Cable TV Ruins Bhutan

Christ-on-a-bike writes "This article in The Guardian discusses the negative impact of TV on the population of Bhutan. It has only been legal there for four years. Violence, crime and drug use are on the up. Was this inevitable, and what does it say about the influence of TV on Western cultures?" Our previous story about Bhutan talks about the radical impact of television, but without as much emphasis on the darker side.

Comments

Re:Wow, this story is getting around

[Selanit]

In general, I agree; television does indeed have social effects. However, I have to take issue with your third paragraph:

On the other hand, I would certainly be pissed off if the government decided I couldn't watch television because it might make me 'violent'. So it would be hypocritical for me to proscribe that for some other nation. And the self-proclaimed "dragon king" of this place has no more right either. Everyone hated the Taliban, who imposed a similar ban on Television, but loves the Bhutanese. Sure, the taliban were all-around evil people, and the Dragon King seems genuinely interested in national happiness, but still. People need to be free to make up their own minds about what information they want to take in.

1) There is not a ban on television. Nor is the government considering one. Did you read the article? If you had, you might have noticed that it says ". . . in its haste to introduce TV, the government failed to prepare legislation. There is no film classification board or TV watershed in force here, no regulations about media ownership. Companies such as Star TV are free to broadcast whatever they want. Only three years after the introduction of cable did the government announce that a media act would be drafted."

2) Comparing Bhutan's government with the Taliban is completely and totally bogus. The Taliban took power violently and sustained their rule through violence, including public executions of "criminals" such as women who committed adultery. Bhutan was founded as a Buddhist refuge. Under the Taliban, living conditions in Afghanistan became notably worse.

Bhutan's monarchy, by contrast, was not "self-proclaimed". It was set up under British influence in 1907, as mentioned here and here. That second source contains, among other things, this information: "Bhutan's third hereditary ruler, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk (reigned 1953â"72), modernized Bhutanese society by abolishing slavery and the caste system, emancipating women, dividing large estates into small individual plots, and starting a secular educational system. Although Bhutan no longer has a Dharma Raja, Buddhist priests retain political influence. In 1969 the absolute monarchy gave way to a 'democratic monarchy.'"

What's more, the article we're discussing mentions that "[In] 1998 . . . King Jigme Singye Wangchuck announced he would give up his role as head of government and cede power to the national assembly. The people would be consulted about the drafting of a constitution. The process would complete Bhutan's transformation from monarchist Shangri-la into a modern democracy."

Listen, sounds like in balance they've been pretty good for the country. Given a choice between living in Bhutan today or Afghanistan-under-the-Taliban, I would take Bhutan in a heartbeat. The main fault of Bhutan's government seems to be that they're embracing foreign ways a bit too enthusiastically. Comparing them to the Taliban does them a disservice.

Kindly think twice before posting.

Re:Why its worth it

[goombah99]

PLease make sure your next post is an apology:

here is just one of many such articles...no doubt you never saw this because it weas not in USA today, but instead in an actual scientific journal.

Chronicle of Higher Education

From the issue dated June 6, 2003

Seeking the Roots of Terrorism
By ALAN B. KRUEGER and JITKA MALECKOVÃ

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, a consensus quickly emerged that
poverty and lack of education were major causes of terrorist acts and support
for terrorism. Subscribing to that theory are politicians, journalists, and
many scholars, as well as officials responsible for administering aid to poor
countries. For example, James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank,
asserted that the war on terrorism "will not be won until we have come to grips
with the problem of poverty and thus the sources of discontent."

The consensus is bipartisan. "We fight against poverty," George W. Bush
said in a speech in Monterrey, Mexico, "because hope is an answer to terror. ... We will challenge the poverty and hopelessness and lack of education and
failed governments that too often allow conditions that terrorists can seize."
At the other end of the political spectrum, Al Gore, at the Council on Foreign
Relations, argued that the anger that underlies terrorism in the Islamic world
stems from "the continued failure to thrive, as rates of economic growth
stagnate, while the cohort of unemployed young men under 20 continues to
increase."

Many well-regarded public intellectuals also concur. For example, Elie
Wiesel claimed, "Education is the way to eliminate terrorism." And the Nobel
laureate Kim Dae Jung asserted, "At the bottom of terrorism is poverty."

With such a strong and broad coalition in agreement, we asked, what
evidence links poverty and poor education to terrorism? Perhaps surprisingly,
the relevant literature and the new evidence that we assembled challenge the
consensus. In a study we recently circulated as a National Bureau of Economic
Research working paper, we considered support for, and participation in,
terrorism at both individual and national levels. Although the available data
at the national level are weaker, both types of evidence point in the same
direction and lead us to conclude that any connection between poverty,
education, and terrorism is, at best, indirect, complicated, and probably quite
weak.

Full text
http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39b01001.h tm