The voice of the television generation generations is well carried by Camille Paglia who defends the power of against cultural elitism which has formed “a kind of intellectual denial” towards the television. But in the debate between her and Neil Postman she falters in the battle to give examples and persuade the reader in the battle of the written and the viewed. An example of this is when Paglia brings up the idea that early Judaism stood against imagery because they did not want people idolizing images but Postman takes this argument to the point that they did use written language to conceptualize their God and this allowed for the religion to become more mobile and innovative. This sort of argument strengthens Postman’s case as he uses ideas that Paglia brought up to show the strength of the written word without sounding condescending or rude. Postman later brings up the idea that even though the Catholic church has been using symbolism to support the faith, the changes and revolutionary ideas of the world that we see writing prevail over images. The images of the Catholic Church are over shadowed by the printing press and the protestant reformation which brought the written into the home. While Europe is often viewed as artistic the revolutionary ideas of the United States are forged upon the written words of the Constitution, which sparked a revolution in Europe. Through counter and persuasive arguments, Postman wins the battle of written vs. viewed but has not yet won the war.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I have to disagree and give the battle to Paglia. I feel that Postman is going to win the part fo the arguments that deal with the past, simply because there was no TV to compare to. But people relate more closey and better to images. Everybody knows what a STOP sign looks like but, not everyone can read it.
I didn't know that Postman and Paglia were in an actual war. Geez, after reading your article, I wanted to raise a white flag of sorts with all the glory language such as "faltered in battle."
Anyways, I do agree with the printing press argument in that the Catholic Church attemped to suppress the Protestant Reformation by controlling who could print. But, this was before TV was invented. That's not fair! That's like saying Portugal was better than the United States because in 1492, Columbus discovered the "New World." That's not fair- the US wasn't even created yet. IF you want an even kieled argument, you need to place the two "combatants" (as you'd probably call them) into the same arena.
If you want to compare to TV to the printing press 'suppression,' look no further than the recent events in Myanmar and how the government didn't want any images leaving the country.
Kids respond better to television rather than books. Kids can recite lines from their favorite movies they see on television more than they can with a book. Movies that are made from novels are more interesting because they cut through the boring detals and get right to the point. Television is the clear winner in this debate.
I don't completely agree with the idea that images are being over shadowed by the print.Paglia makes a great point bout this when she says that the use of images goes back the pagans.Print may be lasting and images are forever changing but they still exist. The use of images stands strong as a comfort to people and print can be intimidating, it's not always universal. Besides what are letter/print but symbols that at one point were nothing but images.
Post a Comment