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> Thinly veiled 'I despise stupid people', this one. Are you talking about this comic (i.e. a few sentences from the book) or the whole book? I read the book

> Thinly veiled 'I despise stupid people', this one. Are you talking about this comic (i.e. a few sentences from the book) or the whole book? I read the book a few years back and it's entirely focused on culture as a whole and less about the individual choices. He's not making a point of "television makes you dumb" (or "dumb people watches television"), but rather he makes the distinction between an "oral"-, "press"- and "television"-based culture. He claims that it's bad when television becomes the main platform that a society centers its communication around. He's also honest that there's probably far more junk (in absolute terms) in printing than in television: "Television is not old enough to have matched printing's output of junk." It's not about the amount of "junk" – it's about something more fundamental about the medium. I found the book quite interesting and would highly recommend reading it! > They'd be boozing (more than they already are) if there wasn't such variety of cheap and available entertainment, the author doesn't seem to realize? That's an extremely pessimistic view of the world: Categorizing a set of human beings as "stupid" and saying that it doesn't matter how society is structured? And "smart people" are also influenced by how our society is structured, no?

quartesixte 2y ago
>He's not making a point of "television makes you dumb" (or "dumb people watches television"), but rather he makes the distinction between an "oral"-, "press"- and "television"-based culture. He claims that it's bad when television becomes the main platform that a society centers its communication around. Or as Postman himself put it, "the medium is the metaphor". And he strongly disliked the metaphor TV was bringing to bear on the Western World. And everyone should note this is the television of the 1980s. You still don't really have home recording, there are a limited number of channels, and the monoculture truly exists.
- judofyr 2y ago
  > And everyone should note this is the television of the 1980s. You still don't really have home recording, there are a limited number of channels, and the monoculture truly exists. This is a good point as well! When reading it I was reflecting on how internet compares to 1980s television. Yes, it has much more dopamine-fueled content, but it's way less of a monoculture. It gives a lot of opportunity for people to seek out what they're interested in and there's hundreds (thousands?) of communities with very different set of thoughts.
  - quartesixte 2y ago
    You also can't create actively yourself! TV was definitely a consumer only culture, with all creation heavily gatekept by an entire industry. Compare this to the print culture prior to that. The Internet definitely has changed this, and now we are back into a creation capable metaphor.
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quartesixte 2y ago

>He's not making a point of "television makes you dumb" (or "dumb people watches television"), but rather he makes the distinction between an "oral"-, "press"- and "television"-based culture. He claims that it's bad when television becomes the main platform that a society centers its communication around. Or as Postman himself put it, "the medium is the metaphor". And he strongly disliked the metaphor TV was bringing to bear on the Western World. And everyone should note this is the television of the 1980s. You still don't really have home recording, there are a limited number of channels, and the monoculture truly exists.

judofyr 2y ago
> And everyone should note this is the television of the 1980s. You still don't really have home recording, there are a limited number of channels, and the monoculture truly exists. This is a good point as well! When reading it I was reflecting on how internet compares to 1980s television. Yes, it has much more dopamine-fueled content, but it's way less of a monoculture. It gives a lot of opportunity for people to seek out what they're interested in and there's hundreds (thousands?) of communities with very different set of thoughts.
- quartesixte 2y ago
  You also can't create actively yourself! TV was definitely a consumer only culture, with all creation heavily gatekept by an entire industry. Compare this to the print culture prior to that. The Internet definitely has changed this, and now we are back into a creation capable metaphor.

deleted 2y ago

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