In the very first chapter of his 1968 book High Priest, Dr. Timothy Leary, Harvard professor, author, and psycho-activist, lays out the basis for his famous slogan, "Turn on, tune in, drop out":

The TURN ON was God. All things were made from the TURN ON and without Him was not anything made. In this TURN ON was life; and the life was the light of men. It has always been the same . . . TUNE IN means to bear witness to the Light, that all men might believe. TUNE IN means that you sit in the debris of your shattered illusions, and discover that there is nothing, you are nothing except the bearer of the wire coil of life, that your body is the temple of the Light and you begin once again to build a structure to preserve and glorify the Light . . . DROP OUT means detach yourself tenderly, aesthetically, harmoniously from the fake-prop studio of the empire game and do nothing but guard and glorify the Light.

If you didn't know anything about Leary, if you didn't know that he was describing his first psychedelic drug experience in 1959, you might think he was writing about a religious or deeply spiritual experience, and you would be right.

If you only knew of Leary from the mainstream media coverage, you might be quite surprised to read this explanation of the terms that became the slogan. The slogan, you may have thought, was the war cry of a counter-culture, which urged people to take drugs and drop out of society. And you would be right.

Well, Toto, we're not in the '50s or '60s anymore. The black and white world back then had only three channels of information and entertainment, and journalism was as much about reporting, writing, and photographing the news as it was about editing, managing, and spinning it.

In 1950, only five to 10 percent of American homes had a television. By 1960, more than 90 percent did. In the 1960 presidential election, 62.8 percent of registered voters went to the polls, compared to 48.9 percent in 1996. The decline in citizen participation in this basic exercise of democracy is just one of things discussed by Harvard professor Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone, his book chronicling the downward trend of civic engagement and social connection over the last 42 years.

In the chapter on technology and mass media, Putnam points to the correlation between the increase of television viewing, especially the dependence on television for entertainment, and civic disengagement. While careful not to propose a cause and effect relationship, he cites three possibilities for the correlation:

* Television competes for scarce time.

* Television has psychological effects that inhibit social participation.

* Specific programmatic content on television undermines civic motivations.

If you're one of those people still wondering what you can do to help heal our nation and the world, consider the radical act of TURNING OFF your television more often than you do now. There couldn't be a better time to try this, or to see where you measure on the use-misuse-abuse-addiction scale since April 22-28 is TV TURN OFF Week, which encourages children and adults to watch much less television to promote healthier lives and communities.

This campaign is supported by 65 national organizations, such as the American Medical Association, the National Education Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. You can find out more at the official Web site, www.tvturnoff.org, and others, like www.adbusters.org.

There is some very interesting research about our relationship with the plug-in drug in a recent Scientific American cover story on TV addiction. The latest Science magazine has a piece on a 17-year study showing a surprising correlation between TV viewing and violent behavior among adolescents and young adults. We know now that there's a connection between lower grades and a TV in a student's bedroom. The percentage of sixth-graders who had a TV in their bedrooms went from six percent in 1970 to 77 percent in 1999. You do the math -- if you can.

TURNING OFF is just the first step, although admittedly a big one. In doing so, however, you've already entered the next step of TUNING OUT the consumer culture and propaganda-injection that's a part of much of TVland. If you can't TURN OFF yet, try just TUNING OUT the commercials by muting the volume and getting up off the couch and doing something productive, or at least active. Have I mentioned the link between TV viewing and obesity? Try choosing the shows you want to watch and only turning the TV on when they're scheduled, rather than leaving it on all the time and channel surfing until (or if) you find something worth watching.

I know this suggestion may sound scary to many of you. I wouldn't even suggest it if I hadn't tried it myself and discovered that there is life, I mean LIFE, on the other side. I'm a TV addict, a visual learner. I love the medium. I still feel that the box, like all of us individually, has the potential for greatness. A recent Simpsons episode, for example, offered a brilliant message about drug use of all kinds. Using medical marijuana, of all things, Homer learned that a drug-induced state can be a nice place to visit, but it's probably not a wise place to live.

Unfortunately, as the poet T.S. Eliot once wrote about television, "It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome."

This is where DROPPING IN comes in. What do you do with that free half-hour, or hour, or four hours, if you're a typical American and you're going cold turkey for TV TURNOFF Week? DROP IN means getting more engaged with your family, your neighbors, or your community. Call someone you've been meaning to talk with but haven't. Have a conversation with your family over dinner. Go online and visit some new Web sites. Do your taxes, and, if you're unhappy about federal or state spending priorities, write a letter explaining why you're subtracting some part of what you owe ($9.11 perhaps, or $10.40?) as a token of your opposition.

You can find out about tax resistance as citizen action at www.nwtrcc.org. Read a newspaper, a magazine, or a book. Visit your local library. Check out some documentaries, an independent movie, or a foreign film if you need an alpha state fix. Volunteer. Go for a walk. Go bowling. Get involved with your spiritual community or create a new one. Religion is no longer the opiate of the masses. The media is, especially television. As author Umberto Eco has written, "A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection, not an invitation to hypnosis."

TURN OFF the images for as much or as long as you can. TUNE OUT the consumerist and propagandist messages. DROP IN to real life. Guard and glorify the Light. It's not as painful as you might imagine. Even if it is, try staying with the pain a while and see what's on the other side. The Buddha said life is suffering. Our job is learning how to effectively respond. TURN OFF, TUNE OUT, DROP IN.

Issue Date: April 12 - 18, 2002