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fall 2002 Dear Average American, Ok, people. I want to teach you three useful little words... "I" ... "don't" ... "know" Now, if you keep these in their proper order and enunciate them clearly when next asked a question, it could be the first intelligent thing you have said in a great while. You see, the sad truth is that you don't know anything. You have no serious thoughts of your own to offer. You sit there day after day in front of your newspaper, television, or computer basking in all the latest fragments and tidbits of news, gossip, and garbage that come spewing forth. Then anytime one of those little context-free facts happens to stick in your pampered cranium, you think you have earned the right to an opinion! You have NOT earned said right! Oh, you have the freedom of speech to be sure, but you do not have the right to be taken seriously! Oh sure, maybe the fact was something BIG and SERIOUS and INTELLECTUAL, but does that mean any of those qualities have transferred themselves to you! No!!!! It most certainly does not. You have no real understanding of the context--the surrounding situation, the history, or the potential consequences. The sad state of media and education in western culture has as yet created approximately three generations of people who hear about everything and know about nothing. And the situation is only getting worse. We're getting into the real Information Age now. The Internet!! Billions of little bits of data right there at your fingertips! But who takes the time to think about them, to organize them, to relate them, and debate them? Oh, people will argue about them, but they will not debate. People today hardly know what debate is! Debate has become synomous with advertising, entertaining, and labeling! We are a society passionate about throwing slogans, statistics, and ephithets around! We're all convinced that the "other side" is full of raging loonies and selfish cretins being manipulated by some malevolent will. We think with our feelings and take image, passion, and charisma for intelligence. We've foolishly learned that meaning, truth, and logic are only valid if they're packaged as entertainment. The headline must catch our eye, the soundtrack must stir our heart, or we dismiss it with a yawn. We've sacrificed our minds before the sound and fury of must-see tv! Ignorance can be cured, but what can be done if the world learns to take ignorance for knowledge! You think our culture has progressed?! No. Our technology has progressed, but our minds have become goo. You, you average american are probably less intelligent than the common folk of this country at the time of its founding. We are rapidly amusing ourselves to death! (Neil Postman, 1985) Postman and Aldous Huxley were right, and Orwell was wrong. There is no Big Brother. We are not held captive by forces outside us, but rather, we are enslaved to our passions. Television has turned all serious discourse to naught but trivia and entertainment. It would serve us far better if it did not pretend to educate or inform. And do you not see that we are taxed without representation by advertising! And still we tithe eagerly and generously to the high priests of Hollywood. We are not free! Ah, there is so much more to say, but my TV show will be on soon. "Yes, master, i'm coming...." Sincerely, your fellow slave |
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