Three cheers for Ian! I was hoping it would eventually penetrate your tv-fogged brain :)
> OK, John, so I get that point now ... I see where it was in the > original mail, but I had struggled to see which were quotes and which > parts you were taking exception to. ... Ok, more careful formatting is called for on my part. Compose my points with a more simple layout, smaller bites, and perhaps a few graphics so that even a tv-watcher can follow the argument. Seriously, one of the points Postman makes is that Americans used to listen to six, seven hour debates. It was a functional development of what he called "the typographic mind". What we have today he calls "the show business mind". A completely differing mind set evolves and appeals to reason run second to appeals to aesthetic realizations - all while the aesthetic judgement is being degraded by the "90% crap" you refer to. > The 10% that isn't crap is very valuable (as I said, whether it claims > to intellectual or entertainment). > Ok, here's where I disagree. "Very valuable" I can't buy because of the degradation problem which diminishes the judgement's foundations. "Highly valued" I can accept because that way the fact of subjective appreciation is aknowledged. > Most of the 90% crap is "mostly harmless" to quote Douglas Adams. > But a significant part of the crap is dangerous (again whether it > claims to be intellectual or not) - but we can handle it by > discernment. > It is of course easier to discern the non-intellectual crap, so the > intellectual crap is more dangerous. > > Got there in the end ? > > Mostly. I do agree that "intellectual crap" presented as Quality, is the most dangerous of all. The discernment issues still need to be worked out. > Allow me perhaps, that everyday crap is not dangerous, but too much > crap can be ? (Crap posing as intellect being the most dangerous) > > As far as the internet goes it re-inforces / scales-up the need for > discerment .... I quoted George Dyson "Paddling Logs" (?) ... but > again that discernment is NOT intellectual, it's about quality. > Well... I dunno. I think discernment of patterns is intellectual. The realization of Quality in differing levels shows that something can have high quality intellectual content, or high quality biological or social content, but the discerning of these patterns is a task of an integrated intellectual process - where we use all of our knowledge, conception and intuition in the process. > (You'll have to come back to the steer on why you don't own a TV ? > Part of my confusion, sorry.) > Ian Why? I first got rid of it in 1983 because I read 1984. And then my experiment confirmed my hypothesis that if the whole world is gonna subject their brains to programming, it'd be a service to mankind to refrain and see if I could keep a different perspective than normality. A humble sacrifice in the interest of democracy. You're welcome. yer humble servant, John 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/
