movement, movement

I hope this post is a lot more interesting than the title makes it sound.

Its a response to some questions that Ashley threw out after I posted my conspiracy-theory-anti-television post last weekend. You might want to watch the video and read Ashley’s comment before continueing with this post. Or not, whatever.

Ash is right that the content of television plays a role in the numbing of the American mind. It is not alone, however, and that is primarily the situation explained by Postman’s book. The situation is two-fold, and let me explain:

The effect of television on a culture’s collective and individual mindsets (and mental capacities) can be attributed to both the content of the programming and the medium through which it is delivered (moving pictures and sound). I’ll explain the latter first.

1.

About the information exchange medium (fancy word, huh?)

However you take in information, whether it be tv, internet, books, talking, or anything else, your body and mind will adjust itself to that method. Of course these are all mixed together in an average life, but in order to illustrate its effect (in brevity) lets compare two people. Person A is the type to watch 4-6 hours of television per day (regardless of the content) and rarely thinks about picking up a book. Person B is the opposite, one who likely doesn’t even own a tv and spends as much of their free time as possible reading. According to Postman (and I agree) the difference you will see between persons A and B is everywhere from attention span to memory. One who’s mind is spent in the world of television is use to the barrage of imagery. They say to keep one’s attention an new shot or framing must be cut into a production every three seconds. One of the major focuses of the video production industry and the visual communication arts industry is to keep the attention of the person being communicated to.

Books, on the other hand, engage one’s mind in a very different way. They rely heavily on the mind’s imagination for imagery and to give concreteness to the inherent abstractness of a world seen by way of words on a page. They engage the mind in a much more personal and active way. We all know what it means to “veg out” in front of the television – something hardly possible when reading a book.

On page 72 of Amusing Ourselves To Death, Postman quotes Gavriel Salomon saying “Pictures [tv] need to be recognized, words need to be understood.” Postman goes on to say that by this he means that “the photograph presents the world as object; language, the world as idea.” Whats more, to understand an idea is to understand its abstractness. In seeing the world as object you are engaged in its concreteness. This difference is much like the difference between giving a man a fish to eat vs. teaching him to fish.

So if you were to imagine yourself in two parallel universes, in one as Person A and in the other as Person B, I think its fair to expect (in general) yourself as Person A to be much less cognative, much more emotional (there’s a difference between emotion and heart-driven) and in the here-and-now of life, not understanding where humanity as a whole as well as your own personal development has been or is going. At least when in comparison to Person B.

Really, this is such a huge topic, I can’t begin to explain all the ideas or even be sure that you (the reader) are understanding the idea that I’m talking about. Its very likely (in part due to my poor articulation of ideas) that you’re thinking about this in a completely different way than I am trying to explain, and if that be the case the only thing I can do at this point is to remind you to read the book :)

2.

So now on to the part about content.

Remember that several paragraphs ago I stated that (in whatever proportion) information content makes up part of that information’s effect on one’s mind and the other part is a result of the delivery mode of the information (ie- tv, radio, books, internet, as described above.) So within discussing information content, there are many things that determine what that content is. We can’t assume that all content delivery is unbiased. Obviously information is broadcast with a purpose. In this country, that primary purpose is capital – making profits. Yes, even tv shows and movies and the majority of what is seen on tv is produced with the purpose of generating cash-flow.

So naturally the production of moving pictures (tv and movies) is going to be based around keeping the viewers’ attention because it is that viewership that in a way generates the profit. Humanity (increasingly) loves drama, sports, sex, and much of the other filth found on the screen. This is why MTV continues to produce such trash. It drives ratings and therefore makes money.

The same goes for any content produced for profit. This includes movies, radio shows, even the news (a major point of Postman’s). Postman calls it the “Peek-a-boo” and the “And now this..” world. News is fed to its consumers with the purpose of keeping their attention, which is why a news story is often 30-60 seconds before the anchor moves on to the next calamity or tragedy that happened that day. And not only that but its not as if (for the majority of typical news stories) any of the happenings reported on truly have any sort of effect on the consumer’s life or immediate circumstances. Consumers of news watch the news, know whats going on in the world mostly just for the sake of knowing it, and move on with their lives to the next disconnected form of visual and/or immediate entertainment that comes along. This is what the dude in the video is talking about. This is what makes it an amusement park. Its all for entertainment, and entertainment is what numbs the mind.

I should also throw in a few comments about who controls the content. I don’t think any truly objective and observant person would deny that television media is primarily controlled by the political left in America, just as radio media is primarily controlled by the political right. And what drives both of these is the afore-mentioned profits. Its all about money. This same objective and observant person would also recognize that however the matrix of thought and ideas forms itself in the collective mind of a culture, money is the primary affecting agent. I can’t go into much more detail in this without writing a book but the main point of this is to say that the television industry (more than any other information exchange industry) is controlled and directly linked to the flow of money. We call this bias. Left or right, up or down, whichever direction, it is bias, and due to the inherent nature of television as an information exchange medium, it is less avoidable than other forms of information exchange. One of my favorite quotes by Postman (either in this book or one of his others) is that “information exchange is subject to the bias of the exchange medium”. This is precisely what he is referring to. To spell it out in more understandable terms: Since television encourages a shortening of the attention span, the types of information exchanged through it have that precise long-term effect on its viewers- shortened attention span (and the many other effects). It would be this way even if the content itself weren’t biased.

Ashley also made mention of “revolution of information”, and where other forms of information exchange and entertainment come in. The point is that there are pros and cons to each, some more pros or cons than the others. I think you could place each information exchange medium (tv, newspapers, internet, radio, books) on the spectrum between pure promotion of an objectified, already visualized world and promotion of an abstract idea-based world. And like I said, these things are all relative and work on many dimensions, not just the few I’m discussing. There is no perfect information exchange medium.

With all this in mind, the Internet is one form of information exchange that to me seems much more beneficial to those who choose to seek it out in all its glory. Yes, it has its negatives. Can you really believe what joe-schmoe says on the internet? How do you wade though the unimaginably massive amounts of information that are available? These are issues to conquer, but at the same time it promotes freedom of information ( not purely capital based publishing) as well as encouragement of conversation and idea exchange (blogging, duh). More on that later.

One last thing:

Perhaps another simplifying way to think of this was illustrated to me via another Postman book, Technopoly. I’ll keep it short because this post is already pages and pages long, but here’s the main idea: Each new form of technology that is invented (like television, cars, telephone, anything) has its effects on a culture. Good and bad. The bad effects aren’t always noticed, especially in a culture that worships technology. (ours, duh) An illustrating example would be the invention of the gun. There were many benefits to its invention but this is perhaps one that isn’t hard to see the negative effects. Because guns were invented, it is now easier to kill people. Thats bad. Every form of technology has these pros and cons, its just that some are harder to see or are more masked by the excitement of its benefits. Thats the entire point of this post and (for me) this discussion – to see the negative effects of an aspect of life and fight it.