The Horror of Entertainment

                Entertainment has been a paradigm for leisure activities for centuries, and its force has been continuing to grow. The amount of time that is dedicated towards entertainment in today’s society has unrelentingly escalated, but the quantity of time for tranquility is having devastating effects. Although entertainment has many positive attributes for a society, it also possesses the capability to ruin a society.  Immense amounts of time that is utilized for the sake of viewing moments of pleasantry have the aptitude, according to Neal Gabler, “to overturn all morality, poison the springs of domestic happiness, to dissolve the ties of our social order, and to involve our country in ruin.” Masses of people are persistently viewing entertainment that has been epitomized to hinder society’s growth. Entertainment is a device of havoc for a society, because of its prevailing capacity to eradicate its fundamentals and principals. 

                As tribulations begin to threaten a society, the tidings of entertainment will become trivial, but the contributions made from education will prove to be a greater use. Edward R. Murrow, a CBS correspondent during the Cold War, utilized television broadcast to further progress the education of society by terminating the Red Scare; Murrow’s ambitions ceased the fallacious claims made by Joseph McCarthy about many suspected communist that were said to be in government administrations. While many Americans franticly agreed with McCarthy and his actions of prosecuting innocent and illusory communist sympathizers, Edward R. Murrow used an apparatus for entertainment to educate the masses on McCarthy’s incongruous claims. Murrow would later be viewed as a hero to a country in pandemonium, and he illustrated that entertainment has an insignificant value compared to education’s merit. He once proclaimed, “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.” Edward R. Murrow understood the power of entertainment. He comprehended it can do many things for a society, but those qualities are only miniscule compared to the likings of education. Moreover, entertainment is worthless because it cannot teach, and it cannot save humanity like other mechanism can do; without the means of education, which entertainment does not provide, society would be determined to fail. Entertainment is an endeavor that has the ability to ruin a society, because of its worthless attributes.