Celebrity Politicians: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Chapter 9 {2 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

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

Continuing on with politics as show business, Postman starts by saying it might be a bit much to suggest the politician-as-celebrity on its own made politics irrelevant. But it has definitely played its part.

"Some readers may remember when voters barely knew who the candidate was an in any case were not preoccupied with his character and personal life. As a young man, I balked on November at voting for a Democrat mayoralty candidate who, it seemed to me, was both unintelligent and corrupt. "What has that to do with it?" my father protested. "All Democrat candidates are unintelligent and corrupt. Do you want the Republicans to win?" He meant to say that intelligent voters favored the party that best represented their economic interests and sociological perspective" (p. 133).

They didn't vote for the "best man," they voted their party; their loyalty. It still happens. Television does not allow viewers to determine who the best man is, rather the politician allows himself to become an image of the audience. Recall that commercials are not really about the product- there are no real claims made. It is about the viewer, in this case, the voter.

This chapter's title is taken from a play on the slogan for Bell Telephone, "Reach Out & Touch Someone." Someone is far away and we aren't likely to see them often but they are important to us, and used to hold a daily and vital role in our lives. Postman makes the comment, "though American culture stands vigorously opposed to the idea of family, there is a...nag that something essential to our lives is lost when we give it up" (p. 134). In the Bell commercials, the telephone is presented as a way to make/keep that connection; as if it were a suitable replacement. I see it as a way to make the viewer  feel better. -Sure, I moved far away and the family unit is fractured because of it but here I'll just put in a call and it'll be like I didn't leave. I'll feel better. Again, the commercial isn't about the product; they are about the viewer. The same applies to television politics.

Through the television "those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them to be" (p. 135). Postman brings up Abe Lincoln as an example. He is rarely photographed smiling and was prone to bouts of depression, most likely not helped by the possibility his wife was mentally unstable {Postman actually said "in all likelihood a psychopath"}. No one wants to see that! Well, actually, in today's world, perhaps people would like that; it would be entertainment {quote/unquote}. "We do not want our mirrors to be so dark and so far from amusing" (p. 136).

Postman goes on to say that "television is a speed-of-light medium, a present centered medium" (p. 136) and because of this it removes any historical content from political discourse. 

Czeslaw Milosz said our age is a "refusal to remember" (p. 137); Carl Schorske says "indifferent" because we see history as useless. Bill Moyers said, "We Americans seem to know everything about the last 24 hours but very little about the last sixty centuries or the last sixty years" (p. 137). Postman however thinks that it isn't so much we refuse to remember or find it useless, "rather, we are being rendered unfit to remember" (p. 137). He quotes Henry Ford: "History is bunk" (p. 137) Does he in fact mean the Henry Ford? Apparently:

"I don’t know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across there and I don’t care. I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today."

Interview in Chicago Tribunen (25 May 1916)- source

I was rather shocked by this quote, and I realize it's going off on a tangent, but I will anyway. I've been to the Henry Ford Museum, which is huge and has a ton of, wait for  it, history. I found this little tidbit on Ford's words and thought it interesting. I guess I shouldn't be too shocked at Ford's words. Many thought the same. Many still do. 

Back to Postman: In regards Orwell's envisioned destruction of history, Postman says it's not from the state. It is more as Huxley foretold: 

"Nothing so crude as all that is required. Seemingly benign technologies devoted to providing the populace with a politics of image, instancy and therapy may disappear history just as effectively, perhaps more permanently, and without objection" (p. 138). 

It is Huxley rather than Orwell we should look to understand television's threat to liberal democracy, freedom of information. Orwell supposed that the state would blatantly control information. But this would apply primarily to books, not television. Postman goes through history sharing censorship of books because that is where "censorship had found its true metier" (p. 138).

Orwell's worries of "1) government control over 2) printed matter [posing] a severe threat for Western democracies" (p. 139) was wrong. Perhaps to the Age of Exposition he would have been right. But the Age of Television {Age of Technology} is completely different. Postman felt there was much more to fear from television glut than the government.

In the previous section Postman talked about the "Ministry Culture" by quoting George Gerbner, Dean of the Annenberg School of Communication. The jist of it: the three television networks is the Ministry of Culture, and its paid for by people who watch it or not. And it won't stop just by not watching. Someone will watch and they'll tell others. And this Postman says is the real danger: "we have no way of protecting ourselves from information disseminated by corporate America" (p. 140).

Postman doesn't think that the banning of books in high school libraries is that big of a deal. It's trivial in fact. Taking a book or a few books from a single place doesn't truly jeopardize the students' freedom to read. They could find the books elsewhere to read. But television is a more subtle threat and impairment to that freedom; it displaces books. 

Now there isn't a problem so much of a censorship; rather an overwhelming flood of information. It is Huxleyan in nature as it attempts to get us to watch continuously. Unfortunately the information is packaged as entertainment. Who would have thought that amusement would be more effective than censorship?

"How delighted would be all the kings, czars and fuhrers of the past (and commissars of the present) to know that censorship is not a neccesity when all political discourse takes the form of a jest" (p. 141).

I almost don't want to read chapter 10, Teaching as an Amusing Activity, but for me- for everyone- this is very important. Studying to be a teacher myself, the push to use any and all forms of entertainment as education is outrageous.