We are such easy prey for cynical manipulation as our attention is gleefully surrendered to the next shiny object, the next rage-inducing, fear-generating image. Politically, grab our attention with something TELEGENIC, hold on to it, distort our understanding of reality, polarize us, and keep us watching. And it's all in the interest in that time-honored American tradition of separating the customer from his hard-earned paycheck by selling us crap we don't need, and when we quickly tire of it, placing it in storage facilities in order to make room for more crap we don't need, all the while credit card debt accumulates, delivery trucks pollute, landfills fill up, and we never contemplate our opportunity costs of what did we forgo for this life of entertainment and consumption? I'm reminded of Bill Hick's advice that we all just go to bed:
“Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!”
Additionally, I'm in awe of the prescience of Neil Postman and his 1985 observation that we were then "Amusing Ourselves To Death". Please chew on the observations he offers up. He really understood human nature, our psychology, and the power that television had almost 40 years ago. It's only strengthened and become more consequential in the intervening years. Sometimes, and it's rare, you have that "lightbulb" moment, when you hear ideas expressed so succinctly, so plainly, with such purpose and clarity, that you are stopped in your tracks. You helplessly succumb to the plainspoken honesty and wisdom. And the chilling implications. Postman's observations, and warnings, do that for me. Here's a sampling: "Television does not extend or amplify literate culture, it attacks it. " "What shall we do if we take ignorance for knowledge?" "When news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that television news shows entertain but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than we are being deprived of authentic information, I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. " Here's more, please spend some time playing gracefully, and not so gracefully, Postman's warnings. Peter T. https://bookroo.com/quotes/neil-postman
