I recently finished the book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman.
This is a very thought provoking book and I strongly urge that everyone read it. Basically, it shows how the anti-utopia pictured in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is becoming a reality. He compares the prophecy of Brave New World to the prophecy in the book 1984 by George Orwell, and shows how that former is coming true in America. Here is an excerpt from the foreword:
"But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another--slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns us that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyrrany "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."
The basis argument that Postman uses is that the medium of communication determines the message. For example, the medium of smoke signals that indians used is very limited in the message it can convey. You can't have a philosophical discussion - the medium will simply not allow it. Similarly, an oral medium, a typographic (print) medium, and a TV medium all control the message that is conveyed in different ways, some good and some bad. Postman shows that a print based book culture leads to the development of logical, rational thinking, while TV culture leads to fragmented, decontextualized bits of information that are seen as enteraintment and amusement. It is important to note that Postman is not attacking "junk" that is on tv - there is junk in every form of communication, and people know it is to be regarded as such. He is attacking the notion that tv can be used for "serious" discourse - he shows that the very nature of tv forces nearly everything shown to be cast as entertainment, which then, among other things, trivializes anything shown.
Neil Postman makes a very convincing case that television has hugely impaired the American intellect and that culture is suffering as a consequence, be it religion, politics, or education. The only possible solution that he sees is for people to start asking questions about the influence that tv has on them - "to ask is to break the spell." He writes, "...The point I am trying to make is that only through a deep and unfailing awareness of the structure and effects of information, through a demystification of media, is there any hope of our gaining some mesure of control over television..." As a first step in becoming aware of the hidden effects that television has on you, I think everyone ought to read and consider this book.
If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?
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