Deceit Culture 3

Ah, logic! It's generally distrusted and widely spurned. But it can still be sold to folks who're buying on behalf of others — namely parents.

The "Brainy Baby — Left Brain" video, today's New York Times tells us, "has a cover featuring a cartoon baby with a thought balloon saying, '2 + 2 = 4' and promises that it will inspire logical thinking and 'teach your child about language and logic, patterns and sequencing, analyzing details and more.'" ("See Baby Touch a Screen. but Does Baby Get It?", New York Times, December 15, 2005.)

Such products are selling briskly at toy stores nationwide, and "babies 6 months to 3 years old spend, on average, an hour a day watching TV and 47 minutes a day on other screen media, like videos, computers and video games," the article indicates.

But of course this does not reflect a sudden appreciation for logic and wisdom in our culture. It just reflects the familiar syndromes of materialism, obsession over "goals," anxiety, over-competitiveness — and their ever further encroachment into spaces that had once been the preserve of play, simple pleasure, human interaction, or reflection.

The article reports that the American Academy of Pediatrics "has recommended no screen time at all for babies under 2, out of concern that the increasing use of media might displace human interaction and impede the crucially important brain growth and development of a baby's first two years. But it is a recommendation that parents routinely ignore."

Infants under 6 months old begin the socialization process with synthetic humans. They'll eat unnatural food and get unnaturally little physical exercise. Many will be prescribed mood-altering pharmaceuticals in childhood and adolescence. In their teens they'll become blasé spectators of graphic torture, an increasingly common element in popular movies. (The recent Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, for example, a light comedy that received favorable reviews, shows the protagonist, after a setback, tied to a chair with electrical wires running to his groin.)

Can we expect these unnaturally raised creatures to be natural human beings as they develop?

It's ironic how our mania over "goals" robs us of pleasure. Sex, some will recall, used to be particularly associated with pleasure. How much is this still so in contemporary thinking?

Last night I dipped my toe into the sludge of popular culture, viewing part of episode #1 of the first season of the popular series, Sex and the City. The plot involves Sarah Jessica Parker's lead character planning and carrying out a sexual tryst with an old boyfriend. Not for love, warmth, or even mere pleasure, however. The act of sex is motivated chiefly by hostility. (For the technically curious: In Manhattan, sex isn't a simultaneous thing, but a sequential exchange of favors. So she gets hers first, then denies the guy his payback.)

Might the shrivelling of pleasure in America be linked to the acceptance of torture?

Here is a human reaction to the torture that everyone knows the U.S. government is engaged in:

Re ''Rice Is Challenged in Europe Over Secret Prisons'' (front page, Dec. 7) and ''Secretary Rice's Rendition'' (editorial, Dec. 7):

My heart screams out, ''Shame on us!''

Ironically, it is the new German chancellor who has to counter our secretary of state about ''rendition,'' which is clearly newspeak for torture.

I will bear witness to this descent into madness, refuse to condone it, will seek to redress it and hold all our elected officials accountable.

I refuse to be a willing accomplice.

Paul M. Wortman
East Setauket, N.Y.

[Letter to the Editor, New York Times, December 8, 2005.]

A fair number of such letters have appeared in the Times. But they are from Times readers. Do a substantial proportion of Americans feel likewise?

There is opposition to torture being expressed in Congress. But then, consider what the movies say about popular sentiment.

Even if the balance of public opinion currently says nay, what about tomorrow, when our synthetic kids are voting?

The trend certainly seems to be towards greater barbarity, as another letter suggests:

Conservatives are no longer conservatives. Twenty years ago, I was a conservative and believed in balanced budgets, limited foreign intervention and limiting the government's encroachment upon individual liberties and freedom. Today, I believe in balanced budgets, limited foreign intervention and limiting the government's encroachment upon individual liberties and freedom, but now I'm called a liberal.

Conservatives of yesteryear respected state sovereignty and believed that torturing prisoners was only what the Communists did. Today's conservatives have no compunction about using their federal muscle to overrule state courts. It's repugnant that we are even debating the merits of torture.

Joel S. Peskoff
Baldwin, N.Y.

[Edited letter to the Editor, New York Times, December 10, 2005.]

"Torturing prisoners was only what the Communists did." Back then, we were the good guys. Now.... Well, we're terribly busy. And, I find, speaking to young people, they have a cartoonish view of the world in which the stuff of headline news — politicians betraying voters, corporate executives plotting swindles — is utterly normal. They take it for granted. And they consider it inevitable.

Are we still good guys?

Continued: Deceit Culture 4.