Column:
TV vs. Dog: Guess who wins?
Published Aug. 28, 2007
I do not like dogs. They are obnoxious, loud, rude, foul-smelling heathens who, by some twist of fate, tricked the human race into being best friends with them. But luckily, times have begun to change, and mankind's affection for his beloved best friend is waning. Man is tired of having a best friend who chews his shoes, pees on his carpet and only compensates by occasionally fetching the paper from the door — a feat man's wife could just as easily accomplish.
The relationship between man and his dog is a simple one. The dog is the slave, and the man is the master. He controls when the dog eats, where the dog sleeps, even when the dog is allowed to "do his business," which isn't so much a business as it is a defacement of public and private property. The interactions between man and dog are trivial for the man and all important for the dog. Feeding a dog takes two seconds and yet sustains his life. This rule over another creature is flattering if dull. It's a one-way relationship and nothing more.
Man has come to expect more from his best friend, and he has found a best friend who he thinks gives him more but really doesn't.
Watching television is a one-way relationship that emulates a two-way relationship. Man's new best friend, which he has lovingly nicknamed "the tube," is intelligent, engaging, funny, dramatic and a number of other simple adjectives you can surely come up with on your own time. With the dog, man had to earn his affection by displaying his dominance over his captive beast. The television demands nothing of man and rewards him with channel upon channel of voyeuristic pseudo-interaction with other human beings like himself.
The roles have been reversed, and man has found himself slave to his own best friend. And though his new best friend might not sustain him, it sure as hell keeps him occupied day in and day out. TV is there for him when he's sad, when he's lonely or when he's just plain bored, as is often the case. Best of all, TV asks for nothing in return.
The interaction between man and his television set is beyond trivial for the TV, as it isn't even alive, but it is increasingly important to man. Granted, TiVo has taken some of the pressure off, but if man doesn't want "Lost" spoiled for him at work tomorrow, he'd still better catch it at its regular time.
There's nothing inherently wrong with watching TV, and if anything, TV has done great things for man (in comparison, dogs' only benefactor to mankind was Lassie.) But it is a disheartening reflection of our culture that we are both lazy enough and lonely enough to spend hours each day huddled around an electronic box, refraining from talking to those around us in order to watch strangers pretending to talk to one another.
We, as a society, are so dependent on this superfluous commodity that we have become the TV's dogs, sustaining ourselves on what it so effortlessly feeds us.
A few weeks ago, I was filling up at a gas station only to notice that each pump had a TV built into it. I glanced at the screen while I waited for my tank to fill, and for the first time in my life, I thought to myself, "Maybe I should get a dog." It was a fleeting thought, though, as I had to hurry home to catch a TV show.