Television Culture and the Rise of Trump

April 3, 2016 - Grand Rapids, MI

I had an epiphany yesterday. Like many people around the world, I've been very curious about the cultural and political phenomenon that is Donald Trump in the primaries. I've wondered many times why people, including some good friends, see him so differently than I do.

A lot is being written about the Trump supporter demographic: that is not what I'm talking about here. The epiphany was about the similarity between Trump and his proposals for fixing what's "wrong" with America, and the way things get fixed or resolved in many video games, TV shows, and movies. Rarely do we see popular media advocating or modeling diplomacy or reflective reasoning for complex problem solving. Instead, what we see being used is violence or magically simplistic super-powers. Violence, in it's own twisted way, is "sexy," and it sells.

Trump's approach has an easily understandable "get 'er done" appeal. Isn't it amazing how many crimes or conflicts are resolved in the space of 1/2 to 2 hours? If only we could just send in the SEALS, eliminate the bad guys with nuclear bombing, use a gun or warship, or fists of fury, the world would be a safer and better place very quickly - right?  Is it surprising that the shows that depict this kind of conflict resolution are the ones that get the highest ratings and last as opposed to ones like "Manhattan," which very intelligently explores the complexity of developing and deploying atomic weapons, are cancelled after two seasons?

Understanding complex economic, political, social, geographic, and cultural realities requires "deep" reading and critical thinking. But this takes time and paying close attention to subtleties and nuance. Here is a prescient quote from the attached 2009 article, "The Importance of Deep Reading," by Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai.

"From a cognitive neuroscience perspective, the digital culture's reinforcement of rapid attentional shifts and multiple sources of distraction can short-circuit the development of the slower, more cognitively demanding comprehension processes that go into the formation of deep reading and deep thinking. If such a truncated development occurs, we may be spawning a culture so inured to sound bites and thought bites that it fosters neither critical analysis nor contemplative processes in its members. As technology visionary Edward Tenner (2006) remarked, it would be a shame if the very intellect that created this new technology was threatened by it."