Politicians: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Chapter 9 {1 of 2}

Intro Ch. 1 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

Politics. I've never really been much into politics. It would have been much more interesting and worthwhile back in the founders' days. My opinion of course, because they didn't smear each other as a means to get votes for themselves. They ran, or rather were nominated, based on their known character, which interestingly enough, was gathered from their written works. They didn't gallivant around the country schmoozing with the public. That came later. I believe they even often refrained from communicating with  very many people because it might sway their vote. 

Those are my pre-thoughts. 
This post contains affiliate links; I'll let you know. See Disclosure/Policies. 

Part II, Chapter 9, Reach Out and Elect Someone {1 of 2}

Politics is just like show business- Ronald Reagan, 1966

I'm probably as up on sports as I am on politics, and this chapter starts with sports. Politics is a spectator sport. Postman compares politicians to athletes. Athletes' reputation rise and fall based on how well they meet a set standard. He mentions David Garth (a sports journalist?) in regards improving the image of a baseball player with a .218 batting average. Not going to happen. And Martina Navratilova's performance for tennis. Performance is what it is; it can't appear to be more or less than it is. The answer to the question of who is best doesn't get answered by a poll, rather by performance. Those who watch generally know the rules and aren't fooled.

If politics is like show business, though the standard may be there, one doesn't actually need to meet it, just appear that they do. Here Postman references Joe McGinnis' book The Selling of the President {affiliate link}. If I didn't already have too many books in my to-be-read pile, I might add this one.

What makes you cast your ballot?

A Presidential candidate or a good campaign?

How he stands on the issues or how he stands up to the camera?

The Selling of the President is the enduring story of the 1968 campaign that wrote the script for modern Presidential politicking—and how that script came to be...In his introduction, Joe McGinniss discusses why—unfortunately—his classic book is as pertinent today to understanding our political culture as it was the year it was published. -from Amazon

And just how do politicians sell themselves? Through commercials of course! "In America, the fundamental metaphor for political discourse is the television commercial. (p. 126)" Postman says that by age 40 most Americans will have viewed over one million commercials. I'd venture to say that number is larger now than in Postman's day. According to A. C. Neilsen, the average child will see 20,000 commercials in a year. They also say that by age 65, 2 billion commercials will have been viewed. I don't know how old that information is, however.

Commercials influence- period. Postman's purpose in this section is to show how it has degraded {he says "devastated"} discourse. He starts with commercial's impact on commerce. Capitalism was an offshoot of Enlightenment, like science and liberal democracy, he says. "Both buyer and seller are sufficiently mature, well-informed and reasonable. (p. 127)" It's a give-take relationship; they rely on each other to make it work well.

Monopolies and cartels undermine capitalism, of course. Even worse, Postman says, is the commercial. "Any claim must take the form of a proposition, for that is the universe of discourse, from which words are "true" and "false" come. (p. 127)" Recall in chapter 4 about advertising that they began to include illustrations and photographs. By the 1950s "the television commercial made linguistic discourse obsolete as the basis for product decisions. (p. 127)" It encouraged emotions to make consumer decisions. No claims are really made in a commercial- other than what the viewer projects on the commercial themselves. Commercials are not really about the character of the product any longer; it's about the character of the consumer. The shift has been from making and marketing quality products to making the consumer feel valued. 

Postman moves back to politics and talks about George Orwell's understanding that politics, although corrupt, would remain a distinct mode of discourse. "He feared the politician as deceiver, not as entertainer. (p. 129)" And yet the tv commercial has been one of the chief means for presenting politics. We get a glimpse into the "backroom", so to speak, of two Senate candidates through Postman's eyes. One, Ramsey Clark, prepared well with documents that included facts and figures, "carefully articulated position papers...and an enlightened sociological perspective." The other, Jacob Javits, "built his campaign on a series of thirty-second television commercials...to project himself as a man of experience, virtue and piety. (p. 129)" Javits retained his Senate seat, showing that he understood that having pictures is more important to voters than having words in this century. 

By now Americans have accepted commercials to be a "normal and plausible form of discourse. (p. 130)" Commercials are instant therapy since they address the psychological needs of the viewer {remember again chapter 4}. Postman goes on to suggest that the commercial offers a theory that is rather preposterous: "all problems are solvable, that they are solvable fast, and that they are solvable through the interventions of technology, techniques and chemistry." To read or hear this, one would understand it is a preposterous theory, says Postman. But the commercial disdains exposition; anything that would enable the viewers to think about refuting the claim (remember, commercials make no real claims any longer). Instead commercials use pseudoparables such as Ring Around the Collar to appeal to emotions but "are unambiguously didactic. (p. 131)" {Side note: unambiguous means not open to more than one interpretation; didactic means intended to teach.}

"The television commercial is about products only in the sense that the story of Jonah is about the anatomy of whales, which is to say, it isn't. Which is to say further, it is about how one ought to live one's life. (p. 131)"

So this leads to commercials giving viewers the impression that political problems have fast solutions through simple measures. But the point I like the most is that commercials use individuals from a variety of arenas -athletes, musicians, scientists, etc.- to push a product that has nothing to do with any of those professions. This allows politicians to be free from the "limited field of their own expertise (p. 131)," and people don't catch on. 

When did politicians begin to have 'celebrity' status? Being famous isn't the same thing as being a celebrity, Postman says, and while I'd not really thought about it before, of course he is right. He goes through the years pointing out which politician showed up in which tv show; most of them I don't know- the politician or the show! Did you know that former President Ford was on "Dynasty?" Huh. Ralph Nader {ah, that name sounds familiar} hosted "Saturday Night Live;" if that's not entertainment, what is! 

And on that note, I will stop this part of chapter 9. Next time Postman continues on with how this 'celebrity' status changed the way of politics.