America, Stop Watching the Sideshow and Feel the Bern
by
Khwaja Khusro Tariq
In 1985 American Author and cultural critic Neil Postman published a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. In the book Postman explored the influence of technology, particularly television, on American culture. He framed the entire discourse in the context of two classic books, George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. His opinion was that it is Huxley whose chilling vision of the future was becoming reality and not Orwell's. According to Postman it is not that truth is withheld as Orwell predicted -- it is instead buried beneath an avalanche of pointless information as Huxley suggested. Surveillance and policing are no longer the primary tools of controlling populations.
The public is effectively subdued by wrapping them in the cocoon of technology, narcissism and self-indulgence. Exacting toil no longer requires the "reform through labor" of Mao (which Orwell's society was modeled on) or the Gulag of Stalin. The proletariat can merely be overworked and underpaid -- and most of what they earn can be siphoned back through the necessary illusions staring from the billboard and shouting from the television screen. Conformity, Postman believed, is no longer exacted, it is offered feverishly. In his opinion television and mass media were the primary instruments in effecting these outcomes.
As the title of the book suggests, Postman believed that it was through turning everything including politics and the news into entertainment, the media had created a "peek a boo" world where opinions had been replaced by emotions that could shift with each news poll and each new bit of information that was presented to the viewer. Its power too, according to Postman, was the sort that peek a boo has over a child -- it could endlessly entertain.
Three decades after Amusing Ourselves to Death was published it seems, ironically, that Neil Postman himself made the most important prophecies about the postmodern world. Never before has his vision been as relevant as it is now, in the post-Internet, post-smartphone world of today. And what better example of how the media influences perceptions and changes outcomes than the current political landscape of America. Take the Republican debate at Greenville, South Carolina this past Saturday night. It is hard to imagine speakers more intellectually vapid and disconnected from the issues that affect the everyday lives of ordinary Americans. Most of the discussion revolved around ascribing blame, accusations of dishonesty and the legacy of George W. Bush. Throughout the debate tempers flared and the candidates persisted in the strategy of attacking the player rather than the ball, probably because they had nothing of substance on offer. This burlesque tragicomedy of course makes for great prime time entertainment -- which may explain why Republican Debates have brought in almost twice as many viewers than the Democratic ones.
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