• A river that has slowly been polluted suddenly becomes toxic; most of the fish perish; swimming becomes a danger to health. But even then, the river may look the same and one may still take a boat ride on it. In other words, even when life has been taken from it, the river does not disappear, nor do all of its uses, but its value has been seriously diminished and its degraded condition will have harmful effects throughout the landscape. It is this way with our symbolic environment.
• A river [the environment] that has slowly been polluted suddenly becomes toxic; most of the fish perish [killing creativity]; swimming becomes a danger to health. But even then, the river may look the same and one may still take a boat ride on it. In other words, even when life has been taken from it, the river does not disappear, nor do all of its uses, but its value has been seriously diminished and its degraded condition will have harmful effects throughout the landscape. It is this way with our [creative] environment.
• Like the fish who survive a toxic river and the boatman who sail on it, there still dwell among us those whose sense of things is largely influenced by older and clearer waters.
• Like the fish [the creative individual, the creative group, the creative ideas themselves] who survive a toxic river and the boatman who sail on it, there still dwell among us those whose sense of things is largely influenced by older and clearer waters [waters would be the environment that would enable and/ or disable creativity].
• The third point is that in the analogy I have drawn above, the river refers largely to what we called public discourse ── our political, religious, informational and commercial forms of conversation.
• The third point is that in the analogy I have drawn above, the river refers largely to what we called [the environment].
Niel Postman, Amusing ourselves to death : public discourse in the age of show business, new introduction by Andrew Postman [2005], [1985]
pp.27─28
I find it useful to think of the situation in this way: Changes in the symbolic environment are like changes in the natural environment; they are both gradual and additive at first, and them, all at once, a critical mass is achieved, as the physicists say. A river that has slowly been polluted suddenly becomes toxic; most of the fish perish; swimming becomes a danger to health. But even then, the river may look the same and one may still take a boat ride on it. In other words, even when life has been taken from it, the river does not disappear, nor do all of its uses, but its value has been seriously diminished and its degraded condition will have harmful effects throughout the landscape. It is this way with our symbolic environment. We have reached, I believe, a critical mass in that electronic media have decisively and irreversibly changed the character of our symbolic environment. We are now a culture whose information, ideas and epistemology are given form by television, not by the printed word. To be sure, there are still readers and there are many books published, but the uses of print and reading are not the same as they once were; not even in schools, the last institutions where print was thought to be invincible. They delude themselves who believe that television and print coexist, for coexistence implies parity. There is no parity here. Print is now merely a residual epistemology, and it will remain so, aided to some extent by the computer, and newspapers and magazines that are made to look like television screens. Like the fish who survive a toxic river and the boatman who sail on it, there still dwell among us those whose sense of things is largely influenced by older and clearer waters.
The third point is that in the analogy I have drawn above, the river refers largely to what we called public discourse ── our political, religious, informational and commercial forms of conversation. I am arguing that a television-based epistemology pollutes public communication and its surrounding landscape, not that it pollutes everything.
‘’•─“”
(Amusing ourselves to death./ Niel Postman, bibliography: p. 173., includes index., 1. mass media ── influence., P94.P63 1986, 302.2'34, 86-9513, A section of this book was supported by a commission from the Annenberg scholars program, Annenberg school of communications, university of southern california. SPecifically, portions of chapters six and seven formed part of a paper delivered at the scholars conference, “Creating meaning : literacies of our time”, February 1984., [1985] )
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• A river [the environment] that has slowly been polluted suddenly becomes toxic; most of the fish perish [killing creativity]; swimming becomes a danger to health. But even then, the river may look the same and one may still take a boat ride on it. In other words, even when life has been taken from it, the river does not disappear, nor do all of its uses, but its value has been seriously diminished and its degraded condition will have harmful effects throughout the landscape. It is this way with our [creative] environment.
• Like the fish who survive a toxic river and the boatman who sail on it, there still dwell among us those whose sense of things is largely influenced by older and clearer waters.
• Like the fish [the creative individual, the creative group, the creative ideas themselves] who survive a toxic river and the boatman who sail on it, there still dwell among us those whose sense of things is largely influenced by older and clearer waters [waters would be the environment that would enable and/ or disable creativity].
• The third point is that in the analogy I have drawn above, the river refers largely to what we called public discourse ── our political, religious, informational and commercial forms of conversation.
• The third point is that in the analogy I have drawn above, the river refers largely to what we called [the environment].
Niel Postman, Amusing ourselves to death : public discourse in the age of show business, new introduction by Andrew Postman [2005], [1985]
pp.27─28
I find it useful to think of the situation in this way: Changes in the symbolic environment are like changes in the natural environment; they are both gradual and additive at first, and them, all at once, a critical mass is achieved, as the physicists say. A river that has slowly been polluted suddenly becomes toxic; most of the fish perish; swimming becomes a danger to health. But even then, the river may look the same and one may still take a boat ride on it. In other words, even when life has been taken from it, the river does not disappear, nor do all of its uses, but its value has been seriously diminished and its degraded condition will have harmful effects throughout the landscape. It is this way with our symbolic environment. We have reached, I believe, a critical mass in that electronic media have decisively and irreversibly changed the character of our symbolic environment. We are now a culture whose information, ideas and epistemology are given form by television, not by the printed word. To be sure, there are still readers and there are many books published, but the uses of print and reading are not the same as they once were; not even in schools, the last institutions where print was thought to be invincible. They delude themselves who believe that television and print coexist, for coexistence implies parity. There is no parity here. Print is now merely a residual epistemology, and it will remain so, aided to some extent by the computer, and newspapers and magazines that are made to look like television screens. Like the fish who survive a toxic river and the boatman who sail on it, there still dwell among us those whose sense of things is largely influenced by older and clearer waters.
The third point is that in the analogy I have drawn above, the river refers largely to what we called public discourse ── our political, religious, informational and commercial forms of conversation. I am arguing that a television-based epistemology pollutes public communication and its surrounding landscape, not that it pollutes everything.
‘’•─“”
(Amusing ourselves to death./ Niel Postman, bibliography: p. 173., includes index., 1. mass media ── influence., P94.P63 1986, 302.2'34, 86-9513, A section of this book was supported by a commission from the Annenberg scholars program, Annenberg school of communications, university of southern california. SPecifically, portions of chapters six and seven formed part of a paper delivered at the scholars conference, “Creating meaning : literacies of our time”, February 1984., [1985] )
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