Blogging Ourselves to Death?
My latest book was dedicated to Neil Postman, the magnificent social theorist who died in late 2003 at age 72. No single intellectual has exercised such a dramatic influence on my thinking and it has been my privilege to teach entire university-level communication theory classes based solely on his work.
Pleased I was, then, to see the long piece on Postman appearing on Jay Rosen’s Pressthink blog and written by Postman’s son, Andrew. Twenty years after its writing, Andrew asks if his father’s best-known work, Amusing Ourselves to Death, stands up to the test of time? Can a book written in the mid-1980’s warning of the rise of TV culture have any relevance today in the age of I-Pods, picture cell phones and mass blogging?
The answer, of course, is a resounding yes. Andrew’s piece demands to be read in its entirety. I do, however, want to point to one compelling section. Postman, the son, recounts how other professors still utilize his father’s book. One professor uses the book to aid in an experiment she calls an “e-media fast". She demands that her students abstain from the use of all electronic media – TV’s, radios, computers, cell phones etc. etc. – for one sustained 24 hour period and then write up their experiences in a paper:
“The papers I get back are amazing,” says the professor. “They have titles like ‘The Worst Day of My Life’ or ‘The Best Experience I Ever Had,’ always extreme. I thought I was going to die, they’ll write. I went to turn on the TV but if I did I realized, my God, I’d have to start all over again. Each student has his or her own weakness – for some it’s TV, some the cell phone, some the Internet or their PDA. But no matter how much they hate abstaining, or how hard it is to hear the phone ring and not answer it, they take time to do things they haven’t done in years. They actually walk down the street to visit their friend. They have extended conversations. One wrote, I thought to do things I hadn’t thought to do ever. The experience changes them. Some are so affected that they determine to fast on their own, one day a month. In that course I take them through the classics – from Plato and Aristotle through today – and years later when former students write or call to say hello the thing they remember is the media fast.
”Like the media fast, Amusing Ourselves is a call to action. It is, in my father’s words, “an inquiry…and a lamentation,” yes, but it aspires to greater things. It is an exhortation to do something. It’s a counterpunch to what my father thought daily TV news was: “inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action.” Dad was a lover of history, a champion for collective memory and what we now quaintly refer to as “civilizing influences,” but he did not live in the past. His book urges us to claim a way to be more alert and engaged. My father’s ideas are still here, he isn’t, and it’s time for those of a new generation to take the reins, natives of this brave new world who understand it better.
Andrew’s essay and his father’s classic book are not, necessarily, a reactionary rant against change and modernity. Amusing Ourselves, instead warns that as a society we allow and encourage the advent of new technologies without ever first reflecting on what consequences they will bring. We invent “solutions” for problems that don’t really exist. And without thinking about it – usually until it’s too late—we radically reshape our own environment with no regard to the concurrent consequences.Neil Postman recurred to a clever device to make his central point. He juxtaposed two different but equally dark visions of a totalitarian future: George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World. In the former it is Big Brother who watches us. In the latter vision – the one that Postman most feared—we volunteer to watch Big Brother. We most risk being enslaved by what we love rather than by what we hate and hates us.
In the more immediate sense, how do the Internet and blogging fit into this equation? Are blogs merely an extension of the TV culture of endless amusement and trivialization? Or are they, as some of the commenters on the piece contend, a valiant return to and defense of embattled typographical literacy? Or both?
February 8th, 2006 at 12:03 am
This is a very good post.
Blogs are an extension of TV culture. The pieces are mostly short and filled with sound bites. A bunch of John Stossels old “Give Me a Break” rants.
The comments are mirroring the talking heads. People insulting each other. People making extreme comments to encourage an argument for the sake of argument. Not exactly a town hall meeting and despite what some think, hardly democratic.
The worst thing is that almost everyone is anonymous. That is awful and sets and awful course for our culture.
Blogs are also celebrity obsessed. Almost all blogs, left or right follow the sleazy Drudge or Smoking gun path of trying to “expose” things or people.
Blogs are good for finding tailor made information. You kind find someone who you agree with most of the time or someone you despise. But rarely does anyone seem to search for new ideas in the bloggosphere, mainly because the World Wide Web does not seem to offer all that much. The really interesting ideas are still in books. While the internet makes the search for enlightening ideas MUCH easier, the library is still the place to be.
I am one that thinks things are just getting worse in American culture and that blogs are another gadget that we are not really thinking about. When dailies are gone and you only read news that reinforces what you already think, and when investigative journalism is gone, we will not have time to go back and change things.
I work in the music biz the and same thing is happening. Big Box retail have ruined independent retailers and turned music into a loss leader. No longer will some record story clerk turn on some young person to Ludwig’s 9th. They will spend all night on myspace downloading music that was made entirely on a computer using protools and auto tune so it can be “perfect” and so real musicians are no longer needed. Music is the perfect model for what technology can do to culture. Music used to be a language based on composition. Now it is reduced to entirely engineered, layered files of noise, with very little real instrumentation.
I may sound like a luddite and so be it. In modern American, technology and unrestrained capitalism along with a public culture will in decline, have merged to create a sinkhole that is our culture.
February 8th, 2006 at 12:47 am
I’ll take this chance to tell a little Postman story, even though it’s not entirely on topic. I know a man who had Postman as an advisor on his dissertaion, and I used that connection to meet Postman one time when I was in New York.
He laid out one of the best off the cuff lines I had heard in years. He needed to delay our meeting for a few minutes, so I asked if there was a cash machine near by that I could run to. Without missing a beat he said, “Why, NYU is a cash machine.”
I had a nice visit with him. He talked baseball. I noted, pimping him just a little, that he didn’t have a computer on his desk. He replied, “I’ll get a computer when someone can show me the need for it.” He paused. “I feel the same way about cruise control,” he added.
It was a great meeting with someone I’ve long admired, and he was super gracious.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Marc,
Did you ever read The Age of Missing Information by Bill McKibben?
I had a similar experience here.
February 8th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Reading on the net, much less writing (whether blog posts or comments) seems like a completely different, much less passive experience than watching television. It seems, in fact, by comparison with TV news, to be the very thing Postman was calling for, “a way to be more alert and engaged.”
Both TV watching and net surfing (even with a high degree of participation) can certainly displace physical activity and personal interaction, but the two media have very different effects on the person who spends time
with them.
February 8th, 2006 at 10:45 am
I once heard an Amish poet speak who said, “we try to imagine not just what technology does for us, but what it does to us.” Course the Amish can be a bit knee jerk but the principle is a good one.
Simply reducing the internet to an extension of television culture as Josh does is foolish in the extreme. The defining features of television are its passivity and commercialism. Television rarely requires any mental exertion from it’s viewers (good-by Arrested Development) and must always cater to a large audience, advertisers, and those scary media watch groups.
The internet invites participation. It provokes and, often, listens. Watching Robert Novak debate may not be so educational but I assure you that debating him would be. On the web, you can be sure your ideas will be challenged with statements like, “foolish in the extreme.”
The internet is made for niche views and bringing together people who otherwise wouldn’t have an intellectual or cultural community - even people living in the same neighborhood or town (think Backfence.com). The commercial component online is entirely optional, meaning that smaller, offbeat voices can still speak out and be heard.
I’m hardly a blog or net triumphalist, arguing that the internet displaces other media or that it uniformly improves our writing and thinking. To the contrary, before blogging I would never turn in a composition written so haphazardly and without all my ideas neatly thought out and organized. But outside the academy or think tanks, Americans aren’t really engaging in this kind of political discourse at all (and certainly not with such competent and diverse an a crowd) so it’s hard not to see this as a place growing political, cultural, and historical literacy.
February 8th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Well it helped get rid of George Deutsch so that’s a good thing. You have the NYTimes citing the blogger Nick Anthis who got the scoop on Deutsch’s lack of a degree and lying about it to NASA. A Bush appointee assigned promote religion and water down science press releases. Nice work.
February 8th, 2006 at 11:36 am
Far be it from me to counter the thoughts of someone who works in the music industry (Josh) but I’ve had the exact opposite reaction to music in the past few years. A lot of it has to do with discovering L.A.’s KXLU station which I find filled to the gills with a wide variety of music of all types I was mostly unaware of. Certainly one can argue that “mainstream” music is mostly dead (though I like a some of it too, though I agree right now we are in a serious dry spell) but with a little searching around I’m finding all sorts of great music. And the web has been an essential positive part of that search, be it from people sending me mp3s or finding articles mentioning groups I’d otherwise never hear of. Additionally, when I meet local musicians now they can usually refer me to a web site whereas in the past they’d fade into the ether.
I think the internet has its own traps (I mostly agree political discourse on the web is doing more damage than good) but it’s certainly not a passive experience. It’s quite engaging and has more pluses than minuses.
February 8th, 2006 at 11:40 am
We most risk being enslaved by what we love rather than by what we hate and hates us.
+
[Alvy confronts Annie about having an affair]
Alvy Singer: Well, I didn’t start out spying. I thought I’d surprise you. Pick you up after school.
Annie Hall: Yeah, but you wanted to keep the relationship flexible. Remember, it’s your phrase.
Alvy Singer: Oh stop it, you’re having an affair with your college professor, that jerk that teaches that incredible crap course, Contemporary Crisis in Western Man…
Annie Hall: Existential Motifs in Russian Literature. You’re really close.
Alvy Singer: What’s the difference? It’s all mental masturbation.
Annie Hall: Oh, well, now we’re finally getting to a subject you know something about.
Alvy Singer: Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.
=
Most of Cyberspace and the bLog-o-sphere is one big circle jerk.
February 8th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
“We most risk being enslaved by what we love rather than by what we hate and hates us.”
Marc,
That is an interesting notion, because as in relationships the things that initially attract you to someone often become the same qualities that you eventually find repellent.
It is interesting to read what Edward R. Murrow said about television in 1958: “ To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention.
But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.”
I personally agree that technology, as well as other scientific discoveries, can have a duality of purposes– innovations can be used to enlighten or they can be manipulated to implement nefarious deeds. It all depends on the objective of those in control and those who are willing to be controlled.
“In the more immediate sense, how do the Internet and blogging fit into this equation? Are blogs merely an extension of the TV culture of endless amusement and trivialization? Or are they, as some of the commenters on the piece contend, a valiant return to and defense of embattled typographical literacy? Or both?”
As far as “blogging” goes—it is not similar to TV—it is not a passive activity , since it requires interacting and responding to all of Marc’s interesting insights.
Although I do suppose, that there are some that just read the blogs but never respond to them. But then again, reading requires the ability to translate and understand abstract symbols and thought processes, so that it in itself, justifies it as a less passive activity than merely watching TV.
Murrow’s prophetic statement that television could become “merely wires and lights in a box,” has unfortunately become true.
February 8th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Will,
It is not about music being good or bad. It is the way it is produced. With NO real muscianship and with total dependence on compters. You don’t even have to sing anymore with Autotune. It is not music.
This sort of describes many bloggers. They do not write anything, just post stories and included little tid bits. Not journalism.
February 9th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
I’m coming to this discussion a bit late — but it does seem worth pointing out that things have grown even more complex since Postman’s day.
For one, whatever else one has to say about the blogging, e-mail, and the rest, they require reading and writing. Back in the seventies and eighties, talk of a post-literate age was rife. While annoying acronyms abound, and that far from making me ROTFLMFAO, they make me cringe, reading and writing is still a requirement, even if our epistolary skills are somewhat short of eighteenth century authors.
The other is that television today is far, far more interesting than it’s been at any time in my life. I went to film school, and most of us turned up our noses at TV. I could write a very long list, but I’ll limit it to two. The first is “The Daily Show”, which is a prolonged invitation to reconsider the masticated semi-information that most news media provide us. The second is the retooled “Battlestar Gallatica” — the original was a brain-dead idiocy (with some pre-Reagan era anti detente propaganda thrown in). The new version is something else again — a novelistic look at how socieities cope with extreme stress.
I’m not saying we wouldn’t all benefit from Postman’s media fast idea. But I’ve spent my life listening to people saying that things we’re better twenty years prior, and I’m really not at all sure that’s true. In terms of challenging mass media, I think we may be a lot better off than we were in the era of “Dallas” and “Top Gun.”
February 9th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
On the other hand, it’s awfully easy to post something, like what I just wrote, with way too many typos/missing words/thoughts in it…..
March 10th, 2006 at 8:59 am
I’ve stumbled upon this conversation about amonth after the last post, so I feel justified in providing a summarial comment on the whole thread.
One of Postman’s contentions was that television as a medium is inherently assertionless, in the sense that while nearly every written sentence is a proposition that can be either true or false, a visual image is simply an image. This passivity, the fact that our minds are not being forced to either accept, reject, or suspend judgment on what they are being presented with, was central to forming his idea that a medium inherently excludes certain content. So looking at todays blog situation, it seems that this thread itself pretty easily shows that sustained rational argument is not ‘inherently’ exluded by the blog medium. There are certainly digressions, but writers are no less intellectually engaged for the fact that their interests wander.
As Elanor menitoned above, there is the issue of duality of use in all technology. However, since most television is made possible by corporate sponsorships which have a vested interest in not making any important (and therefore potentionally contentious or controversial) assertions about the world, the possibility of it being used for intellectually satisfying ends is reduced. Some corners of the internet suffer from the same ailment, but areas like this are equally accessable.
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