Racing to the Next Experience
A Pattern of Amusing Ourselves to Death
It was the day after the most deadly twenty-four (24) hours for humans and by humans since World War II when Neil Postman, at the time a New York University professor, proved that life would not come to a standstill. That the rest of us could still entertain ourselves to death (The title of his book in 1985).
While the title which graces Postman’s book cover is a metaphor of the extremes of our cultural escapes, not even a national tragedy would disrupt the truth about the identity politics of demand-for-profit show business and direct-to-consumer delivery. According to many listeners of the September 12th, 2001, Howard Stern Show broadcast, it was the only “live entertainment” playing on as regularly scheduled for the entirety of New York City.
The scale of tragedy on the prior day had much of the city leaving as quickly as possible when the FAA resumed flights. Even on that fateful Wednesday morning, Postman’s theory held strong. Choose any day since modern technology forever changed the world, and it’s hard to prove his thesis incorrect.
Postman goes on in other works to talk about our loss of literacy as a general population. The belief was that language and references to works in literary form are no longer widely taught, known, or even absorbed unless presented in a digital short piece format. TLDNR “Too Long Did Not Read” is a well-known internet shorthand encapsulating the reality as quickly and coldly as the ignorance that feeds it.
The cultural shift in attention span may explain a popular YouTube channel series called “Crash Course” by now famous author John Green. Coincidently, I wrote a review of Green’s book and the film adaptation four (4) years ago, to which, in Postman’s terms, two observable truth’s reside in its lack of distribution. The first is that no one will read that blog because the reality is that post-modern capitalistic people are too distracted in leisure time. Nietzsche sees the lack of focus resulting from a mindset that is “always racing to the next experience.” These claims suggest that there is no desire to find time to read in a society that, according to James Gleick’s now eerily predictive book from 1999, is obsessed and unable to accept anything other than speed and speed that is even faster.
The second point is that even if someone found the time to read my blog on Green’s book, they would most likely stop reading it because they have not the context required to absorb the blog without having read Green’s book for themselves. Green’s “Crash Course” series is the video spark notes form of ‘drive-by history’ summations in ten (10)-minute intervals to attempt a solution to those observations. If nothing else, the material is being absorbed. The video for “English literature number one” has been seen nearly three (3) million times as of this writing.
Despite a clear and quantifiable measure of success, an ultimate question remains. On a global scale, is it really enough? If everyone in the United States watched just once, it would have over three hundred fifty (350) million views. Quick video form is three million more than zero, but not a solution with significantly less than 1% of the USA.
The song remains the same with the ballot issues from my post two (2) years ago. No matter the outcome of this November’s midterm elections, anyone that was not a conscious and literately functioning adult in 1974 is unlikely to understand when the sound bites and printing press finally get to publish the headline of their wildest dreams: Our long national nightmare is over. Of course, that is the headline that identity political journalists are salivating to publish while rooting for history to repeat itself (whether that is opposition parties gaining majorities or a POTUS resigning.) It was a line by Gerald Ford when he became the 38th President of The United States on August 9, 1974, moments after President Richard Nixon became the first President to resign the office in history. It was what many believed to be the end of a dark period of corruption in government, and we can see why many would argue that maybe that wasn’t the only case of fraud and deceit (Howard Zinn et al.).
From now on, the version of history will depend on whom you ask and at what level they are literate in the ways that Postman predicts are nearly sure to become extinct. The parallels that journalists currently live and sweat for in their daily work may have no meaningful context or applicability to millennials, even if the New York Times paper paid enough ads to be trending in the top feed of twitter trending topics. I have seen it estimated that in 2019, millennials begin to outnumber the baby boomers.
How many would know the Gerald Ford quote? How many would even be tested on the matter or suggested to care? Postman says that distraction has taken over. If we have lost literacy, then, it is not a problem with a demographic of voters, it has become a problem of all voters. Thus, a society could not evolve at a more rapid pace than merely outliving previous generations. History will repeat itself. As Huxley says;
The most important lesson from history is that men have learned nothing from the lessons of history.
Andrew Ross is one of those rare selfless individuals who contribute in whatever ways he can, writing, social media, mentoring, and more. We often under-appreciate them because we get comfortable in their reliability. Andrew donates his time and effort to the betterment of humanity as a humble servant, so far as to also be known as Pastor Ross. You will find much of Andrew’s professional work as a pianist throughout iMemberMedia productions.
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