I borrow my title from Jonathan Swift, who was writing about the problem of starvation in eighteenth-century Ireland. Swift’s proposal for solving the problem, considered one of the best examples of irony in English literature, was for the starving Irish to solve the problem of starvation by boiling and eating their babies. Swift’s proposal was, of course, anything but modest. It was also satire—educated people of the time were not expected to take it seriously. Today’s Republican Party, however, has been proposing actions, while not as horrific as boiling and eating babies, would foster almost as much misery for the . . . → Read More: A Modest Proposal
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Given the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election, everyone needs read Neil Postman’s 1982 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Reading it won’t change the outcome of the election, of course, but it will provide understanding for how and why it happened the way it did. Postman’s main point is that print encourages logic and reflection. Visual media, and television in particular, encourage the feelings of the moment. To be taken seriously and believed, written documents need to be logical and coherent. To be successful, visual media need to influence feelings. We . . . → Read More: A Media Star Is Born  Comments are closed  Blog  Abraham Lincoln, against the wind, Aldous Huxley, Amusing Ourselves to Death, basket of deplorables, Brave New World, camera blocking, communication technologies, computers, Donald Trump, dystopian, Eighteenth century, Elvis, emotions, English literature, Europe, familiarity, feelings, George Orwell, Hillary Clinton, Lincoln, logic, media, media mogul, NCIS, Neil Postman, Nineteenth century, North America, novels, Pony Express, print, Republican Party, rock star, Ronald Reagan, soma, steel wheels, telegraph, thought, times of stress, travel, True Detective, TV, typewriters, Virginia Satir, Washington |
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