TV ADVERTISING, TECHNOLOGY VS. THE WORLD'S NATIVE CULTURES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 7, 1993                   TAG: 9302070238
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by MILDRED WILLIS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
TV ADVERTISING, TECHNOLOGY VS. THE WORLD'S NATIVE CULTURES
IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. Sierra Club Books. $25 (hard cover), $14 (trade paper).
If you enjoy a few comforts of the good life - and if you have concerns for the environment, the planet and your fellow man - "In the Absence of the Sacred" will challenge and shock you. This is a book about loss and change, power and progress.
Author Jerry Mander (yes, his real name) first attacks the hallowed grounds of television; then takes on modern technology, corporations and, lastly, the exploitation of native populations throughout the world. The first part is a compendium of information about almost everything you should know about the far-reaching negative effects of television on the individual, family and society.
The section on technology and corporations examines their pervasive influence on the world's economy, environment and societies. The maverick author, once a member of the advertising community, believes that corporate structure allows the corporation to avoid the human factor (i.e. community welfare) in its drive toward profit, economic growth and constant expansion. That outlook permits corporations to avoid personal responsibility for catastrophes like oil spills and Three Mile Island.
Here's Mander on television and advertising: "Advertising is the hi-art of TV. . . . Advertising is about what is not so. . . . If a corporation were not polluting, they would not be running commercials about all the wildlife and dolphins they have saved. . . . The TV medium, with its fabulous images and illusions, was designed for advertising."
The second half of the book offers a comprehensive overview of the plight of native peoples and tribes throughout the world and their struggle to retain the remaining vestiges of their culture. It's a veritable crash course: Native Peoples and Tribes of the World 101.
Mander recounts well-documented "complex and confusing agreements and cases" between corporations or governments and native peoples, agreements and cases that are only now surfacing.
Mander cites the 1990 Supreme Court (G-O Road) Gasket-Orleans decision. In this decision three northern California Indian tribes lost in their attempt to block construction of a U.S. Forest Service road within the Six Rivers National Forest. The Forest Service contended the road was needed to support timber harvesting. The Indians argued that the road would run through a sacred place used for religious ceremonies and thereby was protected under the First Amendment.
The court held that use of federal land is an internal decision of the government and no one else. Only actions that directly and intentionally coerce religious practices are prohibited. Further, the court indicated its disbelief that "Indians worshipped in nature" or that their manner of worship qualifies as religion.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said, in effect, that she did not think the native concepts of spiritual relationship to Earth could be compared to Christianity and Judaism, with their physical buildings, for those are sacred places.
As Mander see it, "with this decision our government has denied religious freedom for native Americans."
"In the Absence of the Sacred," though cumbersome in text, is a fountain of information. I came away from it feeling uneasy, somewhat frustrated but much wiser. The book exposes many historical and convoluted corporate and government developments, motivated by profit and growth, against communities and native peoples. Mander acknowledges that some may find him pessimistic, but he hopes that "describing the reality of the problem will encourage activism and not withdrawal; that knowing and learning will activate you to do something about it."
The Public Media Center in San Francisco is the agency at which Mander does something about it.

Mildred Willis has served as natural resources director for the Roanoke Valley League of Women Voters.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB