Stop Following the News – Page 2

Still Amusing Ourselves to Death

After re-reading Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, I thought about taking a 24-hour fast from media. No TV, no radio, no smart phone, no laptop–for a whole day. Then I remembered it’s winter here in Chicago and weather forecasts are nearly a prerequisite for citizenship. And I’m expecting important emails soon. And what about those text messages I’d miss? And . . .

And I realized that though I think I control my technology, maybe it controls me as much as the next guy.

When Postman wrote his book in 1985, Pac-Man was five years old. USA Today was three. The Mac computer was one. Cable TV was in its infancy. Google was twelve years into the future. Netflix wouldn’t open for business for fourteen years. We’d have to wait twenty-two years for the iPhone and Kindle. Despite this or perhaps because of this Amusing Ourselves to Death is a classic that remains as important as ever.

The problem is that such media have created an entertainment culture, and all the new technologies have only reinforced that. What have we lost? The substance of public discourse that a print culture offered us in the previous centuries. Thousands heard Lincoln and Douglas debate in three- and four-hour-long sessions. But it was the dominance of print that made it possible for listeners to be able to follow and to be interested in these events.

Our civic life has been consumed by sound bites and Twitter feeds, reducing millions to passive consumers of media instead of active citizens. Even those outlets that are supposed to provide substance are mostly focused on capturing audiences. MSNBC and FOX have more in common than we think for neither are in the news business. Rather both are trying to make as much money as possible in the entertainment business.

In the introduction for the twentieth-anniversary edition of book, Postman’s son points out that though we are not dominated by network television anymore, the underlying issues of our entertainment-saturated culture remain the same. Has media improved our democracy? Has it made our leaders more accountable? Are we better citizens or are we better consumers? Have our schools improved as a result?

Solutions? Postman admits he has few. Certainly recognizing our disease is a necessary step. Asking questions about media is also needed to break the spell technology has over us. So are periodic fasts such as technology-free family nights once a week or even once a month. We must start somewhere. And reading Postman’s book can be just the place to begin.

Two Visions of the Future

Two novels written decades ago have shaped the genre of dystopias–grim tales of the near future. From these have come The Hunger Games, the Divergent series, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Matrix, even Pixar’s WALL-E, and many more. What are the two landmark books?

George Orwell’s 1984 (published in 1949) imagines a future dictatorship in which Big Brother knows everything that everyone does and thinks. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (published in 1932) imagines a highly technological society in which humans are genetically bred, indoctrinated, and drugged into passive obedience.

I’ve been rereading Neil Postman’s classic Amusing Ourselves to Death, published in 1985, and was once again struck by his opening comparison of these two. He writes:

Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, or there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distraction.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

In short Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

What do you think? Was Postman right? Is our world closer to Brave New World than to 1984?

The Current Events Entertainment Industry

I stopped reading, watching, and listening to the news twelve years ago. Although I believe in the importance of an educated and informed electorate, the news just made me mad and agitated me. It was simply not good for my soul. In Stop Reading the News, Rolf Dobelli adds a myriad of other compelling reasons in a series of short chapters. Here are a few.

News is irrelevant. Since news operations are out to make money by capturing eyeballs and eardrums, they do not focus on what’s important but on what gets attention. Crashes, explosions, murders, earthquakes, however, matter little to our individual lives or even national life.

News distorts reality. What’s a bigger problem—terrorism or suicide? We are about 800 times more likely to die by our own hand than by terrorism. Yet what do we hear about more? Likewise we hear lots about shark attacks, politicians, banking collapses, the Kardashians. We hear little about nurses, teachers, diplomats, ocean acidification. And which of those two groups is more important?

News encourages terrorism. Before Gutenberg, before mass media, there was no terrorism. There were attacks, sabotage, and murder, but the intent was to inflict strategic damage, not manipulate public opinion.

Dobelli offers more including how it disrupts our peace of mind, leads us to wrong conclusions, and wastes our time when we could be doing something more productive.

Before giving his reasons, he provides practical suggestions for cutting out the news, including a “soft option” and one for going cold turkey. He also deals with objections: How will I find out when something important does happen? Won’t I feel embarrassed when people ask me what I think about a new event? Isn’t being informed important for democracy?

Are there alternatives? Yes, he says. Read long-form journalism and books. If we do we’ll be much better informed citizens. Another constructive suggestion is to start “news lunches”—meeting one to one or in larger groups where one or two people take 15 minutes to focus on one thing they are working on or thinking about. Then discuss.

The news enterprise (shouldn’t we really call it “the current events entertainment industry”?) is broken–exacerbated by social media, fake news, foreign subversion, the politics of outrage, the lost art of compromise, talk radio entertainment, and the loss of the fabric of community locally and nationally. Dobelli’s analysis does not have the depth or insight of Neil Postman’s prophetic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. But surely he is right when he says, “News is to the mind what sugar is to the body: appetizing, easily digestible and extremely damaging” (p. 16).

It’s time to change our diet.

How Has the Internet Changed Reading and Writing?

Recently I was interviewed by Melissa Wuske in Foreword Reviews, which has focused on independent book publishing since its inception. To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt below. You can find the whole interview here.

Accessibility has been a huge boon to writers and editors. With so much information digitized, in a few keystrokes we can track down books, articles, quotes, and facts that forty years ago could take days and weeks to research. Information is truly democratized.

All is not paradise, however. We have tradeoffs. Today as readers and citizens we are drowning in data yet are in desperate need of wisdom. We have accelerated life (including our reading) to such a pace that it is hard to take time to stop and reflect. Even our habits of reading short snippets make long-form writing a challenge. Yet in such a complex world, we are kidding ourselves if we think we can live by sound-bytes alone.

One way I have tried to deal with this is by focusing my reading in books. I tend to stay away from magazines and newspapers (print or digital) as well as radio, TV, and social media to keep up with the news, though all these media have value. Obviously I believe in the importance of the open flow of information (and I hear about significant events anyway and can follow up if I wish), but what is reported on today will almost never be remembered or have much significance next week.

Books can take a longer and more measured view on what mattered in the past, what matters now, and what will matter in a year or a decade. Books also help strengthen our ability to think through issues in a more sustained, reasoned way that fights against the sometimes trifling and impulsive urgency of the moment.

What books have you read recently that has been helpful in this way?

One of the most important and fascinating is Factfulness by Hans Rosling. He details with data and stories how the world is much better than we think in many realms, even though much work remains. Another excellent volume is Them: Why We Hate Each Other—And How to Heal by Ben Sasse. He gets us outside the most recent news cycle to see deeper issues. Two others are A History of Western Philosophy by C. Stephen Evans and The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege by Ken Wytsma.

The Importance of Being Factual

The world is better than you think. Really? Really. Consider these–all based on UN statistics:

Life expectancy has risen worldwide from 31 years in 1800 to 72 years in 2017.

No country in the world has an average life expectancy of less than 50 years today.

The percentage of undernourished people has dropped from 28% in 1970 to 11% in 2015.

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Mashup Mishap?

Creativity usually isn’t concocting something totally new. Mostly it is combining two or more pre-existing things never joined before–or never in quiet this way. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is an example to chew on. Or consider the printing press–five hundred years ago it was a delightful combination of books and a wine press. And that’s still a good combo.* Today, we have a name for such inventions–mashups.
Continue reading “Mashup Mishap?”