A Nation of Cattle ?

With advancing age comes the dubious honor of spending more and more time in doctor´s waiting rooms prior to an appointment. I know - because nary a week goes by that I don´t have just such an opportunity. It´s a bit distressing to realize that the chance to chat with my fellow "patients" and thumb through two year old magazines has actually, in recent years, inched-up in ranked importance for my life´s social events. So, at times such as these, I also typically try to engage in another of my favorite activities – people watching. I guess it´s a left over tendency from my days doing counseling and psychotherapy.

Doctor´s waiting rooms tend to look much the same. Usually, somewhere high on a wall is a TV, most now in flat screen HD format. The TVs tend to be tuned and locked to cable news programming such as FOX or CNN or one of the other oh-so-reliable 24/7 "news" channels. I´m not going to critique the content of such programming - that would take more energy than I want to expend at the moment, but....rather, what strikes me most in these situations is the easily made observation regarding the dumb, zombie-like gape and gaze seen in the upturned faces of so many other of my doctor´s waiting room companions. No, not everyone (even in a full waiting room) watches the tube. Some chatter inanely on cell phones, some join me in the hunt for a good magazine and some actually engage in conversation with whoever it was that joined them for the appointment or happened to sit next to them. But there is always a fair number just sitting watching the tube even when it would seem impossible for them to hear audio content. It matters little what is actually on: news, a soap opera, the weather channel, whatever. They watch. Enraptured. Eyes glazed over. Mouths agape. Sometimes emotionless and sometimes with a plastic grin vaguely suggestive of a person on too much anti-depressant medication. These are the folks who have me wondering about the mental distinctions between humans and cattle. As I people watch while these folks sit and gaze up at the tube, several scary thoughts come to mind.

However, before going further, let me explain a bit. It´s not my intention to impress you with me being anti-TV. There´s a lot of good programming to be had out there even though I´ll admit that "good" is a relative term. The problem for me, and in the life I now live, I don´t have the patience to ferret out the good from the bad and the ugly. So, I´ve simply opted out of TV land. I get my news via NPR (and I´m beginning to wonder about them too) and a self determined, self-paced internet approach, with a Google Search and Urban Legends webpage standby. I hang onto the hope the better TV programming will eventually find its way to DVD. Borrowing adrenaline by watching others participate in sports does not hold much allure either. So a "connected-to-the-world" television set is just not a life essential at this time in my life. There is a single LCD HDTV in the house, but it´s only connected to a DVD and tape player, the latter of which is for accommodating my aging collection of VHS.

Several years ago I discovered it was impossible to justify keeping cable or satellite dish when so little time was spent in front of regular broadcasting. Even before that (around 1990), I had given-up on broadcast news. It was during these years that news programming also blossomed from 30 and 60 minutes time-frames to heart pounding (at least until the third repetition) 24/7 coverage. News reporting moved rather rapidly from video journalism to something more akin to Broadway productions....Hey, Let me entertain you! Right? But, I don´t think I´m alone in feeling little need to know the details of some idiot with a gun being perused by the police (unless it´s in my town or county) or some mentally deranged parent doing awful things to their children in a distant state. Or hearing and seeing hours of programming whose only goal is to keep me up to date on the personal foibles of a pop star, or, worse yet, to keep the fires of fear fanned and burning bright.

OK, enough bio for now - and more to the point. The scariest thoughts in my mind on noticing the zombie eyes of many TV watches go something like this: I wonder what they are like at home in front of their own TVs? Not counting purely entertainment programs, dramas, comedies, etc, what do these folks think about (if anything) while they watch? What degree of critical thinking can they/do they apply to whatever "facts" they´re being feed? Or should I say – spoon feed. Do they really believe everything that´s reported? How much independent "research" do they put into uncovering the accuracy of some of the information they get from their daily dose of FOX, Bill O´Riley or MSNBC? How many, for example, before coming to judgment have watched the entire sermon given by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (of Obama fame) rather than the frequently repeated few seconds clip as shown on TV? Has the United States (in particular) become a nation of cattle who, behaving like cattle, tend to just mill around aimlessly till some stimulus creates herd movement prompting them to go off in this or that direction without much critical thought?

Currently, we are in the middle of a way too long election season ramping up to a Presidential election in just over seven months. Are the voters once again going to buy a bill of goods and cast votes based on whoever does the most effective (read - slickest) ad campaign? Do we vote for a candidate simply because he looks "presidential" with a backdrop of US flags flapping in a breeze?

The electorate (if we can believe the numbers) has twice placed in office as President a man who is most likely brain damaged from his many prior years of heavy use of alcohol and drugs. A man who swaggers like a Texas cowboy and slaps the backs of his good ol´boys and winks like a college fraternity kid at all the good looking women (including foreign ambassadors). A man who cannot even put a few short sentences together and speak them without making silly errors. A man whose verbal blunders have spawned a thriving comedic industry. A man who somehow has convinced a great many that to be smart is not cool and that science should be trumped by fundamentalist religion. A man so mature that he can never be wrong and who surrounds himself - not with intelligence, talent and proven competence - but with those who´s only claim is their loyalty to him. If we as a nation have done this to ourselves not once but twice, then what next? Will those in our midst who constitute the cattle syndrome be of sufficient number to turn the election again? Based on the past, the sad answer to this is, very possibly yes. The cattle may very well determine who sits in the oval office and then - the cattle will be thrown a few bales of hay so they can return contentedly to watching their favorite TV show. The rest of us will stand by, scratch our heads and consider the option of moving to Canada.

I´m not real pleased with the field of candidates coming out of the primaries. Any of them. It´s hard to imagine that in this great nation of over 300 million people we cannot bring forth any better talent than that which is supported only by pre-existing wealth, influence or power. There must be better candidates. But where are they? Is it that they lack TV appeal? Or are considered unelectable because of bad hair? Or that they appeal to much to reason?

Well, let´s face it - reasoned argument does not seem to have much appeal with cattle. Cattle are a nervous, fearful group that bolts at the slightest provocation. The media and the hypesters who market presidential candidates know this and have and will be spending obscene amounts of money to get their "message" out. They will encourage - nay demand that we be afraid. They will lie and twist information. They will forget troublesome facts and invent others that are judged more palatable for their cause. Anything to insure that the 10 to 30 percent of voters who are cattle will get out and vote and turn the tide for their party.

I know I am being cynical, but there doesn´t seem to be a great deal out there in today´s world of politics and the media to suggest a strong possibility of a reasoned outcome. I only hope that the persuaders of TV and other news media have grossly overestimated the number of human cattle in this country and that enough people will see through the smoke and mirrors to cast their vote for the best candidate - not just the candidate with the best PR and the most money to blow.

Oh, by the way, did I mention? I´ve done the math several times and it seems that there are usually about 25% of the people in a doctors wanting room who sit staring blank faced up at their TV window on the world? The percentage number bothers me. Scary, real scary. No?