What I'm reading

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman

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.

 Wars, crimes, crashes, fires, floods—much of it the social and political equivalent of Adelaide’s whooping cough—became the content of what people called “the news of the day.”

 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.

 In watching American television, one is reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s remark on his first seeing the glittering neon signs of Broadway and 42nd Street at night. It must be beautiful, he said, if you cannot read.

 The single most important fact about television is that people watch it, which is why it is called “television. ”And what they watch, and like to watch, are moving pictures—millions of them, of short duration and dynamic variety. It is in the nature of the medium that it must suppress the content of ideas in order to accommodate the requirements of visual interest; that is to say, to accommodate the values of show business.

This is an extraordinary book that I missed when it first came out. This explains the change in "voice" of newscasters that I recently mentioned. And many other things I've been thinking about. He also admires Thoreau, which validates to me my new project. (Which I must get started on in earnest!)