Secular Thought for the Day

By Andy Crowe

With complaining a national pastime, we often hear that ‘children watch too much television’ with the assumption that it will lead them to a life of laziness and immorality. Frank Arnold recently picked up on this in his STFTD entitled ‘The Matrix’. I think it is time to see television – literally - in a better light and recognise that it can often be the basis of a morality that is as good as anything we can hear on a Sunday morning or Friday afternoon.

People like me grew up on a diet of Thunderbirds, where the innocent were saved by a bunch of youths, who clearly had better things to do than rob old ladies. Then came Star Trek, where the rights of all creatures, not simply human rights, were respected and protected. Star Trek is famous for the first inter-racial kiss shown on television. How shocking and revolutionary that was, at a time when segregation still held sway in the southern states of America and had many years left to run in South Africa. A federation of planets shared a policy of non-interference in the lives of other planets, contrasting sharply with the real life events taking place in Indochina and Central America in the 1970s and 80s. At the same time we had the brilliant ‘Cosmos’ series in which Carl Sagan could barely conceal his awe and love of the universe that we inhabit.

The writers of these television series are the ‘prophets’ who have most influenced my life and it is worth noting that Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, and Carl Sagan were long-time atheists. Now these ‘prophets’ don’t have long beards or the perceived gravitas that being worshipped for 2000 years or more can generate, but their messages are clearer and less open to misinterpretation and abuse. Perhaps we should start talking about Thunderbirds values rather than Christian values.

Of course television is not all good and too much of anything can be bad for you. It saddens me to see the BBC pandering to the selfishness and prejudices of people like Jeremy Clarkson. I struggle to understand why the most respected broadcaster in the world seems to be bent on self destruction with ‘reality’ programmes which promote bullying.

But at its best television can be inspirational, accessible and remain entertaining. Perhaps the best job that parents can do is to direct their children to those programmes that both entertain and embed positive values of tolerance and a respect for the universe that we live in.