The form of public discourse in American culture has changed from print to image. How has the content also changed? Postman writes in order to discuss this question.
He offers examples of how medium controls message, including smoke signals, graven images, clocks, written alphabet, glasses, microscopes, IQ, and mathematics. (8)
The form of human conversation (“conversation” refers to all of the information exchanged and all of the techniques to exchange it) affects what is convenient to express. What is convenient to express becomes the content of culture. Therefore, the form of conversation affects the content of the culture. For example, a society that primarily uses smoke signals is probably not going to to discuss philosophy; it would take too long and be too difficult. In the same way, a person with an ugly body will not look good on TV and therefore not be elected President. One’s body is not relevant to their ideas when they are expressing them through radio or print. But on TV, the person is seen with their body included. Therefore the form of TV works against the content of philosophy. meaning you can't do political philosophy on TV.
A new tool contains a new idea that goes beyond the tool itself. Eyeglasses corrected vision in the twelfth century but the idea that went beyond the glasses was that man could improve his body. The clock is another tool that contained a powerful idea. Before, time was a product of nature measured by the sun and seasons. Now, time is measured by a machine using minutes and seconds. The clock changed us into time-watchers, then time-savers, and finally time-servers. Thus, changing the metaphor for time changed how we view time itself.
The written alphabet is a different tool than the spoken. It changes the metaphor for speech from voice to something else. It freezes speech. It changes focus from the ears to the eyes. It then allows the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian and the scientist to study it.
He closes the chapter with this logical progression: We converse about nature and ourselves in languages that make it convenient. We don’t see nature itself; our view of it is shaped by our language. Our languages are our media. Our media are our metaphors. Our metaphors create the content of our culture. (15)
I like the opening chapter because it just shows really good examples of the point Postman is trying to get across. Throughout the book he makes really good points on the dangers of feeding into the media side of things. In a way television can take away from our thoughts because we're just looking with our eyes but not necessarily seeing the "big picture" The opening chapter just really shines a light on how serious the issues are.
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