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Friday, July 07, 2006
The Prophetic Neil Postman  I've been reading Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death, which was a recommendation from a friend of mine. His thesis in the book is that one's message inevitably becomes intertwined and is shaped by the medium used to communicate it, and he makes no bones about his belief that we are putting ourselves in terrible trouble as we allow the television to take the mantle from print as the dominant form of public discourse, turning much of it into "dangerous nonsense." Not to be mistaken for another academic stick-in-the-mud howling about "junk" on television, he claims that the best thing about television IS junk, which offers no serious threat. "[W]e do not measure a culture by its output of undisguised trivialities but by what it claims as significant. Therein lies our problem, for television is at its most trivial and, therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high, when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations." According to Postman, the problem is not that television is filled with junk. The problem is that we allow the ideals that are most foundational and should be the most dear to us in our public discourse (be it politics, religion, culture) to be represented in a medium that, by and large, lends itself to one end: entertainment. The result is that those we recognize as harbingers of what we believe is significant, our preachers, political leaders, and educators, must become entertainers to conform to this new medium. "The A-Team and Cheers are no threat to our public health. 60 Minutes, Eyewitness News, and Sesame Street are." In describing his arguments to my wife, she asked the question, "What does this mean for the church?" Of course, Postman published his book back in 1985. Maybe the question that SHOULD be asked is, "What has happened to the church?
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Jimmy Doyle is a dad, husband,
teacher, friend, and other things. Currently he's just trying to figure out what it means to follow Christ and be in community with others. He enjoys having conversations with fellow pilgrims on the journey.
Stephen Zedler has a wife and three kids who he loves very much. He has been called by God to study and teach history, particularly U.S.
history. He also believes that God has called him to reform the way children are educated in America.