L2L-010 Overdoing Catharsis

In this episode I discuss how television affects the brain, including the repression of certain fight/flight/help reactions to violence, which seems to give rise to a change in the way one experiences real life—one becomes "at home" in the watching of fiction, and real life situations start to have less consequential weight in one's mind. In the podcast I liken this to an overdose of "catharsis," the emotional purging which happens when we are able to experience fear, terror, dread, in a safe environment such as a dramatic play or movie. However, this disconnect is not just due to television—it is fed by our ever-increasing use of electronic substitutes for real communion with one another. The increasingly passive approach to real life versus the appetite for consumable eye-candy is likened to the faith versus works discussion.