COLUMN: An Artificial

From Marc Teillon's "The Public Pillory," Fall '95 Even community service is as easy as one two three. Call up UNICEF, give them my credit card number and let the computers charge me seventeen cents a day. My good deed for the year is done and I only had to give up one measly cup of coffee. As far as sexual experience is concerned, progressive society has covered that as well. In case your mother doesn't believe you read Playboy for the interviews and forbids your subscription, there are convenience stores and newsstands at every corner selling airbrushed hussies and Latoya Jackson. If you are worried about hair on your palms or simply missed the Joycelyn Elders press conference on self-gratification, never fear. Technology has come to the rescue. Just strap on the sensors and goggles and presto -- a beautiful women, who wouldn't even let me take her to dinner, wants to do the electronic tango for three bucks and some change. Think about it. No embarrassing trips to buy condoms, no fatal diseases, no morning regrets. Just the market satisfying the demand and video arcade owners as pimps. If a politician feels compelled to intervene because some nutty religious constituent is haranguing in his ear about the immorality of high-tech whoring, then the government should hire an economist to do cost-benefit analysis to ensure the socially optimal output if virtual reality orgies are produced. Anyway, people are sick of taxes and as long as cigarettes, those evil products that trick consumers into addiction, are getting beaten to death by the lobbyists, a pornography tax might not be a bad way to generate a little revenue. Over the holiday break, I had my wisdom teeth removed and continued my virtual reality experience. For three days straight I sat on the couch, lamented my swollen appearance, and caught up on all the fantasies I neglected for the previous four months. Despite the time I lost to channel surfing, I have come to one conclusion: experience today is artificial, a technological surrogate for the real thing. This probably explains the rage over the show The Real World where viewers can live vicariously through third-rate comedians and odd-looking men who refer to themselves in the third person. Follow them through their jobs and relationships and if your lucky, you might develop pseudo-friendships with Pedro and Puck. When I lived at home the summer after my freshman year, I didn't know half the people on my street. But I sure knew everything about Eric the surfing econ major making fun of Jon, the wanna-be Garth Brooks, for sitting around all day and doing nothing but drink cool-aid and listening to country music. Kind of ironic. It was like I was living in San Francisco but wasn't. I avoided life like I avoid it every time I play Sega Genesis because I feel like blowing off my accounting homework or avoiding going to class. Life is hard, and all computer graphics, video games and music synthesizers want to give us is the good without the evil, the beauty without the pain. This may seem admirable, but having someone else do all our work is never the same as doing it ourselves. By no means am I suggesting that all technology is evil or even bad. Television brought information into our living rooms and the Internet speeds up the process. But, as a cultural critic once said, "Television [and for that matter most other technological components of popular culture] makes us all passive and impotent spectators of a fantastic world, which little by little replaces the real world of every day life." A tool is an instrument assisting the body in accomplishing the task. This implement makes man stronger or faster or more efficient. But once man becomes an extension of the machine, he is made weak and servile. If television allows you to have instantaneous updates on the happenings in Congress and on the stock markets, then television is not an idiot box but a tool. If not, and you find yourself skipping classes to watch soap operas or halfbacks on Court TV, then close the blinds and lock the doors and make sure life does not interrupt the technological fantasies and electronic sensations. Oh, the vanity of it all! Marc Teillon is a junior Finance major from Liverpool, N.Y. The Public Pillory appears alternate Wednesdays.

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