Statistics show that the average American watches television for at least 17 hours per week. If we analyze this social phenomenon from the perspectives of Aristotle, St. Augustine, Karl Marx, and Soren Kierkegaard we see each might posit different advantages and/or disadvantages to television watching, while all would maintain distinct ideas about its connection or lack of connection to the ôgood life.ö
Aristotle might see both advantages and disadvantages to Americans watching an average of 17 hours of television per week. Within his view of the good society and happiness as the ideal aim of both individual and social life, Aristotle theorized two classes of individuals; ôOne is a leisure class made up of those citizens who can participate in the contemplative life, while the other is a working class comprised of those people who lack the potential for the proper use of leisure,ö (Dare, Welton & Coe, 1998, p. 39). As such, Aristotle might find this number of viewing hours an appropriate guidance and leisure time for those who lack the potential for the contemplative life. This might be especially true if those who participate in the contemplative life were responsible for television programming. In this manner, Aristotle might view this as an advantageous thing, but if he determined there was no virtue or value in television programming that would justify spending leisure time on it, he might view it as a disadvantage to helping individuals develop the skills to participate in the contemplative life.
If television programming were similar in St. AugustineÆs time to what it is today, it is more than likely he would view spending so much viewing time as completely disadvantageous. Augustine believed society was filled with myriad temptations that lead man away from God and into sin. In The Confessions, Augustine (2001) writes that, as a youth, ôI burnt to satisfy myself with the lowest things; with reckless daring I r...