Actually John, I have to disagree. TV is, like everything else in life. 90% crap. But the 10% is very good - we just have to be selective and discerning.
And I'm talking across popular (US) genres too, sit-coms, serial dramas, satirical cartoons, not just intellectual and high-brow stuff. Pragmatism can be fun - you know it makes sense. Regards Ian (PS talk-shows and reality-TV easily populates 80% of the the 90% all by itself.) On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 7:55 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > "Truth, like time itself, is a product of a conversation man has with > himself about and through the techniques of communication he has invented." > > This according to Neal Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, in his > chapter on Media as Epistemology. What a cool title for a chapter. > > "We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some > weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through > into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the > whooping cough" > > This according to Thoreau in Walden. And what cranky Hank would say about > J. Timberlake and friends is easy to imagine. > > "I raise no objection to television's junk. The best things on TV are it's > junk, and no one and nothing is seriously threatened by it. Besides, we do > not measure a culture by its output of undisguised trivialities but by what > it claims as significant. Therein is our problem, for television is at its > most trivial and therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high, > when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations. > The irony here is that this is what intellectual and critics are > constantly urging television to do. > > The trouble with such people is that they do not take television seriously > enough. For, like the printing press, television is nothing less than a > philosophy of rhetoric. To talk seriously about television, one must > therefore talk of epistemology. All other commentary is in itself trivial" > > Yeah, now I remember why I stopped reading this guy years ago. He was > saying the exact same thing as Jacques Ellul, except in English. American > English as opposed to English Translated from the Philosophical French. I > got so excited I went back and read more Ellul. > > > I get a universal reaction I when I talk about the fact that I don't have a > tv, or it comes up - which it does all the time since the main topic of > conversation anymore isn't the weather. "hey, didya see xxxxx on tv last > night?" > > The reaction I get when I say "Nah, I don't have a tv" is first shocked > amazement, and then agreement along the lines of "I don't watch it much > myself. I just like the history channel." > > And somehow, this freaks me out more than if everybody just stuck with porn, > jerry springer and cop car chase crashes. > > Because lets face it, even if the shows that unlock the secrets of the > cosmos and history were absolutely real, the artifice of method transfers > that reality into something different than reality. A virtual manipuable > reality, yeah that could be bad. > > But what's worse is the degrading of humanity into programmable robots. It > takes a careful reading and interpretation to decode what is in the word. > It is work. Staring at a flickering tv screen burns less calories than > sleep or staring at a blank wall. It's easier, it's more efficient, but it > destroys intellect. > > Sometimes pragmatism isn't so much fun. > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
