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The Psychology of Soaps

Sam Fryman

Copyright Sam Fryman 2006 Also by the same author

A Mens Liberation Guide to Women 4th edition

A Womens Liberation Guide to Men 2nd edition

How to Meditate

Kundalini - Preventing the Apocalypse

A Mens and Womens Liberation Update

The Myth of the Teenage Rebellion

What Is Intelligence?

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Kundalini - A Personal Experience

Feminal Farm - a short satirical novel

The Innocent Persons Guide to Law

Understanding Female Sexuality and Porn

Freedom of Speech & Maitreya

An Innocent Persons Guide to the Da Vinci Code

How the Feminists Stole Psychology

Hearing Voices and Psychic Phenomena

Is Competition Necessary?

On Drugs and Alcohol

The Importance of Thinkers

The Demonisation of the Innocents

The Psychology of Prejudice The Psychology of Soaps

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Sam Fryman

To any man who may be reading this, confused about why someone he may have previously decided was a serious author, has decided to write a dissertation on what he may deem to be an irrelevant and tedious subject such as soap operas, we would saythink again please.

Because we intend to show that not only are these TV soap operas not irrelevant, they are one of the major factors controlling the everyday world and society we all have to live in.

Just one of the amazing things about the phenomenon of soap operas is that there is such an alarmingly wide variety of them.

They can be based around a street like the world famous AustralianNeighbours ,around a bar (The Rovers Return) likethe equally famous world renownedCoronation Street , a rural village like the UK seriesEmmerdale (originallyEmmerdale Farm ), or a hospital, such as the UK long runningCasualty or the US approximate equivalentER , or the much earlier famousDr Kildare withRichard Chamberlain .

Or they can be set in a school, such as a now defunct but highly influential UK TV series calledGrange Hill , we can even arguably have watered down gangster soap operas like the UKEastenders , or we can set one in the world of big business like the long running US Texas oil based soapDallas .

There are ones aimed at teenagers, such as the UKHollyoaks , or the USBeverley Hills 90210 , or the famous but also defunctDawsons Creek.

No doubt those around the world can easily identify equivalents to these series in the various countries they live in, in their own languages and so on.

Anyone who has played around with Internet or satellite TV for awhile, will see how the whole television output of the entire world is saturated with these soap operas, from Tokyo to Tasmania and from Moscow to Madras, remembering that programs likeJerry Springer and theBig Brother series are a new form of reality soap also.

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But we really need to consider what a soap opera actually is, and how we distinguish it from TV and moviedrama in general.

The point and distinction seems to be that a movie or one-off drama is made around some special or unusual situation or event, which is not common to our everyday reality.

For example, we have the movieApollo 13 with Tom Hanks, which tells the story of the abortive expedition to the moon, which turned into a very dramatic, thrilling and scary rescue mission after the space vehicle they were travellingin was damaged.

This we would definitely call adrama , and say that the events depicted were dramatic meaning that they excited powerful emotions in us that our normal everyday lives generally andpreferably do not.

Whypreferably ?

Because what most of usin our right minds are seeking ispeace andsecurity.

If rockets are going off, if people are in perilous situations, if a bank is being robbed, or a plane is hijacked, whilst it is excitingto watch , most of us do not actually want tolive in such a drama, firstly because it generally threatens our personal survival, or even if we survive, we likely have had a traumatic experience which will probably adversely impact on the rest of our lives.

So in theory, TV soaps are about the usually dull, tedious and uneventful experiences of our everyday lives, but in practicethis cannot be , because on the whole, our lives from the point of view of a spectator would be mostlytoo boring to watch.

Let us think about it, about our daily script, or that of an average Westerner, and see how thrilling it really is:

8am. Wake up. Wife (if we are lucky or unlucky enough to have one as the case may be) groans slightly and requests we make her coffee.

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We momentarily think of asking her for something to deserve it, but she doesnt look so attractive this morning now her make up is faded and her wrinkles are showing.

As we brush our teeth, we groan, thinking of another tough day at the office or factory, when we would like another hour or two in bed.

9am. After routine breakfast, hastily eaten, we start the car and hear a funny noise, worry we need to get it serviced, and fear how costly that is likely to be.

In the office, after having to fight for a parking space, we arrive a little late for the important meeting. Our boss moans at us for our lack of punctuality and our colleagues smirk or make some sarcastic remark given we have unfortunately given them a legitimate excuse to do so.

We pass a day talking to customers, trying to gain their cooperation for new contracts, but they say they will need further discussion with their lawyers and will get back to us.

We askwhen , but they make an excuse which we guess is procrastination, yet are unable to answer, so we make a diplomatic response which we dont actually feel like giving, out of fear that they will take their business elsewhere and we will be blamed for the loss of the contract and maybe sooner or later sacked.

That gorgeous new secretary, who cant much type, but theboss has just hired anyway, passes by our desk in the open plan office. We spend a second or two ogling her before she disappears, and are again left reviewing our tedious documents and worrying decisions.

Lunchtime comes we have a sandwich and argue with a colleague about yesterdays sports game or the political situation, but dont reach any agreement on anything.

And so it goes on until we are tired, and earnestly watching for the clock to tick to home time.

We get stuck in the rush hour traffic home, and find that our working wife is not home yet either, so we impatiently put a ready meal into the microwave oven and sit down in front of the TV.

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We switch on the TV, but cant get the channel we want, because our wife has set it to automatically recordher favourite soap , and the channel wont change until its over, and of course, wedont dare cancel the recording ourselves even though we well know how.

When she finally gets home, she is shot out too,but not too tired to watch her soap , so we go and listen to a piece of music or think about the meaning of life while she indulges her soap watching obsession, which seems to matter to her more than being with us.

When we finally end up in bed, she gives us a quick hug, and kisses us goodnight, but pushes us away when we dont want to let go, and says sorry, not tonight darling, Im too tired. END OF DAY.

Pretty exciting stuff, we are sure youll agree?

Would anyone want to watchthat , what areal life is actually like for the average person for practically all of the time?

Its notKellys Heroes hunting in Nazi occupied France for bars of gold; its notIndiana Jones searching through a cryptic notebook of clues to findthe Holy Grail ; its not even about a singing nun who marries a captain, becomes step-mother to his seven children, and later gets played in a world famous musical by an attractive and virtually operatic movie star.

Its not about a British secret agent with a licence to kill, who goes round saving the world, breaking all the road traffic laws, bedding beautiful women and drinking Martinis; or even about a fifteenth century lawyer who becomes Lord Chancellor of England, but is executed for defying the king and staying true to his morals (A Man For All Seasons).

But thenneither isa soap .

So the soap operas are telling us all a great big fat lie.

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Theycannot reflecteveryday reality as it actually is, because unlike movies or one-off dramas about some extraordinary event, the subject matter istrivia , for the sad fact is that most peoples daily lives are about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Life is not thrilling or satisfying, and so most of us spend most of our timeescaping from it.

Do little children need to go to a bar and drink several strong alcoholic drinks tofeel good ?

Of course they dont.

Anyone who has spent much time with children oreven remembers being one , knows that they can get as high as a kite without any kind of drug at all.

Everythingfascinates and grips the mind of a normal lively young child.

Parents often have to slow children down, bring them down from their states of hyper-excitement and hyperactivity for their own good.

So what is wrong withus that we need drinks and drugs and otherartificially manufactured exciting escapes such as the thrilling music and exciting and dangerous hobbies we indulge in?

Consider also, that children before puberty do not have any sex in their lives whatsoever, and can still be ecstatically happy without any knowledge or experience of it.

If we look at it from that point of view, we can almost look upon our sex desire as a curse which leads us (mainly men) around like a dog on a leash for the rest of our lives, instead of celebrating it as the most wonderful giftas we are encouraged to do.

Oh yes, itmay be wonderful alright for an emperor with a hand-picked harem of beauties who can father a thousand children and not get sued for alimony.

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But for most of us, it is simply an addiction just like any other which we are cheated out of our freedom and likely money also in one way or another to satisfy.

Yet we find however that these soaps are absolutely saturated with it.

And of course, as we have hinted, the other remarkable thing about soap operas is that the audience for them is almost entirelywomen.

Whilst we have a world thattalks so much about equality between the sexes, the truth is that whilst women who watch soap operas are regarded as completely normal, even if they are bank managers, teachers, accountants or high court judges, anyman who was discovered watching one would generally feel embarrassed and could be poked fun at by his fellows.

Of course mendo watch them at times, but the more serious a job title he has, or the more highly educated he is, the more he is likely to be mocked for such a mindless pursuit.

But apparently it is OKfor women of virtually all classes to indulge in these brainless pursuits, these studies in trivia .

So the question iswhy should men be embarrassed about watchinga soap when women are not?

We have to look atthe content of soaps to answer that.

And we see that the content is the trivia of daily relationship issues, it is about gossip, it is about scandal, it is about forbidden loves, rivalry, social jockeying for position, about envy, about insult, frustrated love, and the expression of anger, hate and revenge.

In short, its packed chock-a-block withemotions, its saturated in often heavyfeelings.

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Lets look at a typical plotline.

Woman marries man and falls in love with or has affair with his brother.

Oh thescandal of it the illicitpassion the sneaking around andsecrecy of theforbidden love ! The fury , theviolence , therevenge , themurder when the husband finds out! Then laterthe drama and the revelations andguilty secrets of the murder trial, the tears of the forlorn wife who has a dead lover and a husband sent down for life imprisonment or maybe even the gallows! (inwhich case they can also have a funeral scene, and she can wipe a tear away with her handkerchief beneath her black lace veil those scenes always look good).

Thenthe judgement , thecondemnation of the neighbours, the villagers, who condemn her as a hussy, a scarlet woman, as poisoned ivy.

Or we could have a few other plotlines such as:

motherhas incestuous relationship with son

teacherhas affair with pupil

domineeringman or husband keeps girl or wife as sex slave

attractiveyoung lady seduces and blackmails older man for his money

evildaughter poisons elderly father to inherit money prematurely

abusivefather is murdered by wife and buried under patio

etc. etc.

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We get the idea by now dont we?

Its about illicit passions, illegal actions such as taking the law into ones own hands for purposes of vengeance, and wreaking judgement and condemnation on those who break the social codes.

In short, it is the focussing upon and indulging of the mind inunhealthy desires and emotions.

Much of the content of soap operas is also of course pursuit of a member of the opposite sex, a constant teasing with the question of whether the Romeo and Juliet clones in the soap will ever get it together.

Or will it bedoomed love ?

Will that darkperson the bad, violent, bullying guy, or the conniving, seductive woman spoil the hero and heroines chance of true love?

So of course we come back toour own lives.

And we see that most of us are frustrated in our own desires in various ways.

We are all seeking thishappy ever after fairy tale ending.

But just how many of us are getting it?

So we could look at statistics, and the statistics generally say that despite so called womens liberation, women have never been unhappier.

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Millions of women are forced into jobs by economic necessity that they dont want, and because society is obsessed with sex to a degree that the average man or woman nowexpects to have a sequence of relationships and lovers throughout their lives, instead of finding that special person to spend ones life with as was formerly the script, fidelity in relationships is rare.

We routinely have mixed sex workplaces, and both partners in a couple are often working.

Its nearly impossible to have fidelity in such circumstances, and the soap operas reflect this fact honestly, though they generally far exaggerate it of course for dramatic effect.

We are addicted to excitement and unhealthy emotions, to gossiping about who is chasing after and doing it with whom, and this again, is the currency of the soap:

What you dont meanBill andJane are? They cant be! Whatever will Bills wife say when she finds out! What will Janes son say, how will he react when he finds out his mothers an unfaithful slut?

Or

You cant be seriouswhat? Bill and Mike? Well, I had my doubts about Mike, but I thought Bill was straight as a die well it just shows you, you never can tell!

Or

What?Jane and Betty? I cant believe it! What? You caught them kissing in the ladies room? I knew Betty was bisexual, but Jane? Just wait till Bettys lover Mary finds out. Marys the jealous type you know, shell probably scratch Janes eyes out! Or then you never know maybe theyll make ita threesome.

(Wow viewers wont that be exciting!)

Of course many men will watch these soaps under the excuse they dont have a choice because their

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wife (or female partner) insists on watching them.

But of course, the real truth is, that there is usually plenty of alluring female beauty on display to keep the men comfortable with the uncomfortable display of all these primitive and immature emotions, so that most dont complaintoo much while they hypnotically and usually gratefully ogle the women on show.

For just as the women are fantasizing via these programs about all the things they would like to do but dont dare or all the things they wish would happen to them, butnever do , most men are easily satisfied with contemplating their own fantasies of what they would like to do if they could only get their hands on some of those scrumptious, teasing and underdressed cast members, which of coursethey never will.

So it is clear that what these soaps arereally doing, is catering like a drug pusher to our (mostly womens) frustrated, unhealthy and festering emotional and sexual needs.

And it is also really a kind ofvoyeurism.

That is, what would we think of a man or woman as depicted in the Sharon Stone movieSliver , who secretly spied onhis neighbours all day long and watched the dramas and details of their everyday lives?

Apart from the element of sexual titillation in it, which might soon prove a fairly unsavoury or dull display in most cases anyway, the vast majority of us would find such behaviour a shameful intrusion on the lives and privacy of others, which we certainly would not feel anyone else had the right to do tous .

So though we know that the characters in a TV soap opera are not real, we are really carrying out exactly the same behaviour as if they were.

We may not (in family time soaps) see them naked or having overt sex, but it is implied, and we watch all the minutiae of their lives how they eat and talk and dress and if they have a spot on their face or their shoes are scuffed, we watch their family squabbles, and private intimate conversations, we watch them kiss in their bedroom passionately before the TV directors are obliged to close the bedroom door and roll the credits because its far too early in the TV schedule for that sort of thing though now, predictably there is a new subgenre of TV soaps who have extra late night more explicit episodes.

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So we are slowly piecing together why men feel uncomfortable about watching soaps.

Firstly, they are about saturating oneself in unhealthy emotions and indulging fantasiesby proxy of hidden desires and longings, and secondly, they are about voyeuristically peeking into the lives of others, which if we did it for real, would have us classed as some kind of pervert or even criminal.

The truth is,weall have secret, hidden desires, most of which would get us into trouble if we attempted to do anything about them.

It is only natural that we sometimes feel sexual attraction for the woman or man across the road who is married to someone else, but ifas in the soap operas wedo something about it, we likely get an ending as bad orworse than in the soaps with rows, relationship splits, illegitimate or unwanted children, fights, violence, and maybe serious injuries or even murder.

If peopleindulge these illicit desires upon which the soap operas feed so shamelessly, the result is endless human misery and living life in fear.

We have to restrain our desires many times, or not only will we live in fear of theconsequences, there is no prospect of us collectively all living together as a civilised society.

So those whowrite, produce and act in the soaps we see daily on TV might argue that itsgood that we can use TV fantasy as a means of satisfying the desires we all hold, which in everyday life we cannot fulfil.

They might say it is a form of harmless, self-indulgence that shouldnt be taken too seriously, and in fact, even rather has abeneficial effect on society by bringing out into the open lots of issues so the public can learn about, and understand the lives of others better.

There issome truth in thatview, depending upon what issues are shown andhow the storylines go.

For example, all prophets and spiritual leaders have made use of tales as parables or fables, but the point was they were always trying to teach a principle that would uplift society, like for example even the fairytale ofThe Three Little Pigs.

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So the gistof that story was on the superficial level, tobuild ones house out of brick that could not be huffed, puffed and blown down by any big bad wolf.

But of course that isallegory , and the broader meaning is that one should buildones life on solid foundations, so that when troubles come one is as prepared as can be.

Compare that story however, to our modern soap, and it might go as follows:

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs. The first pig decided to become a transvestite and have gay sex. The second little piggy decided that being a rock star and fathering a score of illegitimate children who didnt know who their daddy was, was the way to go. But the wisest pig of all decided that the best thing to do was get rich and hire the best lawyer, so that one could do pretty much what one liked, and cheat the rest of ones family out of their inheritance and secretly father children to all their wives. But then again, they all lived happily ever after, in an egotistical kind of way.

So whatkind of morals are on show here?

Not ones which lead to a peaceful world, we are sure.

The truth is that the way to learn aboutissues is not to see some kind of fictional dramatisation of them, butlive a real life and experience things , and also to learn from others by conversationabout real life events and also by listening to, discussing with and reading the works ofthe wise.

That is, we could watch fifty or a hundred years of soap operas, and just have our emotions pulled around like puppets on a string, and never gain proper understanding of what we see.

Unlike truedrama such as Shakespeare or movies likeSpartacus ,The Truman Show or the better and more intelligently written novels, there are few soliloquiesor deep conversations regarding the meaning of life in soap operas.

They generally give a view of life that is drenched in emotions but short on rationality and depth.

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It is comic book stuff for adults, it ispulp fiction brought to our screens, like one of the earliest and most famous soapsPeyton Place.

But the argument that toindulge these emotions, to wallow in them through these fictional dramatisations ashundreds of millions of women daily do, is tosatisfy them, is a total lie, when in fact, theexact opposite is true.

The more we grow these forests of desires in our inner world, themore hungry we become.

Most of us dream of havingsomething that we dont have and cant get or afford it may be a person we want, an expensive sleek car, a concert grand piano, a trip to some exotic place which has always fascinated us, or a country mansion.

But we dont dwell on it, because if we did,it would drive us crazy.

That is, suppose we dwell upon a person who doesnt want us, and wont let go of this desire. We might even end up stalking them.

We have to ascertain if they really are interested in us or not, which may in cases be very difficult, because now arranged marriages have been done away with, and the relationship between the sexes are at an all time low, there may be many barriers in between us and the person we love, who might even love us too, but there is no proper way to connect and find out for sure.

So we stay in limbo. Girls for generations used to pull the petals off a flower and say he loves me, he loves me not in aneeny-meeny-miny-mo kind of way, so boys and men should not imagine it is onlythey who have got this problem.

The routine and obsessive way that so many girls and women will consult horoscopes and go to fortune tellers wanting to hear the wordsI see a tall, handsome stranger in your future tells us that many of them are tortured by their desires for love, just as men are tortured by loneliness and a desire to be with a partner of their choice.

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So in stepsthe soap to fulfil our frustrated needs, or for men of course, there is also pornography.

But the soap does not actuallysatisfy our desire. It only plugs the leak in the dyke temporarily.

Once its over, we are alone again, back in the present, with the pain and emptiness of our lives.

We appreciate for example that there are millions of old people, alone, bereaved and mostly deserted by their families, and the characters in a soap opera can seem like a family they are in, and substitute for the real family that they either never had, or has now neglected them and doesnt much want them in their lives anymore.

However that children move away from their parents is not necessarily wrong, the point is is a soap opera all that is left to them in their lives?

Retirement and old age should be the greatest opportunity in life to develop.

As we have said in our other works, includingKundalini Preventing the Apocalypse , if the sex desire was not so overused in youth and middle age, the rejuvenating effects of sexualmoderation would enable most people to have a long, relatively vigorous and lucid old age.

In an average big city library for example, one can meet a hundred thousand of the greatest minds who ever lived, through their works, their books, musical creations or works of art.

A hundred life times would not be enough to get bored with all the scientific, philosophical and artistic thought, literature and work created already by man.

Even, should ones aims be humbler, if one has a sane and active mind there are no end of things one can do as an older person, such as playing Bridge with friends, and sharing the joy of conversation and swapping stories and memories of ones long life.

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How can watching the second hand fictional shallow lives created by some twenty or thirty-something second-rate screenwriter compare with the treasure that is available in the minds of those who have seen world wars and generations of children come and go?

But the fact is that the creation of soaps isabusiness, and quite a big one too.

Many TV channels live or die on the basis of the success or failure of their soaps, because they depend upon advertising, and advertising only works if millions of viewers are glued to their screens.

And of course, because women actually now in most western countriescontrol most of the wealth and spending,the target audience is mainly women , and thus the dramas must be hypnotically attractive to women, constantly pricking their feelings about the issues which now dominate their lives, and to some extent always have, such as finding love, andrelationship and family issues in general.

We cannot be too tough on women themselves over this, because they are biologically programmed to findsecurity in their culture, in order to protect themselves and their children, and to do that, they have to have their ears open, they have to know the social rules and how to adapt socially to the community environment.

This is one reason women do better in a lot of business and organisational situations.

Men do better inmilitary situations, where there is a very clear and structured way of relating to one another.

But in complex social structures, as are commonplace in our modern business and administrative world, womens ability and indeedwillingness to deal with intricate social structures, working together with hundreds or thousands of people, gives them an advantage in that respect.

The office itself becomes a soap opera. There is rumour, gossip, scandal and so on, and the ever talking and communicating women can know ten times as much about what is going on behind closed doors than can the men, who stoically refuse to get involved in that kind of idle chatter and prefer instead to talk about cars, sport or their admiration for the form of and unrequited passion regarding some female in the office or other.

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The mixed workplace has become a place of excitement and intrigue just like the soap opera, and thus women are addicted to that also, and thus as they say love their jobs.

In actual fact, most womendont love their jobs at all, what they love is all the gossip and the rumour and scandal and the excitement of being around a lot of other men, and playing little games to see if they can get their attention and affection.

So as we said at the outset, any man who thinks that soap operas are not relevant to him, has not quite realised what is going on, for the truth is, except for those men who like some bachelor abstract mathematician or professor of ancient Chinese literature avoid in so far as possible all human relationships, the rest of us are actually to a greater or lesser extent living in a soap opera.

We dontwant to.

We want happy families, we want faithful wives,we want sons and daughters who grow up to be enlightened good citizens, talented, courageous and kind human beings.

We want teenagers who learn from and respect their parents and teachers instead of hating and rebelling against them.

But we dont get that what we get isthe soap opera.

We get tears, tantrums, illicit affairs, rebellions, sons who end up in prison, daughters who pose for a porn magazine or work as part-time prostitutes. We get drug addiction, we get alcoholism, we get violence, we get rape, we get incest, we get murder,we get suicide.

This is the currency of the soapopera, this isthe stuff of which nightmares are made.

And as we have said, it is mainlywomen who religiously feed on this material you know, they wont missone episode just as old fashioned women of generations gone by wouldnt miss a church attendance.

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So the questionthe whole world needs todesperately ask itself is justwhy are women addicted to soap operas?

And to answer that question, aside from thecause andeffect issues regarding womens natural inclinations we have already mentioned, a smallreal life drama may help make the point.

Your author was once a guest in a family home, temporarily alone with the mother and her two lovely pre-teen daughters.

They were both dancing in front of the TV set to a pop video of Jason Donovan and Kylie Minnogue.

Though your author was on good terms with this lady, and he and the mother respected one another in various ways, she sensed a little displeasure on his part at the way her girls were behaving and said:

Kylie and Jason areharmless, the girls are only having fun.

Your author replied yes, its not so muchwhat it is thats the problem itswhat its not.

Though he did not press the point with this nice lady and relatively good mother, in his own mind he recalled his own childhood and youth, in which he watched marvellous TV shows like a serial dramatisation ofRobinson Crusoe , the originalStar Trek series, and the music of deep thinkers and great musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend ofthe Who , Bob Dylan, and the Beatles with their sophisticated songs likeEleanor Rigby ,Strawberry Fields Forever and so on.

That is, he felt that by comparison, what these little girls were being offered thoughtlessly repetitive lyrics likeI should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, and equally mindless and exhibitionistic dance routines, encouraging even little girls to display themselves as teasing sex objects wasdumbed-down and even arguably corrupting.

The question he would have liked to have asked the mother was:

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Just what kind of human being do you want to grow in your garden?

Do you want to grow a plastic flower or a rose?A tall tree or a weed?

And the same is true of children generally.

Justwhy should childrenrebel against their parents as the soapoperas seems to suggest they always do and will?

That is think about it firstly, this person,your mother has gone through pain or even agony in cases to bring you to birth. She has tirelessly devoted herself to your well-being for many long years, made sacrifices in all kinds of waysjust for the sake of you.

And secondly, your father has stood guard and cared over you too, and gone out and worked his fingers to the bone, putting up with much humiliation, degrading treatment and so on, just so that he could put dinner on the table for his wife and you.

So just how do youdare turn round and treat those people whom you owe your life and health to, and have taught you all they know to give you the best chance in life, howdare you turn round andrebel , become hostile towards these two people who have given you so much?

And please also dont dare say I never asked to be born.

Because the truth is neither didthey .

All humans are driven by desires that ultimately they cannot control.

When we meet a suitable mate, most of us have got the overpowering desire to sooner or later have sex with them, and because most women have got the overpowering desire to have children, it is really not

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much a matter of anybodys conscious choice whether any of us will be born.

Of course, by marrying later or using birth control methods, some people candelay having children to a suitable time, but most people are not going to be able to avoid having children, because Nature has programmed into us that is our primary purpose in life.

But then, the truthis, that we would not complain, if our parents wereas above described.

Andthere lies the problem and solution.

That is, the soap opera of our life is there, because like the soaps on TV we arenot always good parents.

Men and women dont understand one another; above all, they dont understandthemselves and the society in which they are living.

Women in general for example, do not understand the discontent that has been stirred up in them by the feminists, which we have detailed in our various works, such asA Womens Liberation guide to Men andHow the Feminists Stole Psychology.

They also do not understand their own psychologyin the true sense as we detailed for example in our analysis of the life of Princess Diana, showing how her childhood maltreatment and insecurity led her to hypnotically gravitate back to a situation of abuse, and substitutethe love of the crowd for the love of any man which story we have also detailed in both the aforementionedWomens Liberation Guide to Men and theMens Liberation Guide to Women.

[if those two works seem incompatible by the way, the point is we are only seeking to liberatemen from bad or misguided women and liberatewomen frombad or misguided men , so there isno contradiction whatsoever in having written these two companion works]

So ultimately, parents are notrespected because children do not deem them asworthy of respect.

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Whether or not there is a God who is the ultimate judge of all that happens on earth, what there certainly ison earth is the panel of irresistible judges upon parents known aschildren.

But children dont necessarily make the best judges, becausethey can be corrupted.

That is, if there is a war between parents, as there usually is, the parents can fight for the affection of the childas is typical , and this often amounts to one party or the other trying to bribe and influence the child to their cause.

Once this treacherous war of slurs and favours commences, that can then set in for the whole pattern of raising of the child for the rest of its life into teenage years.

Andthis is the sort of drama we see in the soap operas also: teenagers or adult children at war with their parents, and arguing over how they were treated, how one child or another was favoured more or less, and how the husband unfairly treated the wife, or more rarely, how the wife unfairly treated or cheated the husband.

Of course, because the target audience of soaps is women, quite naturally storylines which depictthe bad weak man and thewonderful courageous woman are by far the commonest, as they make women feel better about themselvesregardless of the real truth of family life.

Because in questioning justwhy women are watching the soaps so compulsively and regularly, again we can apply ourKylie and Jason story, and point out: lets not ask what soapsare butwhat they are not.

And the fact is that whilst the average woman watches her soaps, what she isnot doing, is playing with or educating or caring for her child.

OK, if it is an infant, it might help her pass the time, as it sleeps on her knee or suckles at her breast, unable to converse with or entertain her, but that phase of childhood does not last so long.

The fact is all the girls in the office are all running home to watch the soap, and so she has to do so as well, whether she has children or she doesnt, or elseshe wont be in the gang the others will all be

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discussing the latest soap or celebrity gossip, and if she doesnt know it, she will be left out, which is a very painful situation for a woman to be in, denied membership of her group.

So its a trap.

Just as a woman is forced to work nowadays whether she wants to or not, unless she has a man who is a good earner, she is forced to be part of the lifestyle of the other girls or women in the office or factory whether she wants to be or not.

Or else she will be ostracized. If she is not in the workplace gang, her security may be threatened. It may be difficult for her to do her job well without the cooperation of others, and if others dislike her, they may find a way to force her out of the job that society has becomes so constructed that she desperately needs.

And who is the real victim of all this?

As usual, not only the husband, but the defenceless child.

So the tragic fact is that her home life is not working too well. Her husband is not happy that he is rationed her time and energy and must share her with an employer and a group of work colleagues and neither is her child.

And then as time goes by, irritation turns to frustration, the child turns troublesome and mean due to neglect, and then the home life becomes the same as what she sees on the soap opera the rows, the conflict, the rebellion and then she watches the soap for a different reason, because it seems that it is only the writers of and characters in the soap opera who know what her life is like and how she really feels.

They go throughall the trauma she does and more,they understand , so that they the soap operas and characters in them become her only real friends.

If readers of either gender doubt this, we might mention a very successful British female TV broadcaster, now in her early 60s, recently lamented the passing of the long term comedy soapFriends , with

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Jennifer Anniston and so on in the cast, saying how it had left something missing in her life.

For the people in our real lives tend to be so unreliable and cause us so much grief, for many of us, it is safer and preferable to immerse ourselves in this onscreen family or group of friends, whilst the cast members and producers of these series get very rich, and our own livesstay just the same.

But the soaps not only cheat us out of a real life by addicting us to living on a safe fantasy, so we dont make changes for ourselves in the real world, and make the effort or have the opportunity to findreal friends ; they also act as social engineering to put forth various changes desired by the TV producers and executives, which as we have pointed out elsewhere are mainly feministically inclined ones.

That is to say, suppose in real life, thereare only one in ten female judges or police officers in any particular country.

In the soap, we can write in a female judge or police officer in any court room or criminal sceneevery time whether or not that is only representative of a minority reality.

So by accustoming people tothe idea that women judges and police officers areeverywhere as depicted in the soaps, we can actually influencereality to that effect to as we have said elsewhere, to by this propaganda,encourage a minority reality to become a majority one.

That is, when for example panels who appoint judges come up to select them, they can keep asking the question why arent we seeing more women as judges ?and thereby use this as a basis to appoint a woman,whether or not she is the best person for that job on merit.

But as we are well aware, there is this never ending clamour forequality, equality , but surely all jobs should be appointed topurely on merit regardless of whether it is a man or a woman?

So if it actually turns out that there are many more better male judges than women ones which we are not claiming, it has to be down to the existing judges to decide that then therecannot be equalityin terms of numbers , there can only beequality of opportunity.

Likewise, for example, a British chat show host recently demanded of the new Conservative party

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leader David Cameron that there should surely beequal pay for women in tennis, due to the upcoming Wimbledon tournament.

Of course, he saidyes , for what elsecould he say if he hopes to get elected, when in England as most other places (due to womens longer average lifespan)there aremore women voters than men.

But we feel he could have done better. He could have thrown the question back and replied wellon what basis do we all think tennis professionals should be paid?

Is it onskill , on theability to win matches , or onbeauty , which would arguably in some cases at least suggest women should be paidmore ?

People would think it crazy if women boxers or football players were paid as much as the men, simply because they could never pull the crowds that the men do, and probably the same is true of tennis.

Professional sport is after alla business operation , and therefore, it is surely not the business of government to be intervening on such issues.

And after all, top sports professionals are paid an exorbitant amount in comparison to the rest of us, and so on reflection, could it be that most of us would like to rather say never mind you ladies being paid the extravagant amounts men are, and wanting the same out of envy, perhaps you might campaign that all sports people just be paid a good standard wage (national average and travelling expenses?)for the privilege of being a sports hero, doing what they love, while the rest of us are forced to do jobs we dont find ideal or even hate?

An interesting corollary of such a policy might be that sports people would be just viewed as ordinary citizens with an outstanding talent, who could mingle freely in public without being mobbed or risk having their children kidnapped for ransom, rather than having to hide behind smoked glass windows and bodyguards as likely most rich sport stars have to do now, just like the pop stars and movie actors have long been obliged.

So when we look at the careless and callous way we are handing life, we see that we are really creating our very own soap opera by our very own mistakes.

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Imagineagain, for example, that John Lennon had decided to give away all his money and just live on a farm, and have a drink in the local pub with his neighbours, raise a few children and live a very ordinary life.

Do we think some guy would have then got so obsessed with him his fame and unapproachability and decided to shoot him to try to get a piece ofgreatness by proxy which he could not achieve himself?

If we are going to place ourselves above others on a pedestal, we can hardly be surprised if some who are envious want to come and knock us off.

Your own author, for example, just lives a very ordinary life, and never claims to be anything special, but merely having a certain literary ability, and passing onwithout charge the knowledge of those who taught him such as Krishnamurti, Gopi Krishna and all the rest.

If we aspire for and desire the wrong things, we create a world built out of conflict, and then we have a soap opera of grand proportions before our eyes.

So many teenagers male or female would like to be a rock or movie or sporting star, tohave all the rest of the world bow down and worship them, and live in a mansion and have a string of beautiful girlfriends, lovers, husbands or wives.

Or the more sophisticated would perhaps like to be a rich businessman or woman like Bill Gates, who cleverly builds a fortune with his mighty intellect and business sharpness.

A boss of even a small wealthy company can stride around like a god, getting a lot of respect, because he or she knows that not only do people bow before the barrel of a gun, most of them bow down before every passing Mercedes or Rolls Royce.

We tend to showrespect to those who live in a mansion and fly from one important meeting to another in their personal jet or helicopter, they are special human beings we feel, who know the secrets of power and influence, and thus we should all bow down before theseelite.

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But we dont stop to thinkhow they got their money.

We dont know if they have been dealing drugs, or inherited it, or cheated a lot of other people to get what they have got.

But we respect them all the same. They get pride of place at the dinner table and in the soap opera also.

We are only reassured by the fact that their children dont seem to turn outall that well, and frequently go off the rails and do something to shame their parents.

We might guess that those who have devoted their lives to making money have had little time to devote themselves tolearning how to love , so as it takes a true, unselfish love to raise a happy child, just like the tale of King Midas, we generally have our explanation.

But in the middle of our society the star on the screen ofour real life soap opera we havea woman.

We have a tragic heroine like Princess Diana or Marilyn Monroe.

Both of these ladies lived a life like a soap opera, which was played out in the newspapers, the magazines and the TV screens.

And millions ofordinary women followed them, tried to be like them to a greater or less extent.

Countless British women for example followed every change in Princess Dianas hairstyle and dress, and made it their own, they tried to drive the car she drove, and live the life she led.

But it was a hard act to follow, and most decided that intheir lives they would miss out on copying the final scene.

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Likewise our politics has become a soap opera-like drama, with couples like Bill and Hilary Clinton in the US and Tony and Cherie Blair in the UK.

Cherie is a high court judge and million-dollars-a-year barrister, she has played with alternative therapies and lifestyles with a kookie friend who once appeared in a girlie magazine, her father was an alcoholic B-movie and stage actor who nearly died after accidentally setting fire to himself, and also neglected her as a child.

This is such fantastic soap opera material, as the saying goes,you couldnt write this stuff.

Swedish born current England football manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, around fifty-seven years old, who is paid around five million pounds a year, astounded British journalists by having affairs with a beautiful TV presenter and a very attractive secretary also in the British soccer associations offices, as well as having a glamorous long term girlfriend who was an Italian lawyer.

A newspaper tricked him into saying a few things about his current role as England manager he later regretted, by having a reporter pose as a fake Arab sheikh offering him a new job.

Again,real life is now socrazy,the soap producers could not write this stuff.

England then tried to get ex-world cup winning Brazil manager, Scolari to manage their team, but he wouldnt do it, because the press descended upon him even at the first hint of his taking this job, and he realised he would have no privacy, seeing the British would not give him the respect he desired, because they demanded thathis life be turned into a soap opera , as has happened with Sven Goran Eriksson.

But let us look at the reality.

We give a man a salary of five million pounds a year, we make him almost the most famous man in England, he is unmarried, and we fete him and invite him to every party, where he can meet the most glamorous and beautiful of women, and we imagine he will not sooner or later end up in bed with one or two?

And then we condemn him for that when he is found out.

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First we envy him, want to be him, then we condemn him for doing exactly what we would have done if we should be so lucky, lucky, lucky as him.

So we have a society that isaddicted to emotion.

Were not just as Robert Palmer sangaddicted tolove. In fact, thatsthe very last emotion we are addicted to what we are really addicted toisenvy, judgement, excess sex, possessiveness and hate.

And the soap operas do notresolve our dilemmas. They only intensify them. The morethey get sex and money and thrills and excitement, the morewe want those things too.

And of course that not only applies to the TV fictional soaps, but to the real life soaps which the TV and media news daily chronicles for us in the life of the celebrities and stars, some of whom we have mentioned.

Is this the only way to live? Must our lives always be a soap opera, with misery, fear, violence, tragedy and betrayal all around?

No.

It doesnt have to be that way.

All we have to do iswake up.

Your author wakes up a little more daily, and he merely writes to help others do so too.

But if we want life to be good and not a continual soap opera comi-tragedy, we have got to be brave.

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The lady who is addicted to soaps, she has to say hang on just one moment I have areal life here. Why notlive it , spend time with my husband and children? Its better I play some trivial game with them, and see the delight and sparkle in their eyesfor giving them my attention than watching the latest crazy shenanigans of the soap opera bullies and temptresses.They are my future after all, they arereal , and the soap opera people are just exploiters who get famous and rich by mugs like me worshipping them on the TV.

For most real joy in life is not noisy and exciting it isquiet.

Compare watching the average soap to a deeply satisfying movie like sayGroundhog Day or even an offbeat love story likeCousins with Ted Danson and Isabella Rossellini portraying a love we would likely all wish to be part of.

[thismovie was worth watching for one line alone, when the father of the character played by Ted Danson, who was a relatively poor dance teacher in the movie, described him as a failure at everything except life. ]

Or for the mens men out there, we might suggestTroy with Brad Pitt, or the TVSharpe series with Sean Bean.

Unlike the soaps, such movies inspire heroism and high ideals in us.

For in the final analysis, the satisfaction in life is not so much aboutwhatwe do , but aboutwhat we are.

A peaceful mind in harmony withitself, can go into a quiet ecstasy listening to all manner of music or looking at nice buildings on a beautiful evening stroll, or it can also do so in contemplating its own children with joy.

The emotional thrills and spills, the tabloid typeshock, horror, scandal stories that are used to captivate and hypnotise us,dont bring happiness.

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Aspre-requisites to happiness, we need understanding of ourselves and one another, caring parents to raise our children, and security and peace in our lives.

The TV is not our enemy. It is the most fantastic window on the world if we use it aright.

But surely, to use it only as a mirror and escape from the misery of our lives is not theway, and surely therefore also, this obsession with the unholy drama and violent conflict of soap operas must soon end.

For if there is one element of soaps which makes them unforgivable, unlike ourrelatively harmless Kylie and Jason pop video, that aspect is ofthe constant portrayal of conflict and violence.

As we have said elsewhere, the greatest power in life is that ofexample. What we say does not hold much sway with our children or anyone else, ifwhat we say does not tally withwhat we do , and parents in particular should remember that.

And thus realising the effect uponchildrenof all ages , i.e.all of us , of the constant exposure to scenes of conflict and violence, it is clear it should not be tolerated.

Hardly an episode of a major soap goes by without someone getting threatened with violence or punched or attacked, and most of it is violence of man against man, or boy against boy.

Whilst carefully choreographed screen violence may be entertaining it hypnotically grips our attention, due to fear real life violence is much less so.

In real life not-fun-at-all violence (unless of course, you are one of Anthony BurgesssClockwork Orange psychopaths, of which there are sadlytoo many ), people get traumatised, people get scarred, people get stabbed, people get maimed, people lose eyes and ears, people get crippled, people get brain damaged, and a fairly sizeable quantity of people even get todie.

Even statistical surveys amongst the general public show that they are much more disturbed about the amount of violence depicted on TV and in movies, far beyond their also legitimate concerns about sex.

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Butplease let not us have that tired old excuse of the soap opera and movie makers that it is justified to show these things becausewe are only showing real life.

No its the job of TV news and documentaries to show real life, not entertainment and drama, except we would argue where the overall effect issocially uplifting.

That is, as 20th century Sufi philosopherHazrat Inayat Khan pointed out in his excellent work,The Art of Personality , we all need a star to follow, and that all works of art and literature shouldeither be uplifting, and show us like the movieSpartacus an ideal to follow and aspire to, or elsethey should not be made.

Because the truth is, we areall affected to a greater or lesser degree byeverything we see, and so if we seegood , we follow the good, if we see bad, we follow the bad.

For let us honestly ask ourselves, if we show movies likePulp Fiction every night of the week with its homosexual rape scenes in a dungeon and gratuitous casual violence and murder do we really think that the statistics for sex crime and violence will goup ordown ?

We arent denying that Pulp Fiction was a gripping, cleverly scripted and well acted thriller, but it was also traumatic and shocking, and surely not suitable viewing for children.

So asat heart we are all really still children, pretending to be grown-ups, but just anxiously bumbling through our lives as best we can, is it really suitable viewing for any of us, and are these violent soaps?

For in our recent workHearing Voices & Psychic Phenomena , we talked of the necessity for censorship , which may have surprised some of our readers, especially when we had already discussed the importance offree speech in our earlier workFreedom of Speech & the Maitreya.

So now, we will explain better what exactly we meant.

That is, because we know that introducing anyidea into society via the modern media can influence millions , there is an unprecedented ability to influence people than ever before, which means that there

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is an unprecedentedresponsibility upon artists and writers and indeedall celebrities to showa good example to the public, becausewhatever is shown ,whatever a celebrity or screen actor does is certain to be imitated or emulated by at least a small percent.

For example, we have had the cannibalism inSilence of the Lambs , and then we have had real life Western cannibals, such as the German incident where a man off the Internet advertised for another to eat him, and do not forget,the knowncases may not at all show the full extent of this phenomenon, as eating a victim would tend to make impossible the detection and recovery of a body, which is usually necessary for a murder investigation and trial.

The way things are going, we ask ourselves, just how long will it be before a soap ventures into the arena of cannibalism? knowing this wouldundoubtedly attract millions of viewers, just as did the early incidents of nudity on British TV, which now would not even raise an eyebrow.

And once again, this is the problem with soaps. Webore, we tire of the same old same old.

To keep our attention they have to keep pushing the boundaries in one way or another it has to be more frightening,more violent,more sexual, the soap baddie has got to becomemore wicked and evil.

The American teen soapDawsons Creek tried to break this pattern, and one might say became arguably the first group therapy soap, in that the characters all spoke to one another as if they had swallowed a dictionary or been born with a sociology or psychology degree.

But it only took a few series, and the pressure to get beyond the holding hands and kissing stage to have some full-scale-hands-on-sex got too much for the script writers to resist, and in a critical episode we saw the ill-matched Pacey and Joey Potter going off on a boat together for the summer, and we could hardly believe that they were going to spend the whole summer alone together playing tiddlywinks.

Why was this scenario depicted?

Because having Katie Holmes character stay a virgin till she married which supposedly shedid in real life would have been far tooboring for the viewers, but as we have said elsewhere, inreal life we believe due to the intrinsic human quality of sexual jealousy as dictated by Richard Dawkins famous selfish gene ,thatreal life Dawson Leerys most definitely want to take their bride up the aisle in awhite wedding dresswithout such a ceremony actually being a sham.

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So once again, the soap writers were obliged to toss morals and ideals aside to worship the dollar.

And that is no small consideration.

An ex-acquaintance of your author who had once been a teacher of religious instruction but had ambitions to be a playwright, once eulogized to him about how the writers of soaps were getting big fat salaries, and what a cushy number that would be for an aspiring writer such ashimself ( you know, while he worked on hisserious book , which no doubt wouldntever get published).

Which brings us to this general issue ofprinciples versus success .

As the saying goes:every man has his price.

Well, do we? Do you?

For success, will you write in the sex and violence and cannibalism scenes, knowing they may corrupt the whole nation and world?

In a sense, at least the pornographers arehonest about it.

They say

Here are some pictures, movies or videos of naked people doing naughty things.Ten bucks (or whatever) please. Take it or leave it.

But the TV soap opera and mainstream movie makers say:

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Here is some award winning quality drama or even art.

But would we still watch this art and quality drama if there were no nude or sex or mutilation scenes, or violent gangsters shown accidentally blowing somebodys head off or stabbing someone with a Samurai sword?

The fact it has all been choreographed and orchestrated with great skill and wit is no excuse, because it is provoking peoplein real life to do exactly these things, for example, numerous cases of Western people using Samurai swords to threaten, maim or kill someone have appeared since that moviePulp Fiction.

At this stage in time, mass censorship is not possible, because the TV and movie companies are more powerful than commonsense.

But as soon as enough leading psychologists or criminologists or police chiefs are brave enough to come out and say in the face of the unstoppable wave of rising crime, violence and murder, that thereis an undeniable powerful cause and effect link betweenwhat we see even in fictional portrayal andwhat we do , it will happen.

But it would make things happen a lot sooner if more ordinary people would wake up to the fact that the TV soap and movie makers are just using their primitive instincts and fears against them, to get their attention and milk them of their hard earned cash.

It would make things happen a lot sooner ifwomen would wake up to and object to the fact that wholly illegal violence ofman against man at a time when zero tolerance ofviolence against women is the obsession as depicted daily in numerous soaps, is not a desirable way to resolve disputes, and just promotes and expands a bullying, violent gangster culture in society as a whole, of which they, their men and their children could at any moment bereal lifevictims .

And neither should these outrageous savage displays of hatred, and attempted violence between warring guests on Jerry Springer type shows be tolerated; people who behave in such a manner should be viewed by all as the scum of the earth, not fit to be let loose in society at large, and never allowed any publicity whatsoever, and certainly let nowhere near a TV screen.

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For where in all this isthe law ?

The law says:

wecannot threaten one another with violence, we cannot use physical force on one another, except in self-defence.

But the soap opera dramas are shamelessly and irresponsibility depicting this flagrant disregard for the law, andmorality anddecency atevery hour of the day.

So perhaps it is time to use the laws in acollective way, rather thanmerely hoping a police officer will turn up and catch the criminal when we get attacked, when generally speakingthey wont.

That is, let us have the parents of a bullied child bring a lawsuit against a childrens drama depicting bullying, saying it was a contributory factor.

Let us have those who have been attacked with a Samurai sword suing the makers ofPulp Fiction and so on, maybe as one of these famous class action suits.

Let us have those who have been a victim of gang violence in London suing the makers ofEastenders which depicts, encourages and consolidates in your authors view,so why not a jury? this kind of behaviour.

Let us have citizens suing their TVcompany foremotional distress orshock caused by harrowing scenes of real life violence shown on Jerry Springer type shows, or citing such shows as promoting violence in their children and social life.

Let us hold theseirresponsible social criminals who make this antisocial, corrupting and malevolent trash, to account, and demand they make some uplifting and wholesome entertainment instead.

We do not necessarily demand the sickly sweetness ofthe Waltons.

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We do not think for example that the excellent movieCrouching Tiger ,Hidden Dragon did anybody any harm, but was mostly uplifting, and once again, inspiring of high ideals.

But in the end, all we are saying is very simple.

The media hasthe power of mass hypnosis at its fingertips.

This power is real, it is awesome, and it is controlling our society.

So then the only question we have to answer is: shall we use this power to promoteevil , to promote bad, savage, violent, over-sexual and disrespectful behaviour; or shall we use it to promotethe good ?

And to answer that question we merely have to ask: do we want a decent, civilised, peaceful and secure society; or do we want the ugly, badly behaved violent one we have got now?

So as soon as psychologists come out of denial and admittwo plus two equals four , i.e. thatwhat we do is totally the outcome ofwhat we read and hear and see , the media will beforced to answer that question.

Then as the answer will be unavoidable due to clear logic, the soap sagas of our screens and our lives will end.

But none of usas individuals need wait that long.

We can finish the soap opera now refuse to watch it, refuse to live in it.

There isso much more to do in the vast arena of life so many lands, seas and oceans to be explored, the stars and skies even, so much to learn, to build, to create, to renew and to regenerate.

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We can make our world into a paradise, agarden of Eden, and live in love, peace and harmony with our Adam or our Eve.

We just dont have time for all this waste of our lives, so let us soon roll the last credits on the last episode of the last soapplease.

Then we can all start living for real, and find out who we really are.

Some of us might find that in real life, as opposed to the soap opera dramas, once the sets are removed and the costumes and make-up are stripped away, thatwe even like one another after all.