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Author Topic:   Amusing Ourselves to Death
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 13 (152201)
10-23-2004 3:44 AM


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?

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Coragyps, posted 10-23-2004 10:48 AM General Nazort has not replied
 Message 3 by Minnemooseus, posted 10-23-2004 12:32 PM General Nazort has replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 2 of 13 (152249)
10-23-2004 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by General Nazort
10-23-2004 3:44 AM


I'll have to find that - it sounds similar to my views on TV.
I sure am glad that I'm a Beta!

This message is a reply to:
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Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 3 of 13 (152268)
10-23-2004 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by General Nazort
10-23-2004 3:44 AM


Advertisements
There was the quote, attributed to some Marxist and/or communist and/or socialist, which was something to the effect "Advertisement is to get the people to buy something they don't want and don't need". At the time I heard it, it was some capitalist trotting it out as a condemnation of communism.
Even the many years ago I heard that quote, I thought of it as a "great truth". I have probably since become even more cynical.
Advertisements generally are not sources of information. They are psychological manipulations. I tend to look upon it such that "Anything being advertised is not worth buying".
Moose

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by General Nazort, posted 10-23-2004 3:44 AM General Nazort has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by General Nazort, posted 10-23-2004 1:04 PM Minnemooseus has replied

  
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 4 of 13 (152279)
10-23-2004 1:04 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Minnemooseus
10-23-2004 12:32 PM


Re: Advertisements
"Advertisement is to get the people to buy something they don't want and don't need".
Lol, ya that is a good quote. I find it really funny how you have no idea something existed, then all of a sudden you see a commercial for it and you "have" to have it.
Postmant actually addresses advertising in this book - comparing the advertising before the media revolution to advertising afterwards. Through most of American history, until aorund 1890, advertising was "essentially a serious and rational enterprise whose purpose was to convey information and make claims in propositional form. Advertising was, as Stephen Douglas said in another context, intended to appeal to understanding, not to passions." But with the modern form of advertising, consisting of pictures, slogans, jingles, etc, this radically changed. "By the turn of the century, advertisers no longer assumed the rationality on the part of their potential customers. Advertising became one part depth psychology, one part aesthetic theory. Reason had to move itself to other arenas."

If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Minnemooseus, posted 10-23-2004 12:32 PM Minnemooseus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by RAZD, posted 10-23-2004 8:46 PM General Nazort has not replied
 Message 6 by Minnemooseus, posted 10-23-2004 11:46 PM General Nazort has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 5 of 13 (152443)
10-23-2004 8:46 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by General Nazort
10-23-2004 1:04 PM


Re: Advertisements
tv is no longer the demon of america, it's place is being replaced by the world net, involving not just PC's but cell phones and PDA's
in one sense the world will be even more chopped up by commercialism -- the ads that adversly impinged on the information on tv
but in another there will be more continuity as people follow threads of though from page to page
it will be interesting to see if we can get out of the 15 second attention span gift of tv ads

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

This message is a reply to:
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Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 6 of 13 (152471)
10-23-2004 11:46 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by General Nazort
10-23-2004 1:04 PM


Re: Advertisements
I don't think I got the quote totally right, thus I included the "which was something to the effect". The proper version is probably better.
The great flood of "bad advertisements" makes it difficult to impossible for businesses to actually present "good advertisements" that will get them good results.
Do you think the "bad advertisements" are effective? Or are the businesses meerly supplying "wallpaper", that isn't paid attention to?
To me, the best advertisements are ones that have some entertainment value. The prime example: The old "Lite Beer" commercials. While I really wouldn't want to buy the beer, I did almost feel a certain obligation to, to support the entertainment productions.
Moose
{Edited to yet again change ID from the admin mode}
This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 10-23-2004 10:48 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by General Nazort, posted 10-23-2004 1:04 PM General Nazort has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by General Nazort, posted 10-24-2004 12:12 AM Minnemooseus has not replied
 Message 8 by MangyTiger, posted 10-24-2004 12:17 AM Minnemooseus has not replied
 Message 9 by TechnoCore, posted 10-24-2004 8:58 AM Minnemooseus has not replied

  
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 13 (152477)
10-24-2004 12:12 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Minnemooseus
10-23-2004 11:46 PM


Re: Advertisements
Do you think the "bad advertisements" are effective? Or are the businesses meerly supplying "wallpaper", that isn't paid attention to?
Oh yes definitely they are listened to, otherwise companies would not spend so much money on advertising. I think advertising is quite effective to get people to buy stuff - but modern advertising, in most cases, appeals to our emotions - thus they are "bad" in the sense that they bypass reason. But "bad" in the sense of ineffectiveness - definitely not.
Here is the example Neil Postman gives of how advertisements used to be - it sounds pretty funny to us nowadays, though.
Whereas many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their fore-teeth by accident, and otherways, to their great detriment, not only in looks, but speaking both in public and private:- This is to inform all such, that they may have them re-placed with false ones, that look as well as the natural, and answers the end of speaking to all intents, by Paul Revere, Goldsmith, near the head of Dr. Clark's Wharf, Boston."
This advertising is all reason and no emotion. It presensts a proposition to be considered - that having missing teeth is annoying, and that you can get new ones that are just as good as real. Compare this to modern advertising, where you show a happy baby eating with food all over - "Buy Gurbers Baby Food!" There is not really a proposition except what the viewer reads into it.

If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Minnemooseus, posted 10-23-2004 11:46 PM Minnemooseus has not replied

  
MangyTiger
Member (Idle past 6353 days)
Posts: 989
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 07-30-2004


Message 8 of 13 (152478)
10-24-2004 12:17 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Minnemooseus
10-23-2004 11:46 PM


Re: Advertisements
The Lite commercials are an excellent example of the value of providing entertainment.
The first time I lived/worked in the States was 1982. I was in central Iowa, the only beer available was the big brands and they all tasted disgusting to me (they were served so cold you couldn't really taste them - and if you let them warm up they were horrible).
I ended up drinking Lite all the time simply on the basis they had the best ads (this was before the introduction of the Swedish Bikini Team or whatever they were called).

Confused ? You will be...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Minnemooseus, posted 10-23-2004 11:46 PM Minnemooseus has not replied

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TechnoCore
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 13 (152515)
10-24-2004 8:58 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Minnemooseus
10-23-2004 11:46 PM


Re: Advertisements
Bad ads surly work. Here in sweden there's alot of commercials that are seemingly dubbed really bad from german to swedish, or even swedish dubbed to swedish, with out-of-sync speech. It annoys the hell out of a viewer.
My father has a video production company, and sometimes he's involved in TV-commercials, he told me that it's purely intentional. Thev've found out that people tend to remember annoying things more than pleasant things. And when you are in the store chosing between this toothpaste or that, average person takes the one they remember best.
Personally I never buy things with bad commercials. Hate to suppoer out-of-sync speech.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Minnemooseus, posted 10-23-2004 11:46 PM Minnemooseus has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 10 of 13 (152524)
10-24-2004 10:31 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by MangyTiger
10-24-2004 12:17 AM


Re: Advertisements
A lot of this reminds me of Marshal MacLuhan. He had some wry observations about the media and the culture. Some sample quotes from him:
  • Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
  • With telephone and TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is
    sent.
  • The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.
  • All advertising advertises advertising.
  • The future of the book is the blurb.
  • I read one of his books...Understanding Media I believe was the title. Quite a thinker, this guy. Here is more that I gleaned about his methods:
    Gingkopress writes:
    McLuhan's words stretch and bend, or reverse conventional thinking, providing surprising new contexts and challenges to what he termed the hidden environment. Environments in McLuhan's sense are colossal misconceptions that have little legitimacy in experience. Because they envelop us in a world-view, environments are intrinsically imperceptible. Trapped inside the environment, like Plato's cavemen or fish in a tank, environments escape notice, and make us aware of only a very limited field. An 'environmental thinker' is for McLuhan a gullible actor who merely mimics expertise. Regurgitating concepts cud like, he is blissfully unaware of the closed circuit within which he swims as he surrenders perception. Environments swallow us whole. We depend on an outsider, or a foreign element, or a bygone era, or a radical contrast of any sort, to bring wakefulness. These are called counter-environments. Without them, environments remain imperceptible. Like the distorting imagery of the surrealist, McLuhan's percepts/probes ambush the environmental thinker, the faithful believer in the emperor's new clothes. He is knocked out of his conceptual armor. Anything in opposition to the conventional order can be a counter-environment: new technologies, street art, dream interpretation, crime, novel ideas, cults, minority groups or opinions, any form of satire, anything that topples normalcy and offers a fresh gestalt or disorientation. The bold language of the probe is counter-environmental. It doesn't require truthfulness as such in every case, though it may hit upon it frequently. The purpose of the probe is to stretch the truth in into a what-if mode. Often, the surprise element is saved for the end, as in ''privacy invasion is now one of our most important knowledge industries'', or ''obsolescence is the moment of superabundance''. Claudel's line ''the sky was so blue only blood could be more red'' is typical of the poetic strategy of participation in depth by break-up. Languages that lack sensuous imagery are environmental.
    This message has been edited by Phatboy, 10-24-2004 09:37 AM

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 8 by MangyTiger, posted 10-24-2004 12:17 AM MangyTiger has not replied

      
    watta
    Inactive Member


    Message 11 of 13 (167333)
    12-12-2004 8:06 AM


    "Amused to Death" is the title and theme to a cd of Roger Waters [ex-Pink Floyd] in which he musically and lyrically explores issues that relate to those mentioned above.It would appear that the author named has taken Water's title for his book The cd by Waters is my favourite piece of music and I can recommend it for the political and socisl comment included.

      
    contracycle
    Inactive Member


    Message 12 of 13 (171934)
    12-28-2004 3:42 PM


    Well to be strictly fair, I think waters must be riffing off Postman, as the book seems to have been published in 1986 and the cd in 1994.
    But that said you are quite right that Waters is deliberately referring to Postmans work. And quite right to say it is a truly superb album, and probably my favourite single album of all time.
    We watched the tragedy unfold
    We did as we were told
    We bought and sold
    It was the greatest show on earth
    But then it was over
    We ohhed and aahed
    We drove our racing cars
    We ate our last few jars of caviar
    And somewhere out there in the stars
    A keen-eyed look-out
    Spied a flickering light
    Our last hurrah
    Our last hurrah
    And when they found our shadows
    Grouped 'round the TV sets
    They ran down every lead
    They repeated every test
    They checked out all the data on their lists
    And then, the alien anthropologists
    Admitted they were still perplexed
    But on eliminating every other reason
    For our sad demise
    They logged the only explanation left
    "This species has amused itself to death."

      
    contracycle
    Inactive Member


    Message 13 of 13 (171935)
    12-28-2004 3:47 PM


    Modern advertising is a peace-time application of the same techniques and technologies used for mass propaganda during WW2 and some of the subsequent Cold War. The archetype of modern advertising is the Kitchener poster declaiming that "your country needs you". And anturally amid a western idealisdation of private enterprise, if propaganda is being deployed for commercial purposes rather than for those of the evil state, then it can't be a problem can it?

      
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