It’s 8 o’clock on a Wednesday evening. Mom’s in the kitchen, deep into a book. Dad’s on the phone, gossiping about the boss. Sis is in the dining-room, studying for a music exam. Little Brother’s on the hallway floor, pushing a grader over the Doberman.

Ah, it sounds the height of middle-class domesticity and familial joy in this end-of-history world, a picture-postcard perfect 21^st century post-Rockwellian idyll. But … but wait a minute! Hold it just one second! Replay that, will you? My God, there is something wrong here, something drastically perverted and nasty, something that can’t be simply glossed over with a shrug and a “moving right along … ”

Didn’t I say it was eight o’clock on a Wednesday evening? So, why isn’t this family watching TV? Why aren’t Mom and Dad, Sis and Little Brother gathered ‘round the corner shrine (blessed be thy VCR-DVD-Personal TV Recorder and holy be thy name for now we can see it all without having to choose)? Why aren’t they chuckling at the cerebral give-and-take, at the warm, friendly, family situations of the latest sitcom incarnation featuring an always-lovable Raymond while at the same time taping Space Survivor Millionaire Temptation: Being Kicked Off The Far Side of The Moon for later consumption? Why aren’t they tut-tutting over the gaffes being committed by those ex-good friends on Changing Rooms who get the fuchsia mixed up with hot pink? Have they got something against reality or something?

No, nothing so easy to remedy. This family has—shock, horror!—no TV. That’s right. You heard right. Neither $4,000 52-inch plasma screen nor $39.98 13-inch B&W retrieved from the local electronic garbage bin. In the corner where the shrine to immaculate reception should be, there’s a bent palm tree twisting and reaching for the sun. And to add insult to injury, no computers either.

How is it possible, you say (and rightfully so), in a nation that has more televisions than toilets? In a nation where the TV set has replaced the uncle as the most avuncular presence in the home? Okay, I can live with no computers–they can be difficult machines, after all, and not always truthful–but no TV?

We can dismiss off the top the idea that these unfortunates have never heard of the electronic marvel that brings startling, true-to-living-colour moving pictures into one’s very own livingroom (and bedroom and kitchen and den and …). That’s just not possible. In fact, TV is so endemic, so widespread and multi-tentacled that several conglomerates—the American Broadcasting Company and the Public Broadcasting Service among them—have put into motion a plan whereby the little all-purpose screen will be used to fight illiteracy (with a little help from the Big Arches folks).

And the excuse of extreme poverty doesn’t hold much water either. A quick tour of the modest yet cozy four-bedroom cottage reveals a well-stocked larder, closets overflowing with semi-originals, thick wool blankets on the beds, sturdy boxes filled with toys at various stages of breakage and a study jammed with a library’s worth of books. I think you’d be stretching the point somewhat if you described a family with a Group of Seven painting on the dining room wall and a family set of kayaks in the heated garage as a charity case.

Some tragic affliction, then? Some genetic visual disorder that defies the laws of probability and prevents all four from appreciating the images others take blissfully for granted: This Old House creating yet one more miracle of renovation; pumas attacking unsuspecting sloths on Untamed Amazonia; Jean-Claude Van Damme bludgeoning all and sundry into submission in The Quest?

But no. There are no signs of white canes, special scald-proof cups, hand rails or Braille readers. Besides, Mom’s in the kitchen—with a book of P.K. Page’s poetry of all things, when she could be whipping up a quick light snack to serve during the commercial breaks. Or at least have them ready so the family will be in the right frame of mind for ad-free Masterpiece Theatre. After all, even Charles Dickens knew that a full stomach is a prerequisite for sound intellectual stimulation.

So, if it isn’t ignorance, poverty or physical affliction, then it must be … it must be … one hates to say it … mental instability; a particularly virulent form of narrow-mindedness and stubborn refusal to act for their own good. There’s no other explanation. This family is missing the Global Village boat. It is cutting itself off from the mainstream of social intercourse, from the most valuable mode of information-dispersal-retrieval yet devised (Leni Riefenstahl herself couldn’t disagree). It is backing itself into a symbolic cave, a dark, dank place where the most backward and Gutenberg-unrepentant of the race still wallow in a pathetic search for linear truth and chunks of meaning over 30 seconds long. Sad, so sad.

I mean, ferchrissakes, we’re talking here about the medium that ended the Vietnam War, provided laypeople’s explanations for pinpoint Patriot missiles over-in-through Baghdad (twice now!), and gave us Kabul by twilight with bombs bursting in air. Shock ‘N’ Awe ‘R’ Us. This is the medium that allowed an in-yer-face truth or consequences blow-by-blow of the Tsunami Terror and the New Orleans Nightmare. How much more socially relevant do you want to get?

This family’s decision not to invest in the future couldn’t have been a deliberate choice on their part. Someone has to be of sound mind to be able to make proper choices. The heads of this household obviously aren’t. One hesitates to link this sort of atavism to what has been taking place in the envious under-democratized world beyond our borders but it does smack of fanatical religious fervour, does it not? There is a whiff of gunpowder to it, the twin legacies of Troglo- and Lud-d(y)itism. And who in his or her right mind would deliberately miss the heart-warming fireside chats of the Great Paternal Leader, his face downcast and churning with concern, especially for those out there unfortunate enough not to have their own fireplaces?

What’s to be done? How can this be set straight? Well, as long as the politicians refuse to address the problem, not much. There will always be recalcitrants and misfits who get a kick out of slipping through the chinks in even the most benevolent society’s netting. Those who take advantage of freedom of choice to undermine the very society that provides freedom of choice in the first place. A gracious society that allows our children to decide between careers at Wendy’s or Wal-Mart’s, Home Depot or No Frills.

Left to themselves, it is hoped they will just wither away. But the danger is that they’ll drag others down to their level. Brainwash others into no longer believing that buying Nike rather than Reebok or vice versa will bring you closer to the Dalai Lama. The laws must be changed. We have no other choice. For the well-being of all involved, for the greater good of society, it must be made a criminal offence not to be in possession of at least one television (with appropriate grants and subsidies, of course, for those genuinely unable to afford one). And—and this is important—there should be no way to turn the set off, short of denying power to the residence (perhaps to be considered as an end-of-the-line punishment for incorrigibles). There should be no way to lower the volume. And covering the set with a blanket or other object should be dealt with severely. If that sounds undemocratic, perhaps draconian, even totalitarian, consider the consequences of the current laxness:

It’s nine o’clock on a Wednesday night. Mom, Dad, Sis and Little Brother are sitting round the kitchen table. What are they doing? They’re … I’m almost ashamed to say it … they’re talking! They’re … playing games! They’re … laughing! They’re discussing poetry! They’re reciting Photos of a Salt Mine: “Like Dante’s vision of the nether hell/men struggle with the bright cold fires of salt/locked in the black inferno of the rock:/the filter, not innocence but guilt.”

With the World’s Most Amazing Videos, Law and Order SVU, hilarious-even-the-fourth-time- around Will & Grace, Investigative Reports, Larry King Live, Golf Channel Academy, The Return of Martha Stewart Living, Stargate and WWF RAW to choose from (and that’s just a sampling of regular cable, let alone satellite, both grey and legal), they’re … they’re … trying to decipher the meaning of “Photos of a Salt Mine.”

Argh!

Reading poetry when they could be watching Deal Or No Deal! Or at the very least, interfacing on Facebook. If that’s not criminal, you tell me what is?

(Photo Credit: World Wrestling Entertainment)