There has occurred a basic collapse of intellect on the 24 hour news channels and the Sunday morning talk shows: it’s there for all to see. The guest experts do not ever stray from the beaten path nor do they ever leave their established character portrayals or say anything insightful, original or unexpected. They use the topics, not to inform or provide helpful background that will place the item in a cultural or historical context, but merely as a pretext for self-display. The old idea of the analyst or reporter, who presented a set of events, acts, principles or policies while holding in check his own reaction and his views in abeyance has apparently gone for good. Today, the expert guest is the agent and promoter of one side of an issue, his or her purpose is not to explain the origin of the opinion, the principles involved, its successes or failures in history but simply to wield some bludgeon of his or her preferred personal set of values and view points that is meant to intimidate or confer on them the dominance of superiority and shuts the door on further thought.
This is not only deeply immoral, it is deeply useless. What we need is sound information and a better, wider knowledge. “Where is the knowledge lost in information?” asked a wistful Eliot.
On Sundays there is no knowledge, only noise. Week after week, Sunday after Sunday, we are presented with the same set of stuffed mannequins who week after week say basically the same things in the most untalented, stale and hackneyed language. And in spite of all the hours spent by us -- the credulous and expectant listeners – at no time do we hear an actual idea or a single reference to a first rate book on the subject under discussion or an unexpected insight or deft reference to an historical analogy or even a sharply imaged personal impression.
The economist/philosopher Hayek says that dogmatists for democracy always say that discussion is the main way by which people learn. The Sunday talk shows surely prove this to be completely wrong. Hayek denounces the flattery of the mob by saying that discussion “.is not the main process by which people learn.” He adds, “Unless some people know more than the rest and are in a better position to convince the rest, there would be little progress in opinion.”
To listen to discussions in this country is to have clear proof that the bulk of the people is always inert and unthinking. Advances do not come from the dreary mass of the majority mind. It is always the most qualified among the minority who act in new and more thoughtful ways that end by helping the majority to be more intelligent. Hayek says that if the majority directed affairs, as they think they do, the result would be stagnation. He is right, and I would say that the dullness results because the majority thinks in unison and is hostile to anything it does not already know or has not already heard. Let the novel come near, and they bridle with hostile distrust.
Exchanging opinion in America is not about acquainting oneself with unfamiliar views; it’s about a yearning for power and dominance. It is about getting the better of those that don’t agree with you. Discussion in America is designed to humiliate, injure, chastise, ruin, discredit and destroy, not inform.
This is increasingly sinister because the general public knows less and less about anything of real value, and it understands less and less of the subjects and topics worth knowing because knowledge is not the product of an urge to self-assertion, but of hard, incessant work. Instead of knowledge, half-baked reckless opinion, driven by a completely undeserved sense of self importance and an irrepressible desire to be heard whether or not one deserves to be, has taken over.
In America, opinion is the opium of the people. “To be able to sound off is proof that I exist. I blab, therefore I am.”
It is truly a tragedy that such a great a country as ours harbors within it such a profound and ineradicable dislike of intelligence.
I stopped watching these shows long ago as well as many other posters here ....I feel that a nice walk in the woods with my wife and kids is time much better spent. or reading a book. or anything else for that matter.
Posted by: matt | 13 October 2009 at 05:04 PM
A list of more modern materials to supplement the classical items concerning effective argument and reasoning that I previously posted:
While browing Amazon to post this list, I also came across How to Lie with Maps, which looks good but I have not read.
Posted by: Duncan Kinder | 13 October 2009 at 06:19 PM
I have not owned a television since 1979. What have I missed?
Posted by: Steve | 13 October 2009 at 07:22 PM
Surprisingly enough, I find myself watching France 24 (in English) quite regularly now. The news is good quality, the comment is fair, and their experts are experts, not just ranting ex-somethings.
I still watch BBC but it hasn't changed for the best.
Posted by: F5F5F5 | 13 October 2009 at 07:32 PM
Steve:
You missed ME!.....lol
F5F5F5:
France 24? I have to be honest i rarely watched it. Considering the state of the French news media's finance and the traditional influence the Eysee has had on them, for understandable reasons, i have learned to be very suspicious of any news coming from France alone. Even Le Monde has lost a lot of its quality and stature throughtout the years. I promise to give it an other try though.
But i remember Christine Ockrent being on Al Jazeera with a panel of journalists from around the world to discuss news media. When the moderator asked her why France 24 decided to air a show on lingerie in the Middle East while the War in Gaza was raging, she replied that she wasn't aware of that! Furthermore, she kept constantly evading the very direct questions asked by her host. She sounded like a sales rep. on a promotion tour for her news channel when the question were structural and philosophical. But I promise. I'll commit to watching it for a full month to get a real opinion of the channel.
ms
Posted by: Mark Stuart | 14 October 2009 at 04:31 AM
One nation
under God
has turned into
one nation under the influence
of one drug
Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
T.V., it
satellite links
our United States of Unconsciousness
Apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive
The methadone metronome pumping out
150 channels 24 hours a day
you can flip through all of them
and still there's nothing worth watching
T.V. is the reason why less than 10 per cent of our
Nation reads books daily
Why most people think Central America
means Kansas
Socialism means unamerican
and Apartheid is a new headache remedy
absorbed in it's world it's so hard to find us
It shapes our mind the most
maybe the mother of our Nation
should remind us
that we're sitting too close to...
T.V. is
the stomping ground for political candidates
Where bears in the woods
are chased by Grecian Formula'd
bald eagles
T.V. is mechanized politic's
remote control over the masses
co-sponsored by environmentally safe gases
watch for the PBS special
It's the perpetuation of the two party system
where image takes precedence over wisdom
Where sound bite politics are served to
the fast food culture
Where straight teeth in your mouth
are more important than the words
that come out of it
Race baiting is the way to get selected
Willie Horton or
Will he not get elected on...
T.V., is it the reflector or the director ?
Does it imitate us
or do we imitate it
because a child watches 1500 murders before he's
twelve years old and we wonder why we've created
a Jason generation that learns to laugh
rather than to abhor the horror
T.V. is the place where
armchair generals and quarterbacks can
experience first hand
the excitement of video warfare
as the theme song is sung in the background
Sugar sweet sitcoms
that leave us with a bad actor taste while
pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars
You saw the video
You heard the soundtrack
Well now go buy the soft drink
Well, the only cola that I support
would be a union C.O.L.A.(Cost Of Living Allowance)
On television
Back again, "New and improved"
We return to our irregularly programmed schedule
hidden cleverly between heavy breasted
beer and car commercials
CNN, ESPN, ABC, TNT, but mostly B.S.
Where oxymoronic language like
"virtually spotless", "fresh frozen"
"light yet filling" and "military intelligence"
have become standard
T.V. is the place where phrases are redefined
like "recession" to "necessary downturn"
"Crude oil" on a beach to "mousse"
"Civilian death" to "collateral damages"
and being killed by your own Army
is now called "friendly fire"
T.V. is the place where the pursuit
of happiness has become the pursuit of
trivia
Where toothpaste and cars have become
sex objects
Where imagination is sucked out of children
by a cathode ray nipple
T.V. is the only wet nurse
that would create a cripple
Television, by Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (from back in '91)
Posted by: YT | 14 October 2009 at 12:52 PM
In other words, discourse has become like Dick Cheney's idea of what America's foreign policy should be: dominance.
Gore Vidal said it best recently: Does anyone care what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which good advertisers know how to provoke.” From The London Times: http://tr.im/BMZn
In a recent clip about doctors in Massachusetts putting the smartest kid/person in the USA, Michael Kearney, under an MRI to watch his brain, the doctors made the remark that when Kearney used his frontal lobe, his off-the-charts IQ came into play; however, when he was asked about emotional reactions to certain stimuli, the MRI showed that he used the amygdala (medium temporal lobe) and his responses were standard for his age: teenage emotional reactions, and nothing intelligent about them. The amygdala is often called the limbic brain, some say Lizard Brain, which is the mental watering hole for the majority of Americans. Certainly the spate of recent reactions to health care reform.
Posted by: MRW. | 14 October 2009 at 02:36 PM
YT:
I can appreciate your rant about ... all that. But i think i'll stick to my anti-French one on the other post. It felt sooo much better!
MRW:
Gore Vidal ? I like to read his novel but here is an other American disguised one day in a trench coat and a cigarette dangling from his beak. Bronzed skin, sun glasses, designer clothes and still a cigarette dangling from his mouth, the other!
I love those Americans who enjoy criticizing the US and loooove Europe soooo much, but always come back to die on our shores! Gore Vidal is no exception. He used to spend a lot of time in Europe, France and Italy mainly, giving interviews to whomever wanted to hear how highly Americans themselves thought about their own country. Until his boyfriend died, he sold his italian Villa to move back to LA in 2003!
What Richard Sale is describing in his article is really not specific to America. It's specific to any society, large or small, which is living to the drum beat of the entertainment industry. Thanks to greatly improved economic conditions. In these societies, people's lives have become boring. That's why their talk has become boring. In their world, realities don't matter anymore. Cheney said himself once: "deficits don't matter!" The same intellectual deplorable conditions can be observed from Paris to London, from Vienna to Mumbai, from Moscow to Johannesburg.
But to many other people on this planet: realities do matter!
ms.
Posted by: Mark Stuart | 14 October 2009 at 07:17 PM
I love those Americans who enjoy criticizing the US and loooove Europe soooo much, but always come back to die on our shores!
Because it'll always be home, regardless of how much we may enjoy living overseas.
What difference does it make, anyway? Jeez.
Posted by: Cold War Zoomie | 14 October 2009 at 10:06 PM
Mark Stuart: Are you Jewish? 'Coz I can't recall anyone else hatin' their own peoples that much... Wait a minute, does that make me Jewish?
Posted by: YT | 17 October 2009 at 01:40 PM