dark matter essay
(C) 2013
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Picture
There are hardliners who prohibit any form of screen to children up to six years of age. Some even go further and abolish television from their entire life. I believe that such an attitude is not conform with the golden middle path. Dutch experimental "ipad schools" go into the very opposite direction and make the ipad the only medium of instruction. I am neither sure, if this approach is the right one. I miss the education of values in such a concept.

In our modern "information times", when according to recent surveys an average American adult spends half of his wake hours in front of a screen, it is compulsory to experience this medium as to not miss out on an important part of human life. It is equally important to find a subtle balance between wasting away in front of multimedia gadgets and completely shutting their advantages out.
Henry Kissinger writes in his magisterial work "World Order":

In the Internet age, world order has often been equated with the proposition that if people have the ability to freely know and exchange the world’s information, the natural human drive toward freedom will take root and fulfill itself, and history will run on autopilot, as it were. But philosophers and poets have long separated the mind’s purview into three components: information, knowledge, and wisdom.
The Internet focuses on the realm of information, whose spread it facilitates exponentially. Ever more complex functions are devised, particularly capable of responding to questions of fact, which are not themselves altered by the passage of time. Search engines are able to handle increasing speed. Yet a surfeit of information may paradoxically inhibit the acquisition of knowledge and push wisdom even further away than it was before. The poet T. S. Eliot captured this in his “Choruses from ‘The Rock’”:

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Communication technology threatens to diminish the individual’s capacity for an inward quest by increasing his reliance on technology as a facilitator and mediator of thought. Information at one’s fingertip encourages the mindset of a researcher but may diminish the mindset of a leader. Society needs to adapt its education policy to ultimate imperatives  in the long-term direction of the country and in the cultivation of its values.

Documentaries & television programs I deem worthwhile watching - still they provide only - albeit in a superbly prepared form - information and knowledge, not wisdom, which can be only acquired in exchange with man not with a screen only. 

Documentaries:
  • San Francisco 2.0: Alexandra Pelosi shows how tech companies moving their HQ from the Silicon Valley to downtown SF change the city's identity and dislocate those who can not keep up with the change.
  • The Economics of Happiness: recommendable film which explains how societies change from agricultural to industrial-capitalist ones and how its members lose happiness. Localization instead of globalization is explained as the key to happiness, because local communities promote genuine interaction between people. Global businesses and consumerism destroys it. That’s essentially what Leopold Kohr meant with “the source of all misery is bigness” in "The Breakdown of Nations": once things get big, they lose their humanity.
  • Zeitbombe Steuerflucht  | Evasion Fiscale: French journalist Xavier Harel unravels in this ARTE documentary the ongoing international tax evasion and the silent pact between governments and big tax firms which erodes national welfare systems and societies as we know them - Must watch.
  • BBC Civilization by Niall Ferguson
  • BBC The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson
  • Encounters at the End of the World: filmmaker Werner Herzog takes us to Antarctica and shows us what drives man and beast to go there and beyond. My favorite Herzog film.
  • BBC The Human Body by Robert Winston
  • BBC The Human Ape by Desmond Morris
  • BBC Planet Earth narrated by David Attenborough
  • BBC The Private Life of Plants narrated by David Attenborough
  • Route 1 by Robert Kramer: great 4 hour something film which covers the return of an American physician to his home country after 10 years in Africa. He and Robert Kramer travel route 1 from Canada's North to Miami and the spectator experiences with them the vast diversity of the North American continent. 

Children programs:
  • The German public tv channel KIKA (children's channel) has a great selection of worthwhile programs. Many of the below recommendations are broadcasted there. Remember that children up to age 2 shall not watch TV and children age 2-6 shall not consume more digital media that 2 hours a day.
  • Sarah und Duck: britische Animationskurzserie
  • Meine Freundin Conni
  • Siebenstein: Second hand store owner Siebenstein attends to strange customers with her two friends, Rudi the crow, and an old smartass suitcase
  • DIY granddad Peter Lustig in Löwenzahn
  • BBC Tinka Tinka Tales: animated African tales
  • Laura Stern: my daughters favorite.
  • Dora the explorer: my personal favorite for children learning English as a second language
  • Das Urmel
  • Ronja die Räubertochter
  • Pumuckl
  • Pippi Langstrumpf
  • Perinne
  • Nils Holgerson
  • Heidi
  • Mouk and Shavapan
  • Es war ein mal das leben
  • Charly und Lola
  • Weißt Du eigentlich wie lieb ich dich hab
  • Peter rabbit
  • Peterson und Findus

Chilrdren and family movies:
  • The Goonies: my own childhood favorite. A band of friends on treasure hunt. I even visited the Goonies house when we went to Seattle in 2009.
  • The Navigator: probably my second favorite childhood movie.
  • Fly Away Home: probably one of the best children movies about loss and regained self confidence. With Jeff Daniels as unorthodox inventor father providing his daughter a nourishing environment in the nature of Canada.
  • Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: classic about a flying car
  • The Wizard of Oz: classic Alice in Wonderland like tale
  • The Neverending Story: a classic book by Michael Ende turned into a hollywood movie.
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