The 'idiot box' and the thrill of serious discussion

My recent interest in the physics of time has led me to the time-machine of our time - YouTube. 

Specifically, I've taken to watching on YouTube old broadcasts of Firing Line, the show hosted by William F. Buckley Jr. that aired on PBS from the mid-1960s until 1999. I'm sort of addicted to it. The reasons for this are many, but primarily, because it's refreshing to hear articulate thoughtful people discussing a prescient and (sometimes) contentious matter on television. Buckley's roster of varied guests included great writers, artists, scholars, activists and politicians. And the discussion was always penetrating not superficial. Initially I was drawn to it because I wanted to see how the time we live in was reflected by the politics of earlier decades. How, for example, the BLM movement of today had its roots in the civil rights movement of the sixties, or how Watergate led to the Trump presidency. My continued interest went beyond simple nostalgia, the more I watched the more I appreciated the fact that the television was not in fact the proverbial 'idiot box' that my parents said it was back when I was an adolescent. A lot of it was thoughtful, instructive and even inspiring. The 'idiot box' is what television has become in the intervening years. A result of the competition for viewers in the 1000 channel universe and the internet. It has reduced much of what is seen on television to garbage like Big Brother, The Bachelor, and the Real Housewives of Malibu. For those like me interested in current events and analysis, news programming is filled with 'Breaking News' every 15 minutes and nightly punditry with indignant hysterical hosts and aggrieved politicians trying to score political points with their audiences. Yes, there is Discovery, History and the National Geographic channel, but who has the patience to wade through the abundant weeds? I don't need the drama or the fake outrage to get my kicks, just give me the thrill of serious discussion.   

Buckley always treated his guests respectfully. His sharp mind and incisive style demanded that his guests be their most thoughtful and articulate, whether they were Muhammed Ali or controversial Nobel prize laureate William Shockley who was on his show attempting to promote a racist philosophy and public policy he called 'dysgenics'.   

It's been most interesting for me to watch Buckley's interviews with the famous and the infamous, including Mark Feld, who would decades later be revealed as the informant 'Deep Throat' during Watergate, together with disgraced lawyer (and donald trump mentor) Roy Cohn discussing 'Subversion and the Law'. In another program from the late 70s Buckley's guest was G. Gordon Liddy (who died last week) and they talked about whether he had any regrets about not ratting out Nixon. On another show from the late 60s Buckley talked with activist Ed Sanders, scholar Lewis Yablonsky and author Jack Kerouac about 'The Hippies'. Kerouac is clearly inebriated during his appearance, making bizarre unpredictable outbursts which Buckley never fails to handle with grace. One show from the early 70s featured arguably the most influential psychologist of the last 50 years behaviorist BF Skinner and his colleague Leon Festinger, famous for developing the theory of cognitive dissonance, arguing about whether people genuinely have free will. Another intriguing show featured a very young Alan Dershowitz together with hardcore porn film star Harry Reems who at the time was defending himself against conspiracy to traffic obscenity across state lines charges related to his film Deep Throat. Of course, shows like these have increased interest seen though the prism of the present and with the benefit of hindsight. 

Buckley also delighted in conversations about culture. For instance, he spoke to the author Tom Wolfe about his books Radical Chic and The Painted Word, both of which spawned quite a bit of controversy in the art world at the time of their publications. But less controversial, two of my favourite shows were about music, one in which Buckley talks to JS Bach scholar and master harpsichordist Rosalyn Tureck (it turns out that Buckley himself was an accomplished harpsichord player) and another with Jazz pianists Billy Taylor and Dick Wellstood about why Jazz music is being neglected.

One of my favourite shows from the mid 70's had Buckley talking to the novelist Anthony Burgess. Burgess wrote my favourite novel as a high-schooler, A Clockwork Orange. On the show Buckley and Burgess discuss the ignorance of the youth of today, because Burgess, who is British, had been teaching in New York and had recently published an article in which he expresses his feeling that his students were self-centered and deficient in basic skills and knowledge. Burgess argued that young people were too focused on the latest trends, and bemoaned their lack of interest in history and literature, as well as their poor writing and language skills. Burgess's manner of speaking during the interview is utterly charming. He is haltingly careful, seemingly unsure, and frequently prefaces his opinions with 'I may be wrong about this'. He always seems to be testing out his ideas as he is expressing them. At one point he talks about the arrogance of American youth culture, saying that there was a time when young people were really just adults-in-waiting, and that's how they were treated by their elders (he doesn't mean this in a bad way). For their part, children couldn't wait to grow up to become full participants in adult life. These days, Burgess says, the opposite is true. In the rebellion of young people, the counter-culture and rejection of their parents' generation, there is a sort of cult of youth - remember he is talking about the mid-seventies. There is a romanticizing of youth. Of course, nowadays youth culture has completely overtaken popular culture and commercial enterprise. Adults have become infantilized in their effort to 're-capture' their youth, or to stay young. From the clothes they wear to Botox, our culture is obsessed with staying young. It feels like that obsession has also given us to feel entitled, indulged, and whiny. If the pandemic has taught us anything, I hope it's that the neglect of our elders is our current greatest shame, and that a return to thoughtful, respectful discussion (not to mention decency) in our public discourse, would be welcome.