On May 28, 5:12 am, "turtoni"
fastmail.net> wrote:>> On 27 May, 16:45, "turtoni"
fastmail.net> wrote:>>> ... Postman sees television's
>>> entertainment value as a "soma" for the contemporary world, and he sees
>>> contemporary mankind surrendering its rights in exchange for
>>> entertainment.
>
>> How on earth are my rights affected if I spend an hour being
>> entertained by "Dr. House"?
>
> perhaps "Dr. House" could draw an interesting sexy analogy between the usage
> of antibiotics and the rise of MRSA.
>
>>> The essential premise of the book, which Postman extends to the rest of
>>> his
>>> argument(s), is that "form excludes the content," that is, a particular
>>> medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas. Rational argument,
>>> an
>>> integral component of print typography...
>
>> Socrates seemed, by all accounts, very good at rational argument. But
>> he never bothered to write anything down, preferring to have stand up
>> arguments in the forum. If the Greeks could have had television they
>> might have televised these arguments, therefore televisions *can*,
>> support rational argument, if Socrates is considered rational.
>
> "Television as a medium is inherently assertionless; a video of an event
> makes no assertions whatsoever. It merely displays something that occurred.
What a vapid statement! You could change this to "Our retinas as a
medium is inherently assertionless; retinal input of an event makes no
assertions whatsoever. It merely displays something that occurred."
Socrates in the real world, and Socrates on TV, can equally well make
assertions, surely?
> For example, an advertisement for McDonald's often says nothing about the
> burgers, their nutritional value, their cost or position in the market
> compared to the competition...
I watched Morgan Spurlock's diocumentary on TV that certainly pointed
out these factors.
Postman's troube is that he really seems to beleive "the medium is the
message". This is an incogherent doctrine and, actually, "The message
is the message".
> A viewer can like or dislike a McDonald's advertisement, but he or she
> cannot accept or refute it, because there is nothing to accept or refute."
The adverts seem to imply "burgers make kids happy". You can certainly
attempt to refute that.
>> A more modern & realistic example is Bryan Magee, his excellent TV
>> programmes, interviewing and arguing with leading philosophers,
>> involved much rational argument.
>
> "Postman argues that communication media inherently shapes the conversations
> that can be carried out. To take an extreme example, it is not possible to
> conduct a discussion of philosophy using smoke signals; the conversation is
> too complex and long to be conducted over a medium of such low bandwidth.
Television does not use smoke signals! In what way does the audio-
visual medium of television not provide enough bandwidth to broadcast
a philosophical discussion? Given that philosophical discussion does
not demand "high definition" vision, or exact reporsoction of tone,
it seems to me jsut abouty as good as seeing thephilosopher slive. Or
do we really need to see Noam Chomsky's spots?
By the way, Chomsky's on record as saying his discussion with Magee
resulted in the best overview of his views ever made -- one up for TV!
Why did most of the leading philosophers of the day agree to engage
with Magee if TV is so bad?
> "Postman posits that television is the *primary* means of communication for
> our culture and it has the property of converting a culture's conversations
> with itself into entertainment, so much so that public discourse on
> important issues has disappeared.
Magee's discussions led me, eventually, to reading Kant and
Schopenhauer. They, especially Schopenhauer *are* entertaining, but
they also cover important issues!
>>> Television, he notes, has introduced the phrase "now this", which
>>> indicates
>>> a complete absence of any connection between one topic and the next.
>
>> So what? The 19th century 'man about town' might 'now' be in the
>> theatre and 'now' in the music hall. No connection between Shakespeare
>> and the latest comedian. But no fault of TV!
>
> I'm not sure what you're saying here.
I'm saying complete absence of connection is not necessarily a bad
thing. For example, Schopenahuer had a disconnected life going from
theatre to music hall to walking a lot to playing with poodles, that
didn't stop him having a serious side and engaging with the main ideas
of the day. If a present day Schopenhauer (with less money!) takes in
music, comedy and drama from TV that doesn't mean he cannot engage
seriously with philosophy and politics. And everybody needs to relax
witha little light entertainment!
>>> Postman also examines the relationship between learning and television...
>
>> The British Open University successfully conveys lectures, and other
>> learning modes, via the television screen. Why not?
>
> This is an extreme rare example of TV usage? I'm British and my Father has a
> Masters from the OU. I think the bulk of the process involved reading
> (perhaps off a screen) due to the amount of information that needed to be
> conveyed.
It could have been conveyed by TV, some Universities have too many
students to fit into a lecture hall and convey all the lectures by TV.
In fact, I went through the whole Harvard course on 'Happiness' that
way, which shows the great advantage of TV. Anyone can take any
course! Many other examples on the web. And please don't say that's
computer *not* TV, as obviously such lectures could be thrown onto a
TV screen instead of a computer monitor.
>> Look at how well the grainy videos of Richard Feynman's lectures still
>> sell.
>
>> What difference is there between a lecture off TV and one on TV?
>
> Why do you need to watch a lecture..?
'cause I'm 2000 miles away from Harvard, would be arrested if I tried
to get in, and the lectures happened two years ago...
In the Feynman case I can read the lectures and generally do that
rather than watch them. But it's still interesting to see the man, as
that really conveys his humour, exuberance, and passion far better
than text. So actually, TV is better than books as you can get the
body language, tone of voice *and* text. With text you only
get ...er... text.
>>> ...The faculties necessary to sustain rational
>>> inquiry simply are not normally encouraged by televised viewing.
>
>> Not normally on ABC perhaps, that doesn't mean it's impossible to
>> encourage rational inquiry via TV.
>
> I don't think Postman is campaigning to 'get rid of television'.
His stance does seem to be very "medium is the message" though, which
seems too simplistic to me.
