV - the human freaks

I wish at times that there was a super human race. A race not as predatory and arrogant as humans are, but with a similar curiosity to explore the 'lesser' species. While I am at it, I would also wish for a David Attenborough or a Jane Goodall to make programmes on nature where they observe human behaviour at work and play.
Only this would give us the insight that we need to understand how we behave as a species, wth all the failings that we so easily attribute to 'lesser animals'.
Is reality TV an answer then? How about Big Brother?
Definitely not, it would hardly be a sincere attempt at depicting human behaviour either on the part of the participants or the programme designers.
Humans are blessed with social awareness which helps us to modify behaviour according to our surroundings - not just the physical, but also the emotional and psychological. This means that the presence (or awareness) of others results in involuntary modification of innate behaviour which thwarts any attempt at studying human behaviour in its purest form.
Another benefit of having a different species study humans would be that it is more likely to be non-judgemental. This is where reality TV would fall woefully short of the ideal. The whole point of reality TV is that we judge the people on the screen, thereby improving our own feeling of self worth. This is why reality TV sells better if it has a group of people who are at best dysthymic and at worst outright bizzare or sociopathic. Why do we not have reality TV programmes on checkout counters in supermarkets, molecular biology labs or libraries?
Well, the simple answer being that it is too real, 'really real' people living normal real working lives. Nothing to feel superior about, in fact, viewers may feel inadequate or depressed if they see happy successful human beings!
A super human species would also be able to delve deeper into the extremes without worrying about 'consequences' of such programme making.
When David Attenborough films a lion making a killing in the wild, for all the blood and gore, for all the detailed depiction of death accompanied by a lucid narration, we hardly bat an eyelid. We encourage children to watch and learn about wild life, not turn the other way.
Why not have a reality TV on soldiers - actually killing 'the other side'? How about a programme that follows someone intent on murder...to its completion? It does not have to be gory, maybe someone plotting to poison a lover. It does not have to involve a dead human, even someone inflicting psychological pressure, financial pressure - all behaviour we know humans are capable of, but never asked to face upto.
Does this make me a psychopath? To think about these things?
I think we need a wake up call. The extremes of behaviour humans are capable of has been glossed over by the media, any attempt to show real suffering is met with resistance.
Bob Geldof (I think) once described how the relief workers in africa are faced with the soul destroying task of selecting people. From a whole field of hungry humans, to pick and choose those who will be fed that day, knowing fully well that the unlucky ones will NOT be waiting their turn the next day. How about a live telecast of this?
When we are sitting down to a meal in front of the TV (the dining room? what's that?) we do not wish to be reminded of our moral standing as a species.
All around the world there is unrest and unhappiness, yet even more prominently there are daily justifications for human behaviour. Those who have bigger, more convincing explanatory notes get away with more.
The whole world is polarised now, more acutely than in the dark ages. The only reason human beings may really unite would be if there really was a super human race... not one interested in making real life programmes... but a predatory one with an appetite for humans, irrespective of race or social status.

3 comments:

murali said...

what about the predatory germs that you study about?

Anonymous said...

ur thoughts are absolutely right( not 'cause I may be a psychopath too ?) even though my excellent IQ failed to catch up to all of ur thoughts.Shall make u explain later. But meanwhile, 'Dangerous Boys' in Asianet Plus may interest u. It shows that ur thoughts were overtaken by somebody else.
But again an observation: didn't u want the superhumans to be less predatory than human beings when u started off? In the end they seemed quite savageous.

Anonymous said...

but let me tell u nevertheless that I fell infuriated when I see that 'DANGEROUS BOYS"
May be the lesser animals are feeling the same indignation, of which we foolish&vain human beings may just be ignorant!Possible?