"We would all be better off if television got worse, not better"(159).
What Postman meant here was that television show just show junk programs and not "educational" programs such as news, or science shows etc. because television turns these shows into "entertainment packages"(159). I agree with Postman, because news about murders and car accidents shouldn't be viewed as entertainment and not everything in life can always be fun because some things really need a mature, and serious approach, such as school.
But this made me think. Isn't television already becoming almost pure junk entertainment? MTV is just all reality shows now and doesn't even have any more music with it. All the music videos and things are gone now and have been replaced with pointless reality shows. All the popular shows right now are crude immature cartoons like Family Guy and The Simpsons, which I admit that I enjoy myself. So isn't T.V. getting worse already? Like all those News caster Icons are all passing away and their T.V. shows along with them. So all we are being left with now is just the daily and nightly news which already has a less formal feel to it. So are we making progress kind of away from a Huxleyan world?
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Yes, I think that television is just getting worse and worse. I usually try to find something to watch that isn't pure entertainment or nonsense. The only time I find something that is a cartoon that I don't mind watching is on Saturday. (Anime galore!) Most anime, in my opinion, does not contain utter nonsense. There are a few that are completely random but the rest can teach about different morals, etc.
No, we are not making progress away from the Huxleyan world. In fact we are shifting closer and closer to it. The shows we see on television feed us utter nonsense, and yet we are still hooked. Television has become the drug that keeps us complacent, rather like the soma of Brave New World. Huxley predicted a society that would be controlled by pleasure, and we are coming closer an closer to that society.
-Sejal Shah
I think television is getting worse. It's brainwashing our minds to watch stuff like reality t.v. shows, soap operas, and dramas. I personally think that I have been sucked into this brainwashing. I do not think that I can be saved from this because I am into deep. Like Postman said, televison is the soma in our world. Even though I do not think that television is as bad as soma, it is almost there.
As Postman said, “The problem, in any case, does not reside in WHAT people watch. The problem is in THAT we watch” (160). As you had admitted, we continue to be entertained even by the junk (“The Simpsons”, “The Family Guy”, etc…) that television provides us.
We are certainly not making progress away from the Huxleyan world, but are, as Sejal stated, “shifting closer and closer to it.” This prediction is one that Postman is supports, “Television, in other words, is transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business. It is entirely possible, of course, that in the end we shall find that delightful, and decide we like it just fine. That is exactly what Aldous Huxley feared was coming, fifty years ago” (80).
I agree, television is getting worse and worse. It has become much more crude and immature, but it's to accomodate to our society today. Shows come and go, gaining and losing interest, so, to keep people interested and entertained, people create shows that appeal to those who are already brainwashed by what television has offered us in the past few decades. News itself can be immature, so what is left that IS informative, educational, and mature?
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