Ever since our first podcast, The Culture of the Offended, I have really been tuned in when I read stories or see shows on TV that seem to take political correctness to the extreme. I was flipping through the channels the other night when I came across a show on TLC called “Help! I’m a Hoarder”. I only watched for a few minutes, but I saw enough to get the idea. There were several people, some couples, who’s houses were total and absolute wrecks. According to the show, and the “experts” that were interviewed, these people actually had a different brain makeup than normal people which caused them to excessively and compulsively hoard things. Organizational experts were then sent to these people’s homes to attempt to help them correct their problems.
Now, first of all I would like to establish a difference between hoarding things and keeping your house insanely messy. I’ve known lots of people who like to hold on to things more than they should, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to keep those things randomly strewn about their home. For some reason every one of the people on the show had stuff everywhere around their houses. I didn’t see one person who was obsessive about hoarding things, yet at the same time kept them neatly organized in their closets. Somehow this show as turned hoarder into a politically and socially correct term for slob.
Secondly, the shows attempted to use science to excuse the people’s problems. The reason the scientists were studying the different mental makeups of the people was to determine how to medicate them. Even if there is some genetic or mental difference between these people and everyone else, that doesn’t mean you can’t call a slob a slob. It also doesn’t mean that a person cannot through determination and self control of mind and body overcome negative genetic tendencies they may have in order to improve their own life. Adults don’t need medication or an expert to explain to them that clothes don’t belong on the floor or that your shower is for cleaning your body and not for storing junk (that was actually on the show). Sure it’s hard to overcome habits, but that’s precisely why they are called habits.
If you ask me, TLC’s title seemed to stop just a little short. Properly finished it would read: “Help! I’m a Hoarder who has no Self-control and I Deliberately Chose to Live my Life as a Disgusting Slob”.
You guys need to do a podcast about how people on TLC are stupid, and science does not describe everything. It’s like how in my sociology class, the book was talking about how there is medical evidence that people are born homosexuals. Wrong.