Editorial November 1, 1975 Issue

Television and Us

Geoffrey J. Barratt

In some nations there are nearly the same number of television sets as there are houses. Television inevitably has a strong cultural influence. The concepts conveyed through the combination of hearing and seeing can be potent. Advertisers, spending enormous sums of money, apparently accept that this is so.

The forcefulness of this medium can't help but be of interest and concern to us. The Christian Scientist, growing in his apprehension of the primacy of thought in determining the way people feel and act, necessarily has a concern for those things that influence thinking. Therefore we should be awake to both the pros and the cons of the electronic media.

Mary Baker Eddy was alert and concerned enough to thoughtfully analyze the literature of her pretelevision era and to give her conclusions space in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. After referring to the speculative theories, nauseous fiction, and shallow dogmas of some education she adds: "Novels, remarkable only for their exaggerated pictures, impossible ideals, and specimens of depravity, fill our young readers with wrong tastes and sentiments. Literary commercialism is lowering the intellectual standard to accommodate the purse and to meet a frivolous demand for amusement instead of for improvement. Incorrect views lower the standard of truth."^{ Science and Health, p. 195;}