#19: "In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility"
After discussing this in class with Lauren, we thought of a few examples of these impediments in our modern society. Referring to public conversations becoming baby-talk, the best example we came up with The Simpsons. This drastically dumbed down version about the problems of our civilization is a mindless, satirical way of attempting to explain what is going on in the world. I'm sure the show is largely watched all over the world, but not as as a form of gaining knowledge. This is show is probably so successful because it is so purposeless, as Postman explains. This television trend also slams you with lots and lots of trivia that you will most probably use of space in your brain to remember something you will never use again, lovely! Trivia is unimportant information and seen everywhere on our TV screens.
Reality shows and TV series also suck in most of the audience. Keeping up with the Kardashians, Gossip Girl, Jersey Shore, Pretty Little Liars, the list is endless. Every time I unfortunately give in to these acts, I suddenly think how sick it is that these people are only rich because of me watching them so much. Otherwise they would be struggling through high school years, if they managed to get it. Some would be orange lobsters alarming people on the streets. They would have no future, no success if it was not for us.
Our lives have come to the point where our work and other errands are scheduled around TV. Rushing back from work to catch the end of Criminal Minds, scrambling to finish homework in time to watch Dance Moms, it actually is pretty sad. We have unconsciously become slaves to every person we continuously watch on television. If Neil was to see this culture-death would be much more of a possibility than it ever has been.
Maybe Postman's predictions are the ones we should be worrying about, not Nostradamus.
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