Medium is Metaphor: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Chapter 1

Intro Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 {pt 1} Ch. 4 {pt 2} Ch. 5 Ch. 6 Ch. 7 Ch. 8 

Ch. 9 {pt 1} Ch. 9 {pt 2} Ch. 10 Ch. 11

It's been nearly a month since I posted my first installment of my reading of this book. Since then, I've been sidetracked. I'm determined to not let this fall by the wayside, so am back to get this going again. I decided to go at this in Parts as it is in the book, with the introduction and foreword being included in Part I.

Part I: Chapter 1 The Medium Is the Metaphor

"Metaphor"- something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else- dictionary.com

"Medium" -an intervening substance, through which a force or an effect is produced; surrounding objects, conditions, or influences- dictionary.com

I wrote those down so that I'd know what is meant. Medium is what's being used; metaphor is what it's supposing to be. In this case, television as a means of communicating ideas but partially because it is visual, it changes not only the meaning but also what is communicated.

The chapter starts out with what city is best a representative of the US 'spirit' today- Postman says it's Las Vegas. It is entertainment driven with flashy lights and bright colors. In regards to some of the men that ran for the presidency at the time, they all had to look good for the people, for that election. "Although the Constitution makes no mention of it, it would appear that fat people are now effectively excluded from running for high political office. Probably bald people as well. (pg. 4)" I got a kick out of that.

Moving on to "the news of the day"- those who look good while presenting it make an atrocious salary! It's not that they are particularly good at getting the news or even writing it up, but they sure have nice hair (or face or whatever). Even in business, that good looking 'display' plays a prominent role. Postman mentions Toyota: "Even the Japanese, who are said to make better cars than the Americans, know that economics is less a science than a performing art...(pg. 5)" Or how about those who we wouldn't think would/should be concerned about their entertainment appeal? Here Postman lumps Billy Graham, Shecky Green (a comedian known for his Las Vegas night club performances- via Wikipedia), Red Buttons (comedian and 'dramatic' actor- via humor.about.com), Dionne Warwick, Milton Berle (another comedian), and George Burns (comedian -who doesn't know the name George Burns!? lol) together. Billy Graham in with this lot of comedians?! "Although the Bible makes no mention of it, the Reverend Graham assured the audience that God loves those who make people laugh. It was an honest mistake. He merely mistook NBC for God. (pg. 5)" Honest mistake, huh? Well, I do appreciate Postman's not-so-sly sarcasm.

He talks about another popular person during the time but I'll move ahead to his address to 'culture watchers and worriers'. These he knows understand that his examples are commonplace and many have written of them as well. But there's few who have written or perhaps even really thought of the origin of "this descent into a vast triviality. (pg. 6)" Many will allude to this as the fault of "the residue of an exhausted capitalism; or, on the contrary, that it is the tasteless fruit of the maturing of capitalism; or that it is the neurotic aftermath of the Age of Freud; or the retribution of our allowing God to perish; or that it all comes from the old stand-bys, greed and ambition." But as Huxley says we are all Great Abbreviators, and Postman acknowledges that he probably doesn't have it all figured out either. His attempt is to show that how we are able to converse (in any sense of the word) will directly affect what it is we communicate. It dictates what is of importance.

I especially appreciated his bit about if, in our present day, William Howard Taft were to run for President. How do you think it would turn out? He would be seen on television (which adds 10 lbs, I hear), not as he was back in his day. How many would vote for him, because of his speaking ability or great ideas? A few, to be sure. But many more would not vote for him because of his "multi-chinned, three-hundred-pound" appearance. "The shape of a man's body is largely irrelevant to the shape of his ideas when he is addressing a public in writing or on the radio, or for that matter, in smoke signals. But it is quite relevant on television. (pg. 7)"

Going back to "the news of the day", Postman helps us realize that it is a modern invention. Way back in the days when news traveled much slower, there was no news of the day. "[T]hat lacking a technology to advertise them, people could not attend to them, could not include them in their daily business...The news of the day is a figment of our technological imagination. It is, quite precisely, a media event...Without a medium to create its form, the news of the day does not exist. (pg. 7, 8)" Just like the chapter title says, the medium is the metaphor. It has dictated what is important.

Next he refers to Marshall McLuhan's aphorism ("a terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation"- dictionary.com), the medium is the message, but I do not know this reference. I did a quick search and found that this was a phrase in McLuhan's book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. In it he said that "a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself. (wikipedia)" Postman then moves beyond McLuhan and Plato, to the Bible; the 2nd commandment (make no graven images, nor likeness of anything on earth, the water, or heaven). There must be a connection between forms of communication and the quality of a culture. Very interesting! Postman also says that he feels to rely on the Word (as the Israelites were to do) rather than icons and images, requires "the highest order of abstract thinking."

Referring back to McLuhan's phrase, "the medium is the message", to Postman means that we are focusing on one particular statement. He says it should be amended to say, pretty much, "the medium is the metaphor". There's that again. He also says that it isn't just in words that we receive the communication but through art and images as well. "They are rather like metaphors, working by unobtrusive but powerful implication to enforce their special definitions of reality. Whether we are experiencing the world through the lens of speech or the printed word or the television camera, our media-metaphors classify the world for us..(pg. 10)"

Now for the rest of the chapter, Postman brings up concepts and peoples that I'm not familiar with or simply didn't really look at in depth so while I'm putting down what's in the book, I'll add my questions and thoughts, such as they might be.

Many things we take for granted, such as the television and what's presented. We are accustomed to it now. Postman talks about the clock and Lewis Mumford. The first I know some about because it is a part of my day; the person, nothing but what Postman tells me. Mumford wanted to know how the clock creates the idea of 'moment to moment'. He (Mumford, and Postman?) concludes that 'moment to moment' is really just "man conversing with himself about and through a piece of machinery he created. (pg. 11)" Mumford's book Technics and Civilization talks more about the creation of keeping time, beginning in the 14th century. Interestingly, Mumford wonders (or does he suppose?) if the creation of the clock and it's way of measuring for us what used to be measured by Eternity, has broken down the supremacy of God more than philosophy. I'm reminded of the book The Time-Keeper by Mitch Albom, where a man supposedly began to keep track of the moments in his life, little by little, until it took all his time away. Postman suggests an added commandment: "Thou shalt not make mechanical representations of time."

Postman jumps right into the alphabet and its effect on knowledge, education, intelligence, and the many other ways it has influenced. Plato said of writing, "No man of intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in language especially not in language that is unchangeable, which is true of that which is set down in written characters," but he is well-known for his writings! I wonder how language would have fared had there not been the introduction of characters to represent speech?

I particularly appreciated Northrop Frye's words, quoted by Postman, that "the written word is far more powerful than simply a reminder: it re-creates the past in the present, and gives us, not the familiar remembered thing, but the glittering intensity of the summoned-up hallucination. (pg. 13)" How wonderfully stated! Postman goes on to say that "anthropologists know that the written word, as Northrop Frye meant  to suggest, is not merely an echo of a speaking voice." Now, does that mean that Frye did mean that it was merely an echo, or that Frye, as anthropologists also believe, meant that is was not an echo? I took Frye's words to mean it as more than an echo. Well, I don't wish to get caught up on that so I'll move along.

Magic. That's what ancients thought the written word was. Postman gives the example of the Egyptian god Thoth, also the god of magic, who gave the gift of writing to King Thamus (allegedly of course). Magic! It's interesting to think of it that way. When we first begin to learn to decipher the characters and symbols into meaningful speech, it is magic. But we've most likely lost the wonder as we've grown accustomed to it. It's commonplace. And yet...it still does hold something over us, doesn't it? Postman asks: "What could be more metaphorically puzzling than addressing an unseen audience, as every writer of books must do? And correcting oneself because one knows that an unknown reader will disapprove or misunderstand? (pg. 13, emphasis mine)" That's magic. 

This book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, is about that magic but it's shifting from writing to electronics. The magic is that it transforms the very culture. Metaphors are generally simple (or not so simple depending on who you read/talk to): "the mind, a garden that yearns to be cultivated." The metaphors in the media aren't simple at all. They are complex. Postman says that we must dig and find their symbolism of the information, context and sources of the information, and many other. But, and this I think is key, we must realize that "in every tool we create, an idea is embedded that goes beyond the function of the thing itself. (pg. 14)" Those unintended embedded ideas are important to know, at least; to understand even better.

Finally, the chapter ends with remarks about technology that began with perhaps a simple purpose but ultimately changed thinking and behaviors. Eyeglasses: meant to improve defective vision led to defying of biology and 'ravages of time'; microscope: too see physical, biological forms led to psychological dissecting of the mind. 

"We do not see nature or intelligence or human motivation or ideology as 'it' is but only as our languages are. Our languages are our media. Our media are our metaphors. Our metaphors create the content of our culture. (pg. 15)"

Next, Chapter 2 Media as Epistemology