Family Time
Adjusting the rabbit ears on the family television set was like a game of charades: Who would get up to adjust the antenna? The critical comments, the shouted advice; and then finding that sometimes when you took your hand off one of the rods, or stepped away a couple of feet, the picture would deteriorate.
The fancier rabbit ears had a dial in the base; with detents and marks, but no labels to tell you what they did, or why; and that produced startling changes in the picture when rotated. “Don’t touch the dial!”
The techniques for getting the best picture were frequently empirical and inventive; like adding aluminum foil or nicknacks, but that’s a different story.
The “Big” Picture – rooftop antennas
In looking at the Radio Shack circulars, your eyes are drawn to the “maximum range” and “deep fringe” roof antennas [because who doesn’t want the maximum] — and you leave the store with a 12-pound box that’s longer than your parent’s station wagon.
When you have finally got your chimney mount attached, the pole is bolted tight, and the antenna opens up to the size of a Boeing: where do you point it? I think the city is over there. Where is your neighbor’s antenna pointing? Or with the help of family members relaying the results from the living room and shouting through the window: “No, back the other way.”
The problem with “black box” technology is that it has no people in it. It is not amenable to human behavior; and it does not serve the human need for involvement.
I have had, and have used, many modern pieces of technology; but I have no love for them. It’s hard to love something that rejects you so completely. I used to take comfort in the ability of electronic appliances to receive a snowy TV picture from a transmitter out of range, or an AM radio station from Chicago that could bounce to New York one night. It gave me a sense of continuity and connection with a greater world than I could apprehend.
Now, you either get something, or not – 0 or 1 – yes or no – a picture or blank screen; and the non-conforming knife edge in between is filled with such a pixelated – freezing – jerking – brain-numbing noise that people are happy to get back to the two-tone – right-wrong security they’ve been educated to accept. Doctrine brings clarity; thinking brings “confusion.”
Black Box technology has given us a world without wonder, without anticipation, and without ourselves . . . just a lot of stuff. And a burgeoning “black box” bureaucracy.
If you think this blog is leading up to something; you’re right.