H.L. Mencken wrote, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
These days, the average American is bombarded by menacing hobgoblins: environmental catastrophes, coming pandemics, moral declines and the End of Days. Scary stuff.
Most of it imagined, of course.
In an effort to create even more hobgoblins, Colorado – using a grant from the federal government – will soon join the always educational and amusing world of reality television with a program called “What if? Colorado.”
When the show debuts, likely sometime in the fall, Coloradans will be able to watch the high jinks of local participants, videotaped over several days, responding to simulated disasters.
The program, from what I can tell, will be very much like “The Real World.” Except there won’t be any vapid sexual encounters or entertainment value – just a lot of scrambling for Band-Aids, hydrogen peroxide and bottled water.
Perhaps the show’s producers would be better served filming the everyday lives of parents.
The problem, I’m told, is that 80 percent of you slackers, despite desperate pleas from bureaucrats nationwide, refuse to shell out a couple of dollars for emergency packs and such. Worse, you refuse to believe that disaster is waiting around the corner.
How can you be convinced? Well, Colorado health officials – demonstrating their high regard for your intelligence – believe that producing a reality show was a perfect way to get the job done.
(I’m not sure what’s worse: that they believe a reality show is the answer or that it may be true.)
“It doesn’t have to be a huge catastrophic event, you realize,” explains Jim Dissett, relations manager at GroundFloor Media, the company producing the show. “A good example were the blizzards we had last winter. If you recall, the first one hit on Dec. 20, and in a couple of days, grocery stores were reporting shortages of milk and water. Basically this was because people were not prepared.”
Actually, a snowstorm during your vacation in Cancún can be classified a disaster. A snowstorm in Colorado is called “winter.”
But if you truly believe that snowstorms are tragedies rather than skiing opportunities, keep your eyes open for “What if? Colorado” auditions soon. Details – channel, time and place – are all still to be determined.
“It’s going to be an education tool,” Dissett explains. “And the reality program is just one component of the education. A couple of years ago, the federal government … spent a lot of money on a campaign to make sure people were aware of the potential problems they face. If you look at data, an informal survey showed that a large percentage of people are aware of danger but they are not prepared.”
This “informal study” – conducted, surprisingly enough, by GroundFloor Media while pitching this idea – illustrates that most of you are aware of the hobgoblins, but aren’t interested.
“It’s just about engaging,” Dissett says. “It’s not a passive show. It’s not like people seeing a billboard or a television commercial that doesn’t make them get off the couch.”
Evidence, however, suggests that no amount of nagging will spur those who don’t want to be engaged to engage.
This week, for instance, The Associated Press reported that $1 billion in federal educational programs aimed at curbing childhood obesity have been a failure.
And they’ll always be a failure until parents stop feeding their children junk. No program will change that fact.
I do have my own “What if?” though. A wish, really. What if government stopped trying to “educate” everyone and stuck to doing what it does best? Filling potholes. Taking out the garbage. Messing up the budget. Starting wars.
Etc. …
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
