Reality TV and the Myth of Human Progress

The Victorians saw human history as a long, upward trajectory: slow but constant progress in scientific knowledge, cultural refinement, human health, social justice, etc. To some this progress was a biological inevitability; for others it was driven by inexorable historical forces.

The Book of Mormon describes the human journey differently -- not as a long upward slope of progress, but rather as a repeating cycle: from prosperity to pride to materialism to decadence to degeneracy to calamity to repentance, at which point the cycle begins again. (For a good example of the way this cycle plays out in the Book of Mormon, see Alma chapter 4.)

Every time I encounter a new reality show on TV, I become more convinced that the cyclical model describes the human experience more accurately than the progressive/evolutionary one. What bothers me so deeply about reality programming isn't that it shows us sliding one more step down the scale of pop-entertainment inanity, but rather something more disturbing: I think it demonstrates that we've made a quantum leap from empathy to callousness. TV shows have always been, in varying degrees, crude and stupid -- that's a given (and it's all-too-rarely stopped me from watching and enjoying). And they've frequently dealt with violence, cruelty and degradation in ways that have been less than uplifting. But the violence and cruelty have generally been make-believe. Even when people's despair and pain was presented to us for our entertainment, we always watched with the understanding that what we were seeing wasn't actual cruelty being inflicted on people in real situations -- it was all manufactured and pretend.

Obviously, the whole point of reality TV is that it's no longer just pretend. Casts are chosen carefully and specifically for maximum volatility, and situations are contrived specifically to make it as likely as possible that there will be screaming, hitting, tears, and the throwing of objects. What draws viewers is the hope that they'll get to see actual damage being done to real people. It seems to me that the difference between traditional TV and the Roman gladiator shows is a difference of kind: it's the difference between watching people pretend to be hurt and killed, and watching people actually get hurt and killed -- whereas the difference between reality TV and the Roman gladiator shows is only a difference of degree: the difference between watching people really being cruel to each other, and watching people really kill each other.

I realize that many "reality" shows are actually heavily scripted, and that the reactions of the participants are often contrived. But that's actually beside the point -- it only means that people aren't really being hurt as much as they seem to be. It doesn't change the attitude in which we're watching, or the fact that we're taking more and more pleasure in other people's putatively real pain. In other words, after 2000 years of "progress" we're all back in the coliseum again, cheering the blood sport. It kind of seems like the only real progress has been technological.