July 2009 Archives

One of the books I've read lately which I'm sure has the greatest amount of implications for an assessment of our culture is Niel Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Although originally copyrighted in 1985, its assessment reads like a prophecy of today's culture's peril. His main contention is that television's way of knowing is directly opposed to that of typography (the methodology used inn reading books). Mediums of information are not neutral but inform what counts as knowledge. While reading books forces analysis with content complete with facts that can be discussed, television's mental analysis consists of the imagery of entertainment. The presentation of a Tsunami which killed millions of people cutting to a smiling news anchor who says and now this, cutting away to a Burger King commercial effects our attitude towards the world turning our critical thinking skills off. What is dangerous is not that we are entertained by television, but that we see television as a source of serious engagement with the world around us. As an example he cites research that shows that a newscaster's credibility is directly linked by the public to their appearance and entertainment capabilities.

He warns that while a culture can survive false opinion and misinformation, but it may not be able to survive if we think that we can understand the world in twenty-two second segments and if our value of the news is determined by the number of laughs it evokes. He constantly compares the doomsday pictures of Orwell and Huxley, siding with Huxley who did not fear government control, but that people wouldn't need controlling because they were wrapped up in laughing rather than thinking.

I went to South Africa, wanting God to reaffirm his existence and I sort of expected to be overwhelmed with the astounding visual beauty of the landscape on our Safari. Instead the landscape was sparse and mostly brown with small shrublike bushes.

It was the brutality of the bush that did it. They don't call in survival of the fittest for nothing (see the battle of kruger video). When male giraffe get too old they are turned out to fend for themselves and usually become prey, when an animal gets sick or has any defect it is left behind the herd, for the most part animals are eaten alive, when leopards infringe on another's territory mothers will eat their daughters to preserve power.

It could be said that we humans react similarly and do less than protect our old and young, but when we do this we know it is wrong. As Nelson Mandela said "A Society should be judged by how it treats its weakest members." There must be something within us that is different from the animals for if all we are after is evolutionary advantage then we ought to be aborting and euthanizing a lot more of our population.

Could it be true that we are made in God's image and so our progression as a human race prefers compassion over survival.

I have always been a big fan of cause marketing and think that this approach is one way that American's consumeristic tendencies can be put to good use. I am one of the suckers who will find a reason to buy anything product red- with full knowledge that my money would help a lot more people if I chose to send half of the cost of my gap shirt to Africa instead of buying a shirt I don't need.

But this was taking it way too far. My assessment, I will admit, may be slightly characterized by the fact that I heard the announcement after 20 hours of flying in route back from Johannesburg. I am trying to settle my head back to the small spot of respite provided by a window seat, and she gets on the PA system with that potentially endearing, but in this case severely aggravating Atlanta drawl, and informs us that we can buy chips for two dollars to support animals who need saving from places like the humane society. Then the flight attendants go through the aisles and announce in every three feet of space "do you want to buy some chips to save the animals".

I didn't want any chips especially if I had to buy them to save the animals. What the heck have potato chips to do with saving the animals. This is another case where the cause is not connected to the product and so the marketing just sounds silly or in my sleep deprived case annoying!

In Victor Fankl's popular and compelling work-Man's Search for Meaning he describes how mankind's ultimate search is not for pleasure but meaning. We want a reason to be happy; pleasure, he says, must be a byproduct because it is destroyed once it is sought.

Through his many personal experiences in various concentration camps Frankl attests to the truth of Nietzsche's quote: "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How" It was always the prisoners who had a why who survived or who had the courage to walk upright into gas chambers. The prisoners who chose to indulge in cigarettes instead of trading them for food, however, were always close to self-inflicted death.

The meaning Frankl describes is not one universal truth for mankind, but rather, can be found in work, a relationship, or the attitude one takes toward unavoidable suffering. The final meaning of life if comprehended at all before death, will be depend upon the individual's appraisal of the meaning in each individual situation.

I will admit that not having to seek out the meaning of life as a whole and only being concerned with giving meaning to each day to day situation might be a relief, but I don't know if I am capable of knowing how to attribute meaning to individual circumstances without at least a shadowy glimpse of the meaning of life as a whole in the present. I appreciate and agree with Frankl's assessment of attitude being the deciding factor of one's outlook on life, but I feel incapable to having an attitude that testifies to a meaning I am not sure exists.

I am a sorry existentialist I suppose, unable to create meaning without any basis in reality.