Use of Rushkoff's "Time Binding" in West Wing's "Isaac & Ishmael"

One of Rushkoff’s most interesting points was the idea that humans are capable of what he described as “time binding.” “We can take the experiences of one generation and pass it on to the next generation through language and symbols. “We can still teach our children things like hunting or fishing in real time, but our lessons can be compressed into stories, instructions, and diagrams,” (Rushkoff 137). This idea of passing lessons down through generations is a tried and true habit of humans. From the orally passed teachings of Homer, which warn us against things such as hubris; to the written warning against strong government, such as that of Orwell’s 1984, humans have passed down their combined findings of the world to future generations. This has allowed people to learn from the collective knowledge of their society, rather than take the large amount of time required to learn each lesson through personal experience.

            Now, in the age of technology, this “time binding” has moved from the medium of writing to the medium of television. This use of time binding in television can be clearly seen in the show, West Wing, during their episode Isaac and Ishmael, a reaction to the events of terrorism. Many people in America had never witnessed such a large terrorist attack before, and therefore did not know how to respond. However, the combined information that the writers of West Wing had (undoubtedly passed down to them from other generations, even further removed), had the ability to give viewers a fresh perspective on terrorism. For example, Bradley Whitford is able to explain to the students he is talking to (and in turn the viewers of the show) that not all Islamic people are terrorists through the analogy: Islamic extremists are to the Islamic faith as the KKK is to Christianity. Although I have been able to realize through my own time binding experience that all Islamic people are not terrorists, I had never heard such an analogy, and was very impressed by this new perspective. This perspective is one that may not have been available to the terrorism-shocked Americans in the 21^st century, aside from those who were directly involved with the Islamic people, and only became available through the human art of time binding.

            On the other hand, John Spencer, the man who interrogated Rakim Ali, the Arab-American working in the Whitehouse, was not aided by time binding. When Spencer learned that Rakim Ali (a fairly common Arab name) came up as both the alias of a known terrorist, as well as one of the men who worked in the Whitehouse, he immediately began to viciously interrogate the man working in the Whitehouse. Throughout the interrogation, Spencer continued to antagonize Rakim, accusing him of all sorts of things, simply because he was an Arab-American. In the end, Spencer was informed that the man he was interrogating was in fact innocent, and had to apologize profusely. Unable, or at least unwilling, to rely on the time binding from past generations; Spencer had to learn from his own experiences that all Islamic people are not terrorists, which was a much more painful experience.

Work Cited:

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock. New York: Penguin Group, 2013. Print.
"Isaac and Ishmael." West Wing. Writ. Aaron Sorkin. Dir. Christopher Misiano. Warner Brothers, 2001. Web.