TV Questions

Questions about television as it celebrates its 50th birthday (PBS programs excepted):

Has TV improved manners? Increased respect for law, authority, wisdom, our traditions?

Has it made better citizens or a better life? Supported education? Fostered good speech and language? Has TV any motive aside from profit?

Does health require such vast exhortation on body culture (with no detail of the toilet, concupiscence or privacy omitted)? Has TV considered the physical stagnation it invites as a cause of deterioration and ill health?

Is the innocence of children proof against its indiscriminate “facts of life” promulgation?

Has TV counted the multibillion hours of life that its commercials have stolen?

ERNST BACON

(Professor Emeritus, Syracuse University)

Orinda, Calif.