Public Interest
In 1950s and 1960s America, television had transformed from a fledgling industry into one of the most significant cultural forces in the 20th century, and as it began to prioritize airing lowbrow, mindless, and crass entertainment to maximize viewership, it inevitably garnered significant criticism from those concerned with its long term impact on the culture. In 1961, in response to these concerns, Newton Minow, former chairman of the FCC, broadcasted his speech “Television and the Public Interest.”
Here is a notable excerpt from that speech:
“Your industry possesses the most powerful voice in America. It has an inescapable duty to make that voice ring with intelligence and with leadership. In a few years, this exciting industry has grown from a novelty to an instrument of overwhelming impact on the American people. It should be making ready for the kind of leadership that newspapers and magazines assumed years ago, to make our people aware of their world.
Ours has been called the jet age, the atomic age, the space age. It is also, I submit, the television age. And just as history will decide whether the leaders of today's world employed the atom to destroy the world or rebuild it for mankind's benefit, so will history decide whether today's broadcasters employed their powerful voice to enrich the people or to debase them.”
As Seth Godin would argue, culture is not meant to serve capitalism; capitalism is meant to serve culture. But television was far from the only significant industry that would flip this dynamic to service the shortsighted, selfish, and profligate ambitions of corporate America. As time would tell, other core aspects of American life would degenerate into vast wastelands alongside television.
The restaurant and fast food industry did not serve the public interest. They have worked to surround us with cheap, available, and addictive products that were designed for the very purpose of exploiting our desire for convenience while simultaneously preying on our impulses for fatty, sugary, and processed food. It is certainly no mystery how obesity—and all its related health conditions and diseases—ended up ravaging this country for decades.
The pornographic and adult entertainment industry did not serve the public interest. They have no issue perpetuating the abuse and exploitation of young women. They have no issue propagating media that significantly contributes to anxiety, isolation, and depression among young men. They have no issue warping our perceptions on sex and relationships by surrounding us with cheap, instant gratification that desensitizes us. And with the advent of the internet, this industry has never been more prolific, and thus never more pernicious.
The tobacco industry, the alcohol industry, and Big Tech did not serve the public interest. They will not hesitate to addict us to our death if it means making the extra dime. They feed on our frenzied obsession to stay glued to our devices to stay up to date on what everyone else is doing, our compulsion to reach for the box of cigarettes on our work break, and our yearning to go to the bar when we want to vent or unwind. We are compelled by these sensations to take our minds away from the chaos of reality and numb our seemingly endless plight. And as mental health as a whole continues to deteriorate in our societies, more and more individuals will fall victim to these devices to merely cope with life.
But the severity of these addictions are as much of a cultural phenomenon as they are a neurobiological one. The restaurant and fast food industry couldn’t have survived without shifting our perceptions of what types of foods and what types of diets are acceptable or normal. The pornographic industry couldn’t have survived without the kind of cultural apathy and negligence to directly confront and teach what constitutes positive relationships and a healthy love and sex life. The alcohol, tobacco, and technology conglomerates can not survive without our continued refusal to educate our populace on healthy coping strategies for the hardships of their life—the incredibly stress and anxiety-inducing social structures that we ourselves perpetuate. When this is all that we’ve known for generations, we inevitably become inured to these ways of life, so much so that it becomes normal, justified, and upheld by generations that don’t know that there’s anything better.
Because we live in a society that accommodates entities with the sole intent of preying on our impulses and primal desires, our modern life is characterized by a fight against ourselves. We are forced to learn to starve our dopaminergic habits because, left unbridled, they will inexorably rot our brain. Self-restraint—this process of building the mental fortitude to resist temptation and instant gratification in pursuit of a better life—is increasingly seen as a virtue, in fact, a necessity, to triumph over the malignant forces in our modern capitalistic world. As someone who was fortunate enough to break free of their vices, it’s easy to claim that self-restraint is the answer to our plight. It’s easy to lecture others and blame them for being mentally weak and hedonistic.
But this is selfish. When the majority of our fellow citizens have already succumbed to their vices, when they have no one beside them to teach them those lessons of self-restraint and no alternative but to be enticed by the instant gratification that envelops them, things can begin to fall apart. Temptation and addiction will always afflict our society, and self-restraint and vigilance when it comes to our sensual pleasures is something that we always have to put into practice. But blaming others and putting ourselves on a moral pedestal is as detrimental to our society as these destructive industries.
We can only serve the public interest when, as a nation, we collectively recognize the aspects of our culture that sustain the industries that blatantly capitalize on human weakness for their selfish gain. If we put our minds and our hearts to it, we can build a life for our future generations where the easiest, most available solutions to our hunger, our desire for love or sex, or our need to cope with stress aren’t absolutely horrible for our physical and mental health.
