Nice riff on Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death". The focus is
really on the danger of over-reliance on one faculty. But I suppose
the same could be said for an aural-only world of radio and podcasts.
I disagreed that video would be an edited "reality". Image is no more
than the way the world looks as opposed to how it sounds or is
described by text. Ultimately the ability to synthesise these
faculties is what the phrase "common sense" really means. It isn't a
stand-in for "bleedin obvious" or "what most (common) people think",
it is that sense that emerges from an ability to create a world from
sights, sounds, smells, tastes and also written words, so pf course I
do agree that an over-reliance on any one mode of perception leads to
minds that lack common sense.
Reading Ourselves to Death
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Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#12We are constantly programmed by our surroundings. By every stimulus we allow to interact with us. Wherever we go. We can't stop it. We can only control it. Sorta.
That doesn't mean heavy metal is what made me a devil worshipper. Or that video games are the reason I killed that family of four. Or that having cared lovingly for several small stuffed animals as a child is why I spared their dog on that dread day. And social media will not convince anyone that anything else I've written in this paragraph is remotely true. They're not going to lose themselves in some sick fantasy.
Is this the author's stage before or after solipsism? I forget.
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#13I think what you read is the key here. Mindless reading of text messages, news headlines and social media posts is very different cognitively than reading actual literature, something like Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
People spend too much time in their heads and not enough in the real world. We used to say people need to stop reading books and start talking to people.
People need to get out and touch grass way more often.
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#14I've regretted hours spent watching TV, playing computer games, trying to figure out how to complete a task with no information available, being stuck waiting somewhere with nothing to do, but I can't think of a case I've regretted time spent reading. There may be people in the world whose lives would be improved by reading less, but I'm guessing a vanishingly small number.
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#15I think what you read is the key here. Mindless reading of text messages, news headlines and social media posts is very different cognitively than reading actual literature, something like Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
... or Hacker News comments.
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#16I've regretted hours spent watching TV, playing computer games, trying to figure out how to complete a task with no information available, being stuck waiting somewhere with nothing to do, but I can't think of a case I've regretted time spent reading. There may be people in the world whose lives would be improved by reading less, but I'm guessing a vanishingly small number.
I feel the same way but I don't know why. Even when I spend time reading average fiction, it still feels better than watching youtube.
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#17Author talks of text as abstraction compared to "edited" version of reality of visual media. But videos, movies, TV shows are also abstractions, possibly worse in that they more easily trick our subconscious into perceiving them as more real than words on a page while still being constructions of a "reality" based on the creator's point of view. So people think they have an understanding of the world based on fictionalized entertainment and tropes they've experienced thousands of times from screens.
Think of any time someone makes a political argument, or comments on a particular aspect of human nature by referencing something they saw in a movie. I think this is odd, at least if over done, as if the constructed media representation is somehow evidence of anything true. As if people don't have to have real lived experience of some phenomena as long as they watched something about it in a show or whatever.
Reminds me of Baudrillard's "hyperreality" [0] concept, where constructed media becomes "more real than real", here's an excellent presentation summarizing the idea [1]
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#18Nice riff on Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death". The focus is really on the danger of over-reliance on one faculty. But I suppose the same could be said for an aural-only world of radio and podcasts. I disagreed that video would be an edited "reality". Image is no more than the way the world looks as opposed to how it sounds or is described by text. Ultimately the ability to synthesise these faculties is what the…
Somewhat ironic given I suspect Postman would disagree with the majority of this article. This article asserts that the amount of engagement with the written word has gone up dramatically; "Amusing Ourselves To Death" has an entire chapter dedicated to demonstrating how much more early Americans engaged with written work. Consumption of books per capita was far higher in the 18th century than it is today, the literacy rate for men in some of the colonies was ~92% (and for women 62%), the number of people who read Common Sense on a per head basis is roughly equivalent to the number of people who watch the Super Bowl today, etc.
The argument in "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is not that the written word enhances reality, it is that it engages critical faculties by forcing the reader to contend with the argument advanced by an author. This article suggests that the written word is a crutch for thought, and thereby diminishes our ability to get at reality. These ideas are not exactly opposed, but there is a certain discordance.
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#19Didn’t read 100% of article yet but the premise somewhat brings to mind the book “The Alphabet vs the Goddess”[0] which… definitely criticisms can be made/definitely isn’t the whole story for the events and narrative of history it focuses on, but is really compelling and interesting interweaving of some major historical threads not otherwise easily or often connected
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alphabet_Versus_the_Godd...
Re: Reading Ourselves to Death
#20Author talks of text as abstraction compared to "edited" version of reality of visual media. But videos, movies, TV shows are also abstractions, possibly worse in that they more easily trick our subconscious into perceiving them as more real than words on a page while still being constructions of a "reality" based on the creator's point of view. So people think they have an understanding of the world based on fiction…
Really well put, especially in regards to the notion that the less obvious mode of abstraction of visual media increases the risk that we mistake it for reality.
You’re right, the written word or visual depiction is still the result of human intentions, and I don’t think the process is very different between the two. This is coming from a writer’s perspective, so I guess I will state my bias.