-Caveat Lector-
http://www.trufax.org/matrix5/tv.html
Socially Destructive Effects of Today's Media Programming
ELECTRONIC DRUGS
by Terence McKenna
"In his science fiction novel The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
imagined an alternative world in which World War II had been won by the
Japanese and the Third Reich.8 In Dick's fictional world, the Japanese
occupation authorities introduced and legalized marijuana as one of their
first moves at pacifying the population of California. Things are hardly
less strange here in what conventional wisdom lightheartedly refers to as
"reality." In "this world," too, the victors introduced an all-pervasive,
ultra-powerful society-shaping drug. This drug was the first of a growing
group of high-technology drugs that deliver the user into an alternative
reality by acting directly on the user's sensorium, without chemicals being
introduced into the nervous system. It was television. No epidemic or
addictive craze or religious hysteria has ever moved faster or made as many
converts in so short a time.
The nearest analogy to the addictive power of television and the
transformation of values that is wrought in the life of the heavy user is
probably heroin. Heroin flattens the image; with heroin, things are neither
hot nor cold; the junkie looks out at the world certain that whatever it is,
it does not matter. The illusion of knowing and of control that heroin
engenders is analogous to the unconscious assumption of the television
consumer that what is seen is "real" somewhere in the world. In fact, what
is seen are the cosmetically enhanced surfaces of products. Television,
while chemically non- invasive, nevertheless is every bit as addicting and
physiologically damaging as any other drug:
Not unlike drugs or alcohol, the television experience allows the
participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and
passive mental state. The worries and anxieties of reality are as
effectively deferred by becoming absorbed in a television program as by
going on a "trip" induced by drugs or alcohol. And just as alcoholics are
only vaguely aware of their addiction, feeling that they control their
drinking more than they really do. . . people similarly overestimate their
control over television watching. . . . Finally it is the adverse effect of
television viewing on the lives of so many people that defines it as a
serious addiction. The television habit distorts the sense of time. It
renders other experiences vague and curiously unreal while taking on a
greater reality for itself. It weakens relationships by reducing and
sometimes eliminating normal opportunities for talking, for communicating.
THE HIDDEN PERSUADER
Most unsettling of all is this: the content of television is not a vision
but a manufactured data stream that can be sanitized to "protect" or impose
cultural values. Thus we are confronted with an addictive and all-pervasive
drug that delivers an experience whose message is whatever those who deal
the drug wish it to be. Could anything provide a more fertile ground for
fostering fascism and totalitarianism than this? In the United States, there
are many more televisions than households, the average television set is on
six hours a day, and the average person watches more than five hours a day-
nearly one-third their waking time. Aware as we all are of these simple
facts, we seem unable to react to their implications. Serious study of the
effects of television on health and culture has only begun recently. Yet no
drug in history has so quickly or completely isolated the entire culture of
its users from contact with reality. And no drug in history has so
completely succeeded in remaking in its own image the values of the culture
that it has infected.
Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of
content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably
a tool of coercion, brainwashing, and manipulation.'0 Television induces a
trance state in the viewer that is the necessary precondition for
brainwashing. As with all other drugs and technologies, television's basic
character cannot be changed; television is no more reformable than is the
technology that produces automatic assault rifles.
Television came along at precisely the right time from the point of view of
the dominator elite. The nearly one hundred and fifty years of synthetic
drug epidemics that began in 1806 had led to disgust at the spectacle of
human degradation and spiritual cannibalism that institutional marketing of
drugs created. In the same way that slavery eventually, when no longer
convenient, became odious in the eyes of the very institutions that had
created it, the abuse of drugs eventually triggered a backlash against this
particular form of piratical capitalism. Hard drugs were made illegal. Of
course underground markets then flourished. But drugs as stated instruments
of national policy had been discredited. There would continue to be opium
wars, instances of governments coercing other governments and peoples to
produce or buy drugs-but in the future these wars would be dirty and secret,
they would be "covert."
As the intelligence agencies that arose in the wake of World War II moved to
take up their "deep cover" positions as the masterminds of the international
narcotics cartels, the popular mind was turning on to television.
Flattening, editing, and simplifying, television did its job and created a
postwar American culture of the Ken-and-Barbie variety. The children of Ken
and Barbie briefly broke out of the television intoxication in the
mid-sixties through the use of hallucinogens. "Oops," responded the
dominators, and they quickly made psychedelics illegal and halted all
research. A double dose of TV therapy plus cocaine was ordered up for the
errant hippies, and they were quickly cured and turned into
consumption-oriented yuppies. Only a recalcitrant few escaped this leveling
of values. Nearly everyone learned to love Big Brother. And these few who
don't are still clucked over by the dominator culture each time it
compulsively scratches in the barnyard dust of its puzzlement over "what
happened in the Sixties."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Television, initially conceived in the late 1940's as a technological
achievement capable of educating the entire population, was quickly put to
use as a social programming function fully capable of modifying the
thoughts, actions, emotions and behavior of the population, in short, mind
and behavior control, by projecting a synthetic version of "how reality is"
which is extremely dysfunctional, mind-bending and destructive, programming
the population to focus on sex, survival, power, greed, materialism, drugs,
violence with and without context, and other psycho-behavioral distortions
which continue the emotional binding and enslavement of the viewer.
Congress decided to let the industry "police" itself .... the fox guarding
the henhouse, despite many studies and indicators of the harm that
television is doing to the young people .... the future of society. Turn
your television off and try and listen to the voice from your Self, the
Observer, the Creator Within ....... wherein you will find the truth and
empowerment you seek. Get involved with your children, explore nature, read
books ... do something priceless.
The fact that all these studies date back decades, and it is not only still
permitted but has been "jacked up" in the levels of violence, indicates that
either the government/congress doesn't care - or that it is intentionally
being done. Your guess is as good as ours.
Facts About Media Violence and Continuous Effect on the Planetary Population
Through the Destructive Programming of Society's Future: The Children
Corporation: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without
individual responsibility.
-Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914.
Corporate Charters Presume Corporate Benefit for Public Good
If Not for Public Good, the Corporation Charter Becomes Null and Void -
That's The Law!
(Data below refers to the US, but effects relate to this type of programming
worldwide)
* In 1950, only 10% of American homes had a television and by 1960 the
percentage had grown to 90%. Today 99% of homes have a television. In fact,
more families own a television than a phone. (1)
* 54% of U.S. children have a television set in their bedrooms. (2)
* Media violence can lead to aggressive behavior in children. Over 1,000
studies confirm this link (22,23)
* Media violence affects children (22,23) by:
o Increasing aggressiveness and anti-social behavior.
o Increasing their fear of becoming victims.
o Making them less sensitive to violence and to victims of violence.
o Increasing their appetite for more violence in entertainment and in real
life.
* Media violence often fails to show the consequences of violence. This is
especially true of cartoons, toy commercials and music videos. As a result,
children learn that there are few if any repercussions for committing
violent acts.
* Children spend more time learning about life through media than in any
other manner. The average child spends approximately 28 hours a week
watching television, which is twice as much time as they spend in school.
(3)
* The average American child will witness over 200,000 acts of violence on
television including 16,000 murders before age 18. (4)
* Polls show further that three-quarters of the public finds television
entertainment too violent. When asked to select measures which would reduce
violent crime "a lot," Americans chose restrictions on television violence
more often than gun control. (5)
* A study of population data for various countries showed homicide rates
doubling within the 10 to 15 years after the introduction of television,
even though television was introduced at different times in each site
examined. (6)
* Longitudinal studies tracking viewing habits and behavior patterns of a
single individual found that 8-year-old boys, who viewed the most violent
programs growing up, were the most likely to engage in aggressive and
delinquent behavior by age 18 and serious criminal behavior by age 30. (7)
* Watching TV has been linked to obesity in children. (8)
* Studies suggest that higher rates of television viewing are correlated
with increased tobacco usage, increased alcohol intake and younger onset of
sexual activity. (9,10,11)
* Potential adverse effects of excessive exposure to media include:
increased violent behavior; obesity, decreased physical activity and
fitness, increased cholesterol levels and sodium intake; repetitive strain
injury (video computer games); insomnia; photic seizures; impaired school
performance; increased sexual activity and use of tobacco and alcohol;
decreased attention span; decreased family communication; desensitization;
excess consumer focus. (9,21)
* Fifty-five percent of children questioned usually watch television alone
or with a friend, but not with their families. (13)
* According to the National Television Violence Study, the context in which
violence is portrayed is as important to its impact as the amount of
violence. The study concluded that 66% of children's programming had
violence. Of the shows with violent content three-quarters demonstrated
unpunished violence and when violence occurred 58% of the time, victims were
not shown experiencing pain. (14)
* Forty-six percent of all television violence identified by the study took
place in children's cartoons. Children's programs were least likely to
depict the long-term consequences of violence (5%) and they portray violence
in a humorous fashion 67% of the time. (14)
* The use of parental warnings and violence advisories made the programs
more of a magnet than they might otherwise have been. Parental Discretion
Advised and PG-13 and R ratings significantly increased boys' interest in
the shows, although they made girls less interested in watching. (14)
1. Nielson Media Research, 1995
2. National Television Violence Study, issued by Mediascope, February, 1996.
3. Nielson Media Research, 1993
4. Center for Media and Public Affairs, 1992
5. Lichter, R. S., "Bam! Whoosh! Crack! TV Worth Squelching," The Washington
Times, December 19, 1994.
6. Centerwall, BS: Exposure to television as a cause of violence. In
Comstock G (ed): Public Communication as Behavior. Orlando, Fla.: Academic
Press Inc; 1989, 2:1-58.
7. Dr. Leonard Eron, University of Illinois at Chicago, Testimony before the
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcommittee on
Communications, June 12, 1995.
8. Dietz, WH and Gortmacher, SL (1985) Pediatrics, 75,807-812; and Tucker,
L.A. (1986) Adolescent, 21, 7970806.
9. Dietz WH, Gortmaker SL. Do we fatten our children at the TV set? Obesity
and television viewing in children and adolescents. Pediatrics.
1985;75:807-812.
10. DuRant RH, Baranowski T, Johnson M, et al. The relationship among
television watching, physical activity, and body composition of young
children. Pediatrics. 1994;94:445-449.
11. Gortmaker SL, Must A, Sobol AM, et al. Television viewing as a cause of
increasing obesity among children in the United States, 1986-1990. Arch
Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1996;150:356-62.
12. Physician Guide to Media Violence, American Medical Association, 1996
13. Statistics compiled by TV-Free America, Washington, DC, April 1996
14. National Television Violence Study, issued by Mediascope, February,
1996.
VIDEO GAMES AND CYBERSPACE VIOLENCE
* The Internet, a global "network of networks" is not governed by a
government or private entity. This vacuum leaves no checks or limits on the
information maintained or made accessible to users. No person or entity owns
the Internet, leaving no one accountable for the accidents which occur on
its highways. (15)
* The incidence of violence on the Internet is difficult to quantify because
the technology has moved faster than our capability to monitor it. Evidence
of violence is anecdotal rather than statistical mainly because
communication on the Internet is private. Reported cases of abuse are
relatively infrequent, but as the technology continues to advance, there is
potential for great harm as well as great good. (15)
* The Internet could become a stalking ground for child molesters who have
moved from the playground to the Internet attracted by the anonymity it
offers. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has
documented more than a dozen cases in the last year of cyberspace seduction
by pedophiles in which children were lured by on-line predators into
traveling to locations hundreds of miles from their homes where they were
then sexually assaulted. (16)
* The Oklahoma bombing suspect obtained a copy of the "Turner Diaries," a
book which advocates the violent overthrow of government, off the Internet.
Whereas before, one would have had to know exactly where to look and be
pre-disposed to search for the book, the Internet made it easily accessible
to a global audience. (17)
* Although there has been less research on the effects of violence in video
games and the Internet because they are new and changing technologies, there
is little reason to doubt that findings from other media studies will apply
here too. Young children instinctively imitate actions they observe, without
always possessing the intellect or maturity to determine if such actions are
appropriate. Due to their role-modeling capacity to promote real world
violence, there is deep concern that playing violent video games, with their
fully digitalized human images, will cause children to become more
aggressive towards other children and become more tolerant of, and more
likely to engage in, real-life violence. (18)
MUSIC VIOLENCE
* The Parents Music Resource Center reports that American teenagers listen
to an estimated 10,500 hours of rock music between the 7th and 12th grades
alone - just 500 hours less than they spend in school over twelve years.
(19)
* Entertainment Monitor reported that only 10 of the top 40 popular CDs on
sale during the 1995 holiday season were free of profanity, or lyrics
dealing with drugs, violence and sex. (19)
* A recent survey by the Recording Industry Association of America found
that many parents do not know what lyrics are contained in the popular music
their children listen to. (20)
* In September 1995, Warner Music Group bowed to public pressure and
announced it was severing its 50% stake in Interscope Records, home to Nine
Inch Nails and controversial rap artists Snoop Doggy Dog and Dr. Dre. Rap
artists simply turned to a different distribution network and their CDs
continue to hit the stores with lyrics which glorify guns, rape, and murder.
(20)
15. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C., 1996.
16. National Center For Missing and Exploited Children, Arlington, Virginia,
1996.
17. Militia Task Force/Clan Watch, Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery,
Alabama, 1996.
18. Robert E. McAfee, M.D., Immediate Past President, American Medical
Association, Testimony before House Energy and Commerce Committee
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance, June 1994. Provenzo, Eugene.
Video Kids: Making Sense of Nintendo. Harvard University Press, 1991.
19. Entertainment Monitor, December 1995.
20. "An Unbiased Voice in the Word War," The Washington Post, November 8,
1995.
21 Anyamwu E, Harding GF, Jeavons PM, et al: "telephillic syndrome" in
pattern and photosensitivity epilepsy: report of three cases. East Afr Med
J. 1995;72:402-405.
22. "Media Violence," AAP Committee on Communications, in Pediatrics, Vol.
95, No. 6, June 1995.
23. "Suggestions for Parents: Children Can Unlearn Violence," in the Center
for Media and Values (now the Center for Media Literacy) Media and Values,
No. 62, 1993, "Media and Violence: Part One: Making the Connections."
ELECTRONIC HEROIN
In the PLUG-IN DRUG, Marie Winn says that television is an addictive drug:
"When we think about addiction to drugs or alcohol we frequently focus on
negative aspects, ignoring the pleasures that accompany drinking or
drug-taking. And yet the essence of any serious addiction is a pursuit of
pleasure, a search for a 'high' that normal life does not supply. It is only
the inability to function without the addictive substance that is dismaying,
the dependence of the organism upon a certain experience and an increasing
inability to function normally without it. Thus people will take two or
three drinks at the end of the day not merely for the pleasure drinking
provides, but also because they 'don't feel normal' without them.
"Real addicts do not merely pursue a pleasurable experience one time in
order to function normally. They need to repeat it again and again.
Something about that particular experience makes life without it less than
complete. Other potentially pleasurable experiences are no longer possible,
for under the spell of the addictive experience, their lives are peculiarly
distorted. The addict craves an experience and yet is never really
satisfied. The organism may be temporarily sated, but soon it begins to
crave again.
"Finally, a serious addiction is distinguished from a harmless pursuit of
pleasure by its distinctly destructive elements. Heroin addicts, for
instance, lead a damaged life: their increasing need for heroin in
increasing doses prevents them from working, from maintaining relationships,
from developing in human ways. Similarly alcoholics' lives are narrowed and
dehumanized by their dependence on alcohol.
"Let us consider television viewing in the light of the conditions that
define serious addictions.
"Not unlike drugs or alcohol, the television experience allows the
participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and
passive mental state. The worries and anxieties of reality are as
effectively deferred by becoming absorbed in a television program as by
going on a 'trip' induced by drugs or alcohol. And just as alcoholics are
only vaguely aware of their addiction, feeling that they control their
drinking more than they really do ('I can cut it out any time I want-I just
like to have three of four drinks before dinner'), people similarly
overestimate their control over television watching. Even as they put off
other activities to spend hour after hour watching television, they feel
they could easily resume living in a different, less passive style. But
somehow or other, while the television set is present in their homes, the
click doesn't sound. With television pleasures available, those other
experiences seem less attractive, more difficult somehow.
"Finally it is the adverse effect of television viewing on the lives of so
many people that defines it as a serious addiction. The television habit
distorts the sense of time. It renders other experiences vague and curiously
unreal while taking on a greater reality for itself. It weakens
relationships by reducing and sometimes eliminating normal opportunities for
talking, for communicating." [p.p. 23-25, Marie Winn, THE PLUG IN DRUG;
Penguin, 1977. ISBN - 0-14-007698-0]
According to the Washington Post, Terence McKenna's FOOD OF THE GODS
"Deserves to be the modern classic on mind-altering drugs and
hallucinogens." In this modern classic, McKenna convinces us that television
is emotionally equivalent to electronic heroin: "The nearest analogy to the
addictive power of television and the transformation of values that is
wrought in the life of the heavy user is probably heroin. Heroin flattens
the image; with heroin, things are neither hot nor cold; the junkie looks
out at the world certain that what ever it is, it does not matter. The
illusion of knowing and of control that heroin engenders is analogous to the
unconscious assumption of the television consumer that what is seen is
'real' somewhere in the world. In fact, what is seen are the cosmetically
enhanced surfaces of products. Television, while chemically non-invasive,
nevertheless is every bit as addicting and physiologically damaging as any
other drug.
"Most unsettling of all is this: the content of television is not a vision
but a manufactured data stream that can be sanitized to 'protect' or impose
cultural values. Thus we are confronted with an addictive and all-pervasive
drug that delivers an experience whose message is whatever those who deal
the drug wish it to be. Could anything provide a more fertile ground for
fostering fascism and totalitarianism than this? In the United States, there
are many more televisions than households, the average television set is on
six hours a day, and the average person watches more than five hours a
day-nearly one-third of their waking time. Aware as we all are of these
simple facts, we seem unable to react to their implications. Serious study
of the effects of television on health and culture has only begun recently.
Yet no drug in history has so quickly or completely isolated the entire
culture of its users from contact with reality. And no drug in history has
so completely succeeded in remaking in its own image the values of the
culture that it has infected.
"Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of
content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably
a tool of coercion, brainwashing, and manipulation. Television induces a
trance state in the viewer that is the necessary precondition for
brainwashing. As with all other drugs and technologies, television's basic
character cannot be changed; television is no more reformable than is the
technology that produces automatic assault rifles." [p.p. 218-220, Terence
McKenna, FOOD OF THE GODS; Bantam, 1992. ISBN 0-553-37130-4]
BRAINWASHING
"The fact that TV is a source not actively or critically attended to was
made dramatically evident in the late 1960s by an experiment that rocked the
world of political and product advertising and forever changed the ways in
which the television medium would be used. The results of the experiment
still reverberate through the industry long after its somewhat primitive
methods have been perfected.
"In November 1969, a researcher named Herbert Krugman, who later became
manager of public-opinion research at General Electric headquarters in
Connecticut, decided to try to discover what goes on physiologically in the
brain of a person watching TV. He elicited the co-operation of a
twenty-two-year-old secretary and taped a single electrode to the back of
her head. The wire from this electrode connected to a Grass Model 7
Polygraph, which in turn interfaced with a Honeywell 7600 computer and a CAT
400B computer.
"Flicking on the TV, Krugman began monitoring the brain-waves of the subject
What he found through repeated trials was that within about thirty seconds,
the brain-waves switched from predominantly beta waves, indicating alert and
conscious attention, to predominantly alpha waves, indicating an unfocused,
receptive lack of attention: the state of aimless fantasy and daydreaming
below the threshold of consciousness. When Krugman's subject turned to
reading through a magazine, beta waves reappeared, indicating that conscious
and alert attentiveness had replaced the daydreaming state.
"What surprised Krugman, who had set out to test some McLuhanesque
hypotheses about the nature of TV-viewing, was how rapidly the alpha-state
emerged. Further research revealed that the brain's left hemisphere, which
processes information logically and analytically, tunes out while the person
is watching TV. This tuning-out allows the right hemisphere of the brain,
which processes information emotionally and noncritically, to function
unimpeded. 'It appears,' wrote Krugman in a report of his findings, 'that
the mode of response to television is more or less constant and very
different from the response to print. That is, the basic electrical response
of the brain is clearly to the medium and not to content difference....
[Television is] a communication medium that effortlessly transmits huge
quantities of information not thought about at the time of exposure.'
"Soon, dozens of agencies were engaged in their own research into the
television-brain phenomenon and its implications. The findings led to a
complete overhaul in the theories, techniques, and practices that had
structured the advertising industry and, to an extent, the entire television
industry. The key phrase in Krugman's findings was that TV transmits
'information not thought about at the time of exposure.'" [p.p. 69-70]
"As Herbert Krugman noted in the research that transformed the industry, we
do not consciously or rationally attend to the material resonating with our
unconscious depths at the time of transmission. Later, however, when we
encounter a store display, or a real-life situation like one in an ad, or a
name on a ballot that conjures up our television experience of the
candidate, a wealth of associations is triggered. Schwartz explains: 'The
function of a display in the store is to recall the consumer's experience of
the product in the commercial.... You don't ask for a product: The product
asks for you! That is, a person's recall of a commercial is evoked by the
product itself, visible on a shelf or island display, interacting with the
stored data in his brain.' Just as in Julian Jaynes's ancient cultures,
where the internally heard speech of the gods was prompted by props like the
corpse of a chieftain or a statue, so, too, our internalized media echoes
are triggered by products, props, or situations in the environment.
"As real-life experience is increasingly replaced by the mediated
'experience' of television-viewing, it becomes easy for politicians and
market-researchers of all sorts to rely on a base of mediated mass
experience that can be evoked by appropriate triggers. The TV 'world'
becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the mass mind takes shape, its
participants acting according to media-derived impulses and believing them
to be their own personal volition arising out of their own desires and
needs. In such a situation, whoever controls the screen controls the future,
the past, and the present." [p. 82, Joyce Nelson, THE PERFICT MACHINE; New
Society Pub., 1992, 800-253-3605; ISBN 0-86571-235-2 ]
TV MUTANTS
There have been many studies which suggest that television increases
violence, increases tribalization, shortens attention span and lowers school
performance among heavy viewers. But that is not my concern here. Instead, I
am concerned that watching television instead of reading tends to degrade
the minds of heavy viewers so that they can not think in abstractions such
as "cause and effect." In other words, the 100 billion dollars spent on
advertising each year, has simply burned abstract reasoning out of their
minds.
Today with functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) and positron
emission tomography (PET), researchers catch brains in the very act of
cogitating, feeling or remembering. The scans show that blood flow varies
depending upon the type of activity the brain is occupied with. In other
words, a child that grows up on a heavy diet of TV viewing has a physically
altered brain. Once adulthood is reached, it is still possible to enhance
brain function but it requires much more effort. Needless to say, it is
naive to expect TV-mutants to "figure it out" anytime soon.
In AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, Neil Postman provides a brilliant analysis of
our TV-mutant society:
"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy
didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots
of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we at
least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
"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 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 we would be reduced to
passivity and egoism. Orwell feared 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 tyranny 'failed to take into account man's almost infinite
appetite for distractions.' 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."
[p.p. vii-viii]
"From Erasmus in the sixteenth century to Elizabeth Eisenstein in the
twentieth, almost every scholar who has grappled with the question of what
reading does to one's habits of mind has concluded that the process
encourages rationality; that the sequential, propositional character of the
written word fosters what Walter Ong calls the "analytic management of
knowledge." To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought,
which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and
reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to
detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to
compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another.
To accomplish this, one must achieve a certain distance from the words
themselves, which is, in fact, encouraged by the isolated and impersonal
text. That is why a good reader does not cheer an apt sentence or pause to
applaud and even inspired paragraph. Analytic thought is too busy for that,
and too detached." [p. 51]
"I will try to demonstrate by concrete example that television's way of
knowing is uncompromisingly hostile to typography's way of knowing; that
television's conversations promote incoherence and triviality; that the
phrase "serious television" is a contradiction in terms; and that television
speaks in only one persistent voice-the voice of entertainment. Beyond that,
I will try to demonstrate that to enter the great television conversation,
one American cultural institution after another is learning to speak its
terms. Television, in other words, is transforming our culture into one vast
arena for show business. It is entirely possible, of course, that in the end
we shall find that delightful, and decide we like it just fine. That is
exactly what Aldous Huxley feared was coming, fifty years ago." [p. 80, Neil
Postman, AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH; Penguin, 1985. ISBN 0-14-009438]
Copyright (c) 1988- Leading Edge International Research Group
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sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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