TV and Gullibility

I have been reading Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (Methuen 1987) and very interesting it is too. Postman takes some vicious swipes at Television; although tolerant of Dynasty, Dallas and Sledge Hammer he is unrelenting in his condemnation of its 'best' programmes. His main point is that TV is killing off our abilities to think and express ourselves logically. I will summarise briefly; to catch the full flavour of Postman's invective you will have to read the book.

In the first part, Postman establishes the point that different forms of expression favour different kinds of content. He notes that in the days before writing was common, oral communication required argument from parables, aphorisms and common sayings. Thus Solomon was considered the wisest man of antiquity because he had remembered 3,000 proverbs and had one available for any question. Later, Jesus was revered as a teacher because he used mostly parables. Although He did lay down general principles of behaviour, they were couched in the form of pithy sayings, easily remembered. In later times, what Postman calls the Typographic age, the form of discourse was by reasoned argument. He thus notes that most of the Founding Fathers of America were rational intellectuals (and to the chagrin of fundamentalists, at least five were atheists). Thus the Declaration of Independence is a model of close and consistent argument, stating its premises and the conclusions that follow. Now that we are in the Age of Television, all thoughts of rational discourse are gone. The best TV discussions are brief and inconsequential. The average shot is no more than 3.5 seconds long and everything must be adapted to a visual presentation. The News is a stylised dramatic presentation, and because everything must be entertainment, aims to provide emotional gratification, requiring only the minimal skills of comprehension. However serious a news item it will soon be followed by a more or less grotesque commercial which defuses it and renders it trivial. The news becomes a vaudeville act.

Some writers go further than Postman and claim that changes in the medium of communication bring about changes in the structure of peoples' minds and their cognitive capacities. Postman only goes as far as saying that TV changes the structure of the discourse and pollutes public communication. As the old Punch joke has it: "Television first reduced my intelligence to the level of a moron, and then proceeded to insult that intelligence."

In the second part of the book, Postman discusses the effect of TV on three areas of public discourse.

a) Politics. Postman gives a fascinating account of the Lincoln—Douglas debates in the days before the American Civil War. These, although accompanied by brass bands and fairground side shows, were intensely complex discussions of important matters. The speeches by both men were written essays with occasional impromptus and asides and (especially by Lincoln) witty demolitions of any hecklers. The main point is that the speeches were never less than 15 one hour long with an equal time for rebuttal (also prepared and written in advance). On one occasion Douglas spoke for three hours and Lincoln, demanding the same time to reply, suggested that a two hour recess be taken for dinner. Throughout, the debate was complex, demanding close attention, and intensely rational relying not at all on emotion or histrionics. In these debates, neither of the combatants displayed much in the way of rhetorical skills. If we contrast that with the political displays on TV 100 years later, we find no rational discussion. The ordinary man could not state any differences in policy between Bush and Dukakis. The last time there was any debate on TV, Kennedy is said to have won because Nixon seemed to have a five day growth of beard. Now there is no debate because it is unsuitable for the medium. The only issue is the character of the candidates as presented after suitable behaviour modification. Postman questions whether it is now possible for a bald man to be elected to the Presidency. (Perhaps Neil Kinnock needs a wig?) What is unquestionable is that the issues have been trivialised so much that rational discussion is impossible; the fleeting images fit the minds of the hearers.

b) Religion. In the nineteenth century religious discourse was characterised by its learning, scholarly exposition and rational presentation. TV religion is presented as entertainment since it must compete for an audience against regular shows. TV presenters of religion are uneducated, parochial and bigoted and the programmes offer no ritual, no tradition, no theology and no sense of spiritual transcendence. Postman affirms that he has yet to see a religious programme that mentions the difficulties that a rich man would incur in getting into heaven.

c) Education. Much has been made of the successes of programmes like Sesame St. Postman believes that these successes are nugatory and will not stand close examination. Such programmes undermine everything a school stands for: a school is a place of social interaction, TV watching is a lonely occupation; schools stress the relationship with the teacher who can respond to the individual, clearly impossible for Sesame St.; the school depends on the development of language, TV develops images. It is true that Sesame St. encourages children to love school but only in so far as school is like Sesame St. Children tend to love and become dependent on TV much more than they love school. We have yet to learn of the effect on childrens' personalities of the many hours they spend in front of the screen. Postman blames the falling standards in American education on over much TV watching. It is true that in science teaching there may be a case for a few films showing effects that are too expensive for the ordinary class room. Thus we have no synchrotron available for our students to see and a film is essential. Such examples are very few and cannot outweigh the damage done by other TV programmes for schools. What is the skeptic to make of all this? It seems to me that the mind of the gullible is very similar to the mind of the TV watcher. I saw an advertisement for a Wellington faith healer recently in which he boasted of his lack of medical knowledge and training. He was thereby a better conduit for the unseen forces of the universe and so better able to cure the sick. This kind of denial is now becoming popular: the assertion that there are means of gaining knowledge and insight that do not depend on rational thought but are the product of occult forces that may be tapped by the open minded. Again, the denial of rational thought and the reliance on images characterise TV and the gullible. The popularity of programmes like That' s Incredible (Which fakes many of its effects) and Believe it or not depends on minds receptive to any outrageous suggestion. We have no way of knowing whether the increase in TV

watching has contributed to the increase in belief in loonies and quacks, but certainly the two processes have occurred side by side. Just as we have no way of proving that the prevalence of TV advertisements have increased the self centredness and materialism of so many people. Postman has few suggestions as to how we may reduce the ill effects of TV, beyond recommending that parents resolutely switch it off. Certainly we should resist its proliferation.