THS TV series Gogglebox as a pastime if it was greatly altered

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Week 12

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Motion: THS TV series Gogglebox as a pastime if it was greatly altered
Role: Deputy Leader (gov.)

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There is a TV show which is a kind of meta show. It depicts people who watch TV and how they react to the programmes they are viewing. The format is English, but the formatting has been sold abroad, among others to my country, where it enjoys a moderate-popular-to-big-critical success. There is a demand for TV on people who are watching TV, strange as it seems. Quid est vita vicaria? Common people who relate to common people is likely one of the biggest reasons for this, but I am not content with remaining there. I would want to develop this programme to the next level, should I be given a carte blanche to break down, renew and upholster it completely for an umpteenth season.

Those Apts Are Too Clean
In the show, people sit in their neat sofas in their neat homes, collected from local chain-store furniture sellers. Because they are seen watching TV, they do not want to give an impression of being sloppy sloths, so they have probably spent some time cleaning their apartment, giving it a vacuuming, mopping, weathering and scrubbing. The end result is beige, below bourgeois, boring. Real middle-class members would have more dark colours in their homes, as dark is not worse than light. Contrasts are the flavour of living at home.

How would I change this? In my version, the apartments would be a mess. If the people had pets, they could walk around. If a home pet cat had the “Zoomies”, it would be a viewers’ delight. Unwashed dishes could be present, as their smell could not translate beyond the screen. Plastic bags filled with trash could be in the corridor, waiting to be borne out. The camera would need to be able to wander in the apartment, so that we would see how people live for real, not in a Barbie fantasy world. Real people’s homes are a mess; that’s why they do not invite these days ever anyone over, and that would need to be shown.

Those People Are Not Mean Enough
In the programme, people comment anything in a few words, not saying much. Laughter, repeating verbatim, riffing on words are the stock responses. Maybe they fear that talking over the programme would interfere with the “viewing pleasure” for the crowd who is watching. People shy away from nasty commenting, for fear of offending someone, maybe fearing a lawsuit based on slander, but that fear is ungrounded. In the privacy of their home, they would be allowed to say anything. I am relatively certain a solicitor would concur with me.

How would I change this? It would be paramount to give nasty comments as if off an assembly line. Black humour, disparages, insults, roasting the footage that was on display. Not all would, nevertheless, have to be negative. Kitchen-level philosophy could also come into play: associating something they hear or see with phenomena IRL. Creating rich allusions. The point would be to say something that the viewers liked to hear, something that was “surface-breaking” by nature. Bland comments about bland programming are not good enough. There needs to be a contrast. Bland programming needs to be outbalanced by sharper commenting.

Those Programmes Are Not Worth Viewing
The unfunny thing is that people in the show seem to like the kind of programming that has already been given the lion’s share in programming to begin with. They watch reality TV. And Gogglebox is a reality-TV show too. I understand that they do not want to rack their brains, and it’s ok!, but there is a wide variety of footage to watch that does not rack the brain. While Reality TV is the format that “anyone” is supposed to understand, in all honesty a lot of reality TV is semi-challenging viewing, which requires a full briefing and following up on what happens – all the time. It’s not the easiest genre available.

How would I change this? My grand idea would be to utilise all kinds of short programmes that are on offer out there. Animations, black-and-white goofball clips, comedy, commercials, news, short films, sports summaries, stunts, teasers and trailers would be good footage to show to almost anyone. To that you can add anything that YouTube contains, as it has by now become the world’s “favourite TV channel” in spite of itself. The bigger the contrast to reality TV the better it would be.

In my version, watching TV would be the shambolic pastime it is for most people in the world’s population. We are doing it because we cannot be arsed to do an useful thing, and we should own up to that. It would be important to acknowledge that a big percentage of the world’s population who watch TV are expats, freeloaders, inmates, unemployed, unwell and so on; NOT goody-2-shoes schoolgoing pupils or working fathers and mothers. (Many do not even have kids.) It’s only if and when we faced those facts that Gogglebox would come to terms with itself, redeem itself and ultimately perhaps even become “Programme of the Year“.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Tässä tapauksessa kannatamme likaisempaa versiota Tosi-TV-ohjelmasta, vaikka yleensä ihmiset valittavat “likaisuudesta” ja haluaisivat siistimmän ohjelman katsottavakseen. Annan parilleni näkökulmaksi Beavisin ja Buttheadin ja ohjeeksi sen, että nämä kaksi olisivat maailman tähän astisen kuluneen tv-historian kaksi parasta “sohvaperunaa” ja myös oman näkökulmani tietynlaisia esikuvia. Näin saisimme toisistamme yhtenäisen komplementaarisen tiimin.   

THR resuscitating the old TV show Juke Box Jury

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Week 4

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A Juke Box Jury in an informal setting over a table.

Motion: THS resuscitating the old TV show Juke Box Jury
Role: Member (opp.)

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An old TV show of a mixed reputation, Juke Box Jury, began broadcasting again after a hiatus of ten or fifteen years. (Edit: in truth, 19 yrs.) The show became obsolete when people landed in a position to indiscriminately download all the pop and rock music they wished for. According to a general critic born in 1964, whose judgment I trust because he was suitably mature to hear the Old School Version with receptive ears, the show “backfired in the sense that somebody always spoke too long; and the music was not understood in the way it was meant to be understood.” Hence, the points for the music were usually too low, or, in some instances, too high. And there was too much Trash Talk.

Artists’ Mutual Ratio Needs to Be “Scientifically Determined”
If the show took itself seriously, it would need to address right the question of What Will We Then Show? Namely, it is challenging, when on repeat, to say anything of substance about artists that are absolute beginners. On the one hand, you’d need back-catalogue erudition to say something of relevance by way of comparison; on the other hand, you do not want to slam too hard someone who is only starting out. The right ratio of artists to be (re)presented on the show would be 3:2:1: 3 internationally renowned artists x 2 domestically known artists x one 🃏/wildcard artist. It’s unlikely that there would be time to showcase more performances than that.

Alas, IRL the ratio is the opposite: they show 3 wildcards, 2 domestically known and 1 foreign performance. It seems the reason is that showing those performances costs. Even though it would be a cost-free ad, star artists do not give permissions to show their IP-protected material for free, like they did in the eighties–nineties, because their record sales have dropped so dramatically. Whatever IP-material profits they can make, they try to. This leads to the craven end result that showrunners show us wildcard artists ad nauseam and en masse, as their stuff is still likely free of charge to the producers, as the latter need that advertising (space).

“Erotification Mania” Ruins Everything
This was not a challenge before, but it is now. It seems the surface erotica that has crept up on us invades Juke Box Jury as well. One of the jurors showed up in a shirt that revealed his chest hair, mostly grey, not anywhere near that of an average Eighties hard-rocker. It caused your usual commenting frenzy. The female juror said that one of the artists presented was a “fu**boy”. She does not know what one is. She should be called in return a “rockw*o*e”, inasmuch as dirty talk is what she calls for.

We do not need the erotification of things that are entirely extramusical by nature. How many times have we been shown gratuitously too scantily clothed women who bare more than they should? The amount is staggering, a veritable Mount Fuji 🗻. So, stop right now moaning about chest hair. It goes with the territory that innuendo and invitations are flying in the air, but – surprise – that is not real sex. If you do not know how real sex differs from “sexualised surface”, you are having too little of the former variety. Juke Box Jury‘s development is in line with the rest of society. OnlyFans accounts have mushroomed, but they, too, sell “sexualised surface” instead of sex, on the strength of there being enough stupid customers out there.

Middle-Level Knowledge of the Vocabulary of Music Is a Prerequisite
It is also important, apart from one’s general feelings and gut reaction, to be able to say something about the specific arrangement and structure of heard music. You do not have to be on a Rick Beato or Steve Vai level to discuss it, but if the music, for instance, has a chord progression that does not vary but stays the same throughout the song, one should be able to point it out and say, say: “This song has a constant Em / D / A / Bm7 sequence behind it.” One should be able to distinguish a gated-reverb drum sound from playing with brushes. If one is so popmusically uneducated and tonedeaf to be unable to correctly point out such details, one’s place is not on Juke Box Jury duty. There is a real danger of overdoing it, so an ideal member would say such things as emphatic asides. The show is still meant as entertainment, not as a case study.

I don’t see any of my criticism happening to correct the flow of the show, so its renaissance is a dead end, a trivial pursuit. We do not want Juke Box Jury to become a music-fair showcase of barely emerging talent; that can be left to events like Lost in Music or SXSW in Austin, Texas, USA. Therefore, your best bet is to skip the show and press rewind, fast forward, pause or stop 📟 anytime it appears on the screen. Deus nobis haec otia fecit. You would spend your time much better cratedigging for vinyl in the crannies and nooks of your city than listening to hopeless people discussing hopeless music in a hopeless way.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Annan täystyrmäyksen paluun tehneelle tv-sarjalle, mielestäni oikeutetusti. Teoriassa voisin olla väärässä mutta käytännössä tuskin. Voisin toki kuvitella olevani vastakkaisellakin puolella, jolloin minun pitäisi kehua ohjelmaa, mikä voisi olla hauskaa. Kritiikkini voi esittää missä tahansa välissä; siksi esitän sen kolmantena.

THB fiction begins to be stranger than real life

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Week 51

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Ethnics in Midsomer Murders.

Motion: THB fiction begins to be stranger than real life
Role: Deputy Leader (gov.)

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Sometime in the Nillies, when John Nettles was still doing Midsomer Murders as DSI Barnaby, aided by his aide who is no longer around in the show, it was one of the most Caucasian ones around. Steadfastly, it refused to change along with the times. It was meant to portray a quintessential British count(r)yside Life. Accordingly, it had scantily room for foreigners, no matter whether they would have been immigrants, refugees or tourists. Nettles’s earlier show, Bergerac, set on Jersey, had been even more like that. MM was a show for those Brits who romanticised their past and for those Anglophiles who longed to have lived in the British past for any valid reason.

A Big Change
Then, the show changed due to outside, outsize pressure. It began to incorporate ethnic faces in its cavalcade of personnel. Little by little, ethnicities were included among bystanders, victims, village people and witnesses; but ultimately also among criminals, accomplices and perpetrators. Today, you can find just about any ethnicity in any role of agency, apart from that of Barnaby or his family. In this respect, Midsomer Murders resembles other British TV shows. Ethnic faces probably emerged first in hospital dramas, a socially conscious exclave, and from there they proliferated to all available fictive TV series.

If Midsomer County existed in Finland, it would be somewhere inland, probably in Northern Savonia or Central Finland, which is a province in its own right. These inland communities typically have few foreigners, because foreigners would prefer the bustle and hustle of Helsinki and other metropolitan, urban areas. The types of livelihoods foreigners have thrive better where the density of people is big and the networks are strong. Indian people, a small demographic in Finland compared with the UK, for instance, typically work in the hospitality business in the big cities.

Diversity Is Not Always Good
If we think about a place where you would not see any kind of ethnic diversity in Finland, that would be an upscale bar or pub. There, the clientele is exclusively Caucasian. Sometimes one can see African black men hanging around at low-price bodegas, with portions of beer priced at €3 or €4. I can guess at the reasons. Things that are prohibitive to foreigners (or white women) when it comes to drinking out are: a threat of violence, religion or the cost. Conversely, white men do not have compunctions with a threat of violence, price per stein or religious views, so they tend to be the only customer base around.

Introducing ethnic diversity in this mix would not be a good thing. It would mean that there would be more and more people with a grave alcohol problem among the overseas-linked population. It might also mean that these foreigners neglected their economy, families or religion. Caucasian men have paid a price to be able to constitute the bar population. That they do not have a blended, extended or nuclear family may be a price they have paid for being able to drink as free citizens. Now they enjoy that position, but it has not come for free.

There Is Reality, There Is Fiction and There Is a Reality Behind the Scenes
I would say that the most probable reason why ethnicities have invaded all possible platforms in fiction is not that they would be everywhere IRL. The farther you distance yourself from the capital city, the fewer their numbers are. The farther you distance yourself from the service sector, the fewer their numbers are. Nevertheless, they are likely very well represented in the machinery that creates fiction. They are on the payrolls of different agencies that broker actors, athletes, influencers, face models, Instagram posers, models and voiceover actors to different kinds of productions, typically in the capital city. On the wings of post-colonial guilt, when production companies hire them in great numbers, an impression gets created that foreigners are “everywhere”. A liberal’s consciousness/political correctness is on its own part creating illusions that are part of the Post Truth landscape.

I’m fine with the fact that we have reached a high point in hiring ethnic faces for our commercials, fictive TV series and motion pictures. But, there should be a measure of correction applied from now on and into the future. The amounts of foreigners in different roles they play in fiction should correspond to their percentages in those same roles IRL. It would mean both that there would still be roles for them to play in fiction – as different kinds of different foreigners have been a part of societies since the Middle Ages – but that that exposure and visibility would still be smaller than it appears to be today. We do not want our fiction to be so much stranger than our reality.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Keneltäkään mediaa seuraavalta ei liene jäänyt huomaamatta, että etnisyys on “räjähtänyt naamalle” mediassa, vaikka tyypillinen edullisten, paljon mainostettujen teollisuustuotteiden kuluttaja on edelleen valkoinen alemman keskiluokan jäsen. Siitä ei puhuta paljon rasismisyytösten pelossa, joten mikä sitä parempi kuin ottaa se puheenaiheeksi väittelyssä. 

THC this one Reality TV show as actually intellectually rewarding viewing

 

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Week 19

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NB. C stands for Commends

Motion: THC this one Reality TV show as actually intellectually rewarding viewing
Role: Member/MP (gov.)

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I am not a fan of reality TV, but there is one show that I actually like to watch. It’s called Dinner Date. In it, one single person is looking for love among 5 dates pre-selected by the production company. Out of them, (s)he chooses 3 with whom (s)he will have a dinner domestically cooked by the selected contestant. In the end, one will be chosen for a dinner eating out that the pair have to pay out of their own pocket. The production company pays for microwave meals for the losers, complete with a small 18.7–25 cl bottle of wine.

Choose According to Your Type
The fun part of following the show comes from trying to figure out what choices I myself as a viewer would make instead of the entrant. The first choice is “Whom would I pick out of the bunch of 5 to begin with?”. The answer lies in your own “type”. What is your type? You need to rack your brain. You’d pick people based on it. So, in this case you would choose 3 people out of 5 based on your personal history and what kind of a bar you set for your consorts. If only nil, one or two of them meets your criteria – based on just looks, name, occupation, origin and what they tell you – you have to change, complement or lower your expectations so that 3 people get chosen in the end.

You should only choose episodes that correspond to your orientation when it comes to dating companions. So, if you are a straight man, you should go for the straight episodes where the man chooses from women or the lesbian episodes where a woman chooses from women, so that the object of your affections is the right one, even if with a “twist”. That way your head is screwed right and tight between the choices you have to make. There is little point in making other kinds of choices.

Combinations per Combinatorics
The next thing is that there are in total 10 different combinations whereby a person may pick 3 people out of 5 (for instance, I, II and III, with IV and V left out). What you can do is that you pick a suite of ten things and name each of the combinations after one of them. That way, you can compare how the entrant chose and how you would choose between the contestants. A branch of mathematics that deals with alternatives like this is called combinatorics.

You should have a personal suite of ten to make it just your own. I give one example that you could use, even if it’s impersonal. It’s the planets in the solar system. Their number is eight, but you may augment them with the sun and the moon. You could name all the different ten combinations after Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, the sun and the moon of the Earth. For instance, you can say to yourself that “my choice was earthbound or Tellurian, but (s)he chose for herself or himself in a Martian or Neptunian way.”

Final Choice
What if left is the final choice; comparing how the entrant chose with how you would have chosen if you had been in his or her place. Sometimes you would feel a kindred spirit and similarity in your choice over final date – but sometimes you would feel that if that other person went out with that person you did not like that much, that better option was available to you and only you.

I agree with most people that most reality TV is dumb, heartbreaking, sick and silly, but that there are also shows that grab your attention and build up an “agility course” for you to follow and mentally play with. Dinner Date is one such show – at least to me. Even if I agree that most of it is unsalvageable, some reality TV can be viewed and experienced as “head massage”. There is that one “black swan” that makes all those other “swans” flock together in deferential submission.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). Ainoat tosi-tv-ohjelmat, jotka koskaan ovat liikuttaneet minua ovat olleet brittiläisiä. Niitä on noin 1:100 suhteessa kaikkiin tosi-tv-tuotantoihin. Puolustan omasta puolestani yhtä tuotantoa ja niin pitäisi tehdä puoleni kaikkien edustajien.

THP mindless TV entertainment to contemporary quiz shows despite their “intelligence”

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Week 43

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NB. P stands for Prefers.

“So, do you want to be a… grand man…?”

Date: 23rd Oct, 2022
Motion: THP contemporary quiz shows for their intelligence to mindless TV entertainment
Role: Leader (opp.)

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I have followed how this country has as well been ushered into the age of quiz shows that can pay off handsomely. For some reason, this was not possible before. There WERE quiz shows in the PAST as well, but their profits were meagre, not a million by any means, more in the range of a few hundred or thousand as the main prize.

What has changed in the meantime is that Stock Exchange 100 companies have gotten richer and wealthier than what they were in the past. They buy ad-time for the duration of the programs’ commercial breaks, whose pricing has increased so much so that now it is apparently OK for the production companies to lose a few 10Ks out of the “goodness” of their “hearts” to each layman contestant, not a genius by any means, and also the main prize of 1M, on condition that “wiz came to shove(w)”. What a win requires is that someone give the right answer (1 out of 4, all of which can be seen) 15 times in a row.

Quizzes Measure Trivia Savantry, Not Intelligence
What is irritating is that laymen generally equate knowing stuff with intelligence, IQ. This is not the real truth. Trivia is connected with memory, not IQ. As far as I know, memory is centred in different parts of the brain than executive brain functions, say, hippocampus vs. the frontal lobe. Yet, this popular misconception lingers. For instance, there is a jocular-popular quiz show called All But Mensa, where you are supposed to know trivia and if you do not, you’d get electric shocks or some other nasty type of reprisal. As most people know, Mensa is the society, whose member you can be if your IQ is in the three digits, the higher the better. Say 149, which is the number of Finnish MPs, an odd number so that votes can not end evenly. The thing is that the title of the show again equates a high IQ with being highly trivia-savant.

My conviction is that IQ is altogether something else than Mensa or trivia. IQ means that you can get ahead and succeed in a competitive, dynamic environment, with living opponents and changing valuations. If you have Nothing at first and carry on to have Everything, you definitely have IQ. If you can parlay what you have into something better, so that most times it is a trade up, not down, you have IQ. In cinematic terms, one who had supreme IQ on the silver screen was Tony Montana in the film Scarface. That might even explain the enduring allure of the movie.

The Wise Flock to Quizzes Instead of the Trivia-Savant
The dilemma of the quiz shows is that they have become alluring to the masses who see an opportunity to earn easy cash. According to the rules, one can keep what one has once 1/10K has been achieved. This means that most people compete just to have that 1K or 10K and return home. They are being WISE, not INTELLIGENT. They are great examples of mediocre intelligence meets mediocre memory, equalling wisdom. They drop out once their luck runs out, and it will run out. The formula is always the same. They can ask the audience once, their friend once and have two alternatives struck off once. Once they have done each of those three things and are faced with a difficult or trick question, they bail out, refuse to try their luck and quit with whatever money they have gotten.

Eliminate the Fat and Keep the Muscle
If I could, I would revitalise all the quiz shows in abolishing the possibility of “keeping what you got”. I would eliminate the WISE people who would attend to earn easy money. There would no such safety. Anyone who climbed up the wall, would climb without a safety rope. The drop could be formidable. Over time, however, quiz shows would start attracting the contestants and crowd they deserve: slightly neurologically different people who are willing to risk it to test their memory in front of a bloodthirsty audience. That is what quiz shows are really about.

In a perfect world, quiz show contestants would be a hybrid of two things: being on the spectrum of autism and on the spectrum of apathy. The former would help them to know answers to the questions, while the latter would provide them with sang-froid in the face of thickening suspense and steepening difficulty. Conversely, lively people with the polarly opposite qualities could not excel. If such a person took part and won a million (€M1), we could be relatively sure that it went to the right person. For, it is not an easy task to find employment and wealth with neuroatypicalities. That way, quiz shows would serve nationally an economical and social purpose, something that they do NOT do at the present.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Nykymuotoiset tietokilpailut saavat täyslaidallisen. Niiden katsotaan olevan rahanahneuden, ei urheilullisuuden ilmentymiä ja siinä mielessä ne eivät ole sen parempia kuin mikään muukaan viihde. Haen myös keinoa saada tämä ohjelmagenre uudestaan oikealle uralle, mikä tuskin tapahtuu.

THR present-day exclusive pay-TV programming

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Week 39

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Lou Reed sang in the seventies, “I love to watch things on TV” (in “Satellite of Love”), but one wonders what shows he could bear with back then.

Date: Sep 23rd, 2020
Motion: THS present-day exclusive pay-TV programming
Role: MP (opp.)

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My own taste in TV is such that I like to watch shows that do not stray too far from what we know as realism and reality. This, for all that, does not extend to reality-TV but to fictive entertainment. In other words, I do NOT watch shows whose key element is costume drama and an ambience set in the world of the 16th, 17th, 18th or 19th centuries (example: Poldark or Rome), science fiction (past example: Star Trek), the supernatural (example: X-Files past or present) or fantasy or horror (example: American Horror Story). There are even some shows that seem to incorporate most of the aforementioned elements into one and the same series (example: Game of Thrones). I don’t know why I’m zooming in so insistently on realism. When I was young, I always thought that Romantic literature was better than Realist literature. This did not mean that I read too many of the books associated with either literary movement.

Fast forward to today’s TV reality: most people have given up on basic terrestrial and basic cable and even basic satellite and choose their programs on computer screens after having subscribed to any of the available contemporary streaming services. We have for the first time a split audience where some watch exclusive content and others inclusive content that is available, basically, to everyone. There were signs of this already in the 80’s, when the first pay services surfaced, but then it was considered an alternative city culture mostly embraced by YUPpies and DINKs of that era. This time around, that same demographic is part of the customer base but it has also broadened to include just about anyone. And, it has brought with it changes to the way people watch TV.

Gatekeepers vs. One’s Own Taste
It’s amazing how fast people embrace things. They may read about a new show in the day’s paper in the afternoon and watch that very show in the evening on the couch. Their own taste does not seem to play a role. They read someone else’s opinion that the show is watchable and that is recommendation enough for them. If the show’s premise is ludicrous, it doesn’t matter. There is also a more sinister force working in the show’s favour, and that is FOMO. Fear of missing out is a deal-maker.

In the Meantime Elsewhere
For all this, the average viewer may not be sure about his or her choice nevertheless. A viewer may want to watch what’s on another channel every time there is a commercial break in the flow of the show. If there aren’t any commercial breaks, the screen may be split so that two shows can be shown simultaneously. Or, if two shows are not split screenwise, they may be watched episodewise alternately, so that there is one episode of THIS show after one episode of THAT show. All of these strategies again tell us of FOMO. Fear of missing out is a deal-maker. Even though people may acquaint themselves with the “new”, they also want to find about other things that may or may not be “hot”, “cool” or “tried and true”.

What offends me about people’s viewing habits is how EASILY they give up their selves when choosing their favourite or most viewed show. They do not care that the protagonist(s) of the show are nothing like they themselves. Like Friends, or Mulder and Scully. Of course some crummy TV critic identifies with Mulder and Scully, because (s)he entertained a dream about himself or herself as an FBI agent before settling on reviewing TV. That does not mean that people who have loftier careers should settle on something the TV critic settles on. Chemistry between people is difficult to generate, and therefore there is a massive supply of different kinds of protagonists in different shows with a recurring and passing cast.

The Appropriate Way to Watch TV
If you have a conservative taste in TV, it is Okay. You do not have to surf the latest macrowave of TV programming, which has sometimes been called “The Golden Age of Weird”. I suppose it all started with Lost (2004 – 2010). It is said that the show was ultimately a red-herring story, meaning a very long narrative that, when it came to a head, did not have a plausible closure or proper ending. All shows that declare at the end, “It was just a dream, folks”, are using a most craven dramatic denouement. For all that, because Lost did NOT hit a brick wall in the form of a ratings drop or a critical backlash, it seemingly, arguably, opened the door to all kinds of similar “red-herring shows” that have been filling up the pipeline ever since. Let’s keep in mind the good old saw: The TV is a good servant but a bad master.

One should watch TV in a way that does not offend one’s inherent character and taste in “popular-cinematic” art. Before choosing a TV show and giving it a permanent/transient slot on one’s weekly schedule, one should check what one’s artistic preferences are and were before the Golden Age of Weird. Many kinds of shows are still in production, not just “weird” shows. The show should ideally have screening on weekdays, so that weekends could be devoted to something else than binge watching. That way it could provide a break in the weekly schedule, while the weekend would be reserved for a more thorough relaxation. The show should also come via some other route than a wi-fi/bluetooth connection to the internet, so that one’s home would not be one giant microwave oven for hours and days on end.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): En tiedä, miten oman puoleni I tiimi tulee vastustamaan aloitetta. Ehkä he hyökkäävät maksullisuuden ajatusta vastaan molempien toimesta. Sen jälkeen, kun tahtipuikko siirtyy minulle, voin käydä käsiksi nimenomaan ohjelmistoon ja ohjelmien sisältöön myös usean ohjelman faktisen nimen mainiten. Tällä tavalla asioissa siirrytään hieman eteenpäin koko ajan, mikä on väittelemisen tarkoitus. Useissa aloitteissa on “teema” ja “reema”, joita molempia voi käyttää pontimena omalle puheelle.

Rikos ja Rangaistus eli Väite ja Varmistus

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Viikko 7

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Robbie Coltrane työpöytänsä takana tv-sarjassa.

Yksi asia, joka tulee aina uudestaan esille väittelemisessä, on argumentoinnin ja ei-argumentoinnin välinen ero. Voidaan sanoa, että vastapuoli yrittää aina todistaa, ettei toinen puoli varsinaisesti argumentoinut ollenkaan, silloinkaan kun se teki niin. Argumentti on väittelyn “kultainen kompastuskivi”, väite, jota ei voi kumota.

Asiasta on kuitenkin erimielisyyttä ja sekaannusta. Usein ihmiset väittävät vastaan, silloinkin kun heille on osoitettu väite, jota ei voi kumota. Näin ollen ihmiset usein sanovat, ettei “toisella ollut argumenttia”, kun he itse väittivät sitä vastaan (muodollisesti) näin todistaen, ettei “se ollut argumentti” (substanssiltaan). Ihmiset voivat väittää argumenttia vastaan myös, jos he eivät tunnista sitä argumentiksi, ja ovat näin selkeästi typerämpiä kuin vastapuolensa. Tämä ei ole harvinaista.

Yllättäen tässä saattaa tulla avuksi ja esimerkiksi rikossarja tv:stä. Syksyllä 2019 tv:ssä oli tosi-tv-sarja tosielämän brittirikollisista, joita esitteli pitkän linjan skotlantilainen draama- ja komedianäyttelijä Robbie Coltrane, tuttu Harry Pottereista ja ysärisarjasta Fitz ratkaisee. Ohjelman alussa hän esitti aina saman intron, jossa hän tähdensi, ettei rikoksesta voi tuomita ihmisiä pelkkien aihetodisteiden perusteella, eli ennakkoluulojen ja yksittäisten faktojen perusteella. Hän toi julki aina ennen illan rikostapauksen esittelyä, että tekijä pitää liittää murhaan tai muuhun rikokseen kiistattomien syy–seuraus-tekijöiden perusteella ja että nämä syy–seuraustekijät erottavat murhaajat sivullisista. Ilmiö on tuttu myös fiktiivisistä etsiväsarjoista. Niissä katsoja “usutetaan” usein yhden tai kahden henkilöhahmon kimppuun tarjoamalla “vedenpitäviä todisteita” näiden syyllisyydestä, kun taas oikea murhaaja saa vielä jonkin aikaa elää lain kouran ulottumattomissa.

Robbie Coltranen tv-show käsittelee primäärisen ja sekundäärisen todistusaineiston välistä eroa tosielämän rikollisuutta käsittelevässä sarjassa. Näiden kahden ero on siinä, että aihetodisteet eivät sulje oikeaa syyllistä ulos mahdollisten syyllisten joukosta mutta jättävät kuitenkin tilaa myös monille muille syyllisille. Tällä perusteella ja näiltä pohjilta vankilaan on historian varrella tuomittu kasapäin syyttömiä. Myöhemmin, kun oikea syyllinen on selvitetty tai antautunut, syyttömälle tarjotaan aivan aiheesta korvauksia syyttömänä vankilassa istumisesta.

Absoluuttinen todistusaineisto sen sijaan voi osoittaa vain yhteen syylliseen tai yksiin syyllisiin jos heitä on monta. Etsiväsarjojen te(n)ho perustuu siihen, että niissä etevät etsivät aina loppujen lopuksi osaavat rajata pois epäoleellisen oleellisesta murhatutkinnassa keskittyen todelliseen syylliseen, jonka syyllisyyttä absoluuttiset todisteet aina tukevat kiistattomasti. Siinä vaiheessa ei ole enää aikaa ennakkoluuloille, huhupuheille, sivullisten syytöksille tai vanhoille kaunoille. Vain kiistaton kolmio mahdollisuus-metodi-motiivi ratkaisee sen, kuka teki murhan tai muun rikoksen.

Tätä voi käyttää analogiana väittelyn hyvyyden analysointiin. Kun väittelijä väittää jotakin, pitää tutkia sitä, voisiko saman seurauksen aiheutta moni muukin syy tai onko seurauksen syy tuntematon. Väite, joka ei ole argumentti, on tyyppiä non sequitur, eli väitteen asiantilasta ei kiistattomasti seuraa tiettyä lopputulosta. Jos väite on täysin tuulesta temmattu, se ei edes korreloi lopputuloksen kanssa. Jos väitteessä on jotakin perää, se korreloi lopputuloksen kanssa mutta ei kuitenkaan aikaansaa sitä. Vain argumentti on sellainen väite, jossa subjekti aikaansaa väittämän jäljessä tulevan seurauksen ja tämä osoitetaan jotenkin toteen.

Hyvä väitteen tekijä ottaa opiksi murhatutkinnan metodiikasta ja käyttää samoja periaatteita. Hän yrittää osoittaa kiistattomasti, että jokin asia Y johtuu asiasta X eikä yritäkään väittää muita “syyllisiä” (Z1, Z2, Z3 jne.) syyllisiksi. Samoin kuin murhatutkija hän pyrkii järjestyksen ja lain(alaisuuksien) ylläpitämiseen ja mahdollisimman monen ihmisen hyvinvointiin, samoin kuin murhatutkija pyrkii kaikkien muiden hyvinvointiin paitsi uhrin ja syyllisen, lukuun ottamatta joitakin erityistapauksia. Filosofinen pohja on jonkinlainen utilitarismi.

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