It's not Red vs. Blue Anymore. . .

[Fleet Admiral JD]

It's the educated versus those easily fooled by propaganda. ..

We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and cliches. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.

There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.

The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.

The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.

Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichs, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both.

The ability to magnify these simple and childish lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, gives these lies the aura of an uncontested truth. We are repeatedly fed words or phrases like yes we can, maverick, change, pro-life, hope or war on terror. It feels good not to think. All we have to do is visualize what we want, believe in ourselves and summon those hidden inner resources, whether divine or national, that make the world conform to our desires. Reality is never an impediment to our advancement.

The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6., as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today's political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous "person" is Mickey Mouse.

In our post-literate world, because ideas are inaccessible, there is a need for constant stimulus. News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that "Hamlet" can be as entertaining as "The Lion King" and perhaps as educational. "Culture," she wrote, "is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment."

"There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect," Arendt wrote, "but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say."

The change from a print-based to an image-based society has transformed our nation. Huge segments of our population, especially those who live in the embrace of the Christian right and the consumer culture, are completely unmoored from reality. They lack the capacity to search for truth and cope rationally with our mounting social and economic ills. They seek clarity, entertainment and order. They are willing to use force to impose this clarity on others, especially those who do not speak as they speak and think as they think. All the traditional tools of democracies, including dispassionate scientific and historical truth, facts, news and rational debate, are useless instruments in a world that lacks the capacity to use them.

As we descend into a devastating economic crisis, one that Barack Obama cannot halt, there will be tens of millions of Americans who will be ruthlessly thrust aside. As their houses are foreclosed, as their jobs are lost, as they are forced to declare bankruptcy and watch their communities collapse, they will retreat even further into irrational fantasy. They will be led toward glittering and self-destructive illusions by our modern Pied Pipers--our corporate advertisers, our charlatan preachers, our television news celebrities, our self-help gurus, our entertainment industry and our political demagogues -- who will offer increasingly absurd forms of escapism.

The core values of our open society, the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense indicate something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to understand historical facts, to separate truth from lies, to advocate for change and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially acceptable, are dying. Obama used hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds to appeal to and manipulate this illiteracy and irrationalism to his advantage, but these forces will prove to be his most deadly nemesis once they collide with the awful reality that awaits us.

Pretty interesting stuff, and a lot of what this forum has been saying all along.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Shit, forgot the link.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/10 ... da/?page=2

Sorry!

[fgalkin]

The idea that being more "educated" and following print sources makes one more resistant to manipulation is a myth created and perpetuated by the intelligentsia to feel safe and superior to the "masses." It is patently false. Being literate makes one more resistant to simpler image-based propaganda, but does nothing to address issues of framing and bias. In other words, they are just as succeptible as those who watch Fox News all day long, but simply to a different medium of communication.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Darth Wong]

The idea that being more "educated" and following print sources makes one more resistant to manipulation is a myth created and perpetuated by the intelligentsia to feel safe and superior to the "masses." It is patently false. Being literate makes one more resistant to simpler image-based propaganda, but does nothing to address issues of framing and bias. In other words, they are just as succeptible as those who watch Fox News all day long, but simply to a different medium of communication.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

You are ignoring the fact that sensory conditioning affects us at a more instinctive psychological level, and is probably more difficult to overcome through logic. That's why radio and TV advertising is more effective than print advertising, and why colour image print advertising is more effective than text advertising.

It's true that you can be very deceptive in print, but on TV you can be not just deceptive, but downright Pavlovian.

[Morilore]

I have to say, I'm getting really tired of hearing how "we" are living in "two Americas" comprised of the virtuous majority who adhere to and the degenerate majority who ignore "the core values of our society." I'm sure the author just framed it that way because that narrative sells, but it's really irritating. It's Defeated Confederate Mindset incarnation #45839. Other versions of DCM are responsible for American jingoism, American anti-welfare sentiment, marriage segregation, and oh yeah, 40 years of Republican dominance and a century and a half of anti-black racism (for obvious reasons DCM is inapplicable before the Civil War).

That said, his discussion on image-based culture being responsible for stupefaction is interesting, if somewhat obvious. I wonder what the long view of history will say about the effect of image-based technological media on human culture. No society in human history has had such effective propaganda tools at its disposal; on the other hand, in no society in human history have the masses been availed of so much widespread print information.

[Akumz Razor]

While the subjects of articles like these may seem obvious to us, I think they serve a useful purpose for those intelligent people who may not be aware of how serious the ignorance problem is, and may serve to inspire renewed intellectualism in people who have been "dumbed down" through lack challenging mental stimulation (which happened to me. I have spent the last few years trying to rediscover the nerdiness of my youth).

I don't even consider myself to be all that smart, but I am constantly shocked by the ignorance I see around me, especially otherwise intelligent people who have taken the ignorant path either by choice or due to outside pressures. I often find it difficult to relate to these ignoramuses and honestly have trouble comprehending how people can be so uninformed. Articles like this serve as good reminder of how widespread anti-intellectualism has become, and while they may be a bit depressing, I am somewhat comforted by the fact that there are people out there actively trying to reverse the trend.

[Stark]

The idea that being more "educated" and following print sources makes one more resistant to manipulation is a myth created and perpetuated by the intelligentsia to feel safe and superior to the "masses." It is patently false. Being literate makes one more resistant to simpler image-based propaganda, but does nothing to address issues of framing and bias. In other words, they are just as succeptible as those who watch Fox News all day long, but simply to a different medium of communication.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

If people actually passed year 12 English, most marketing wouldn't work because it's so patently baseless nonsense. It doesn't just work, it's super-effective! While the article is really heavy on biased narrative itself, the point that uneducated people are unable to deal with information critically is absolutely correct.

Shit, I've met people who honestly can't comprehend the difference between the characters of Sex and the City and historical persons from fifty years ago. They're all outside their immediate experience and thus equally distant.

[Mr Bean]

I hate people like this, true uninformed elitist ivory tower folks. You think of it as a put down, but sad to say like self-hating Jews there exists a tiny but true population of such people

Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that "Hamlet" can be as entertaining as "The Lion King" and perhaps as educational. "Culture," she wrote, "is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment."

I wonder if it occured to Ms Arendt that the Lion King and Hamlet are AIMED AT TWO DIFFERENT AUDIENCES.

I would love to ask if Ms Arendt would take a child between the ages of four and twelve to a live preforming of Hamlet and hell lets say The Lion King on Ice(Such a thing exists and is highly popular in America). I can tell you right now, rare it is the Kid in that age rage who will understand any portion of Hamlet but will find the moral message of the Lion King just fine and who can speak intelligent on all the characters. Now above twelve you start running into the issue where yes they should start being able to grasp Hamlet if not like it because thank you very much the reason they can call Hamlet timeless is because it's very, very old. And we have seen it done a thousand times since then and most cases improved on.

As for the rest of the OP I don't agree in outline but might agree in specifics, but that one paragraph stould out to much to me as a intentional straw man and idiot comparison to boot.

[Rye]

This is what Marxist film critics have been largely saying since at least the 50s and several psychologists for even longer. I do like the unintentional, pretentious irony of complaining that culture is being ignored in favour of what is entertaining. Hamlet was written to entertain. The true irony comes however from the implication that we ought to like Hamlet for merely being old and lauded by the "elite" traditionalist establishment. We're told we ought to like it, and yet in context it's used in a spiel against enforced, top-down, consumerist pop-culture.

[Stark]

The idea that you can judge a culture by how much they enjoy 17th century entertainment has always been stupid, and it exposes the biases of the author here.

[Jim Raynor]

The article makes some good points about the general idiocy of the American population, but the Shakespeare wanking is annoying. Hamlet is about some idiot who drives his girlfriend to suicide while plotting his revenge in the most inefficient, retarded way. Shakespeare was actually considered cheap, lowbrow entertainment back in its day. The plots are nothing special and are often quite dumb. It only seems deep and complex to the modern reader because of the funny words.

[Darth Wong]

The guy would have been on a better track if he suggested that more education in mathematics and the natural sciences would help immunize people against these kinds of manipulations. Of course, there is no 100% guarantee, but scientists are by far the least likely to be swayed by creationist nonsense, even if they are Christians themselves and have been exposed to the propaganda all their lives. That says something.

[Elfdart]

I hate people like this, true uninformed elitist ivory tower folks. You think of it as a put down, but sad to say like self-hating Jews there exists a tiny but true population of such people

I wonder if it occured to Ms Arendt that the Lion King and Hamlet are AIMED AT TWO DIFFERENT AUDIENCES.

I would love to ask if Ms Arendt would take a child between the ages of four and twelve to a live preforming of Hamlet and hell lets say The Lion King on Ice(Such a thing exists and is highly popular in America). I can tell you right now, rare it is the Kid in that age rage who will understand any portion of Hamlet but will find the moral message of the Lion King just fine and who can speak intelligent on all the characters. Now above twelve you start running into the issue where yes they should start being able to grasp Hamlet if not like it because thank you very much the reason they can call Hamlet timeless is because it's very, very old. And we have seen it done a thousand times since then and most cases improved on.

As for the rest of the OP I don't agree in outline but might agree in specifics, but that one paragraph stould out to much to me as a intentional straw man and idiot comparison to boot.

Hannah Arendt died 33 years ago.

[Sriad]

The article makes some good points about the general idiocy of the American population, but the Shakespeare wanking is annoying. Hamlet is about some idiot who drives his girlfriend to suicide while plotting his revenge in the most inefficient, retarded way.

I don't aim to get into another No Country style days-long argument about how fiction with flawed protagonists can have value, but a John Galt is a much worse vehicle for reflections on the human condition than a conflicted, brilliant, but self-absorbed prince. If you want heroes to solve problems with thoughtless simplicity, there is a vast body of work to peruse.

Hamlet, on the other hand, reacted (reasonably) to his father's ghost appearating and demanding vengeance by questioning his own sanity instead of murdering a relative because a hallucination told him to.

Shakespeare was actually considered cheap, lowbrow entertainment back in its day.

Yes, his company performing almost two hundred times for King James IV's Court is the very hallmark of both cheap and lowbrow. It is true, though, that he was considered these things by jealous rivals and that like many people he started at the bottom of the heap.

The plots are nothing special and are often quite dumb. It only seems deep and complex to the modern reader because of the funny words.

Or they might seem deep and complex because they address profound issues. Are you really calling out Shakespeare at the beginning of your post for mischaracterized inefficiency, and at the end for lack of complexity? There is pressure to embrace Shakespeare as "art acclaimed by the ages" it's true, but also anti-establishment incentive to reject Shakespeare as "popular for being popular." As in so many things, it's best to have a well-considered opinion based on direct experience, whether pro- or con.

The OP article has interesting points, but I agree that its tones (defeatist and elitist [and not the good kind of elitism] in turn) are irritating and counterproductive.

[Big Phil]

What data supports the claim that 42 million Americans cannot read?

[Knife]

Yes, his company performing almost two hundred times for King James IV's Court is the very hallmark of both cheap and lowbrow. It is true, though, that he was considered these things by jealous rivals and that like many people he started at the bottom of the heap.

So you are saying, if the Federal government paid money to have Hee Haw play infront of Bush, it wouldn't make them low brow or anything?

[Darth Wong]

What data supports the claim that 42 million Americans cannot read?

Here's an article which cites NAL as the source for a 14% illiteracy rate.

http://www.caliteracy.org/rates/

It no doubt depends on how you define "literacy". A hundred years ago, if you could read and write at all, you were considered "literate". Today, you are expected to read and write at a certain level which is deemed necessary to function in modern society.

[Samuel]

Yes, his company performing almost two hundred times for King James IV's Court is the very hallmark of both cheap and lowbrow. It is true, though, that he was considered these things by jealous rivals and that like many people he started at the bottom of the heap.

So you are saying, if the Federal government paid money to have Hee Haw play infront of Bush, it wouldn't make them low brow or anything?

Except that Bush isn't a good comparison. Think monarchy- the critics, the patrons and the power all unified in one person.

[RedImperator]

Yes, his company performing almost two hundred times for King James IV's Court is the very hallmark of both cheap and lowbrow. It is true, though, that he was considered these things by jealous rivals and that like many people he started at the bottom of the heap.

So you are saying, if the Federal government paid money to have Hee Haw play infront of Bush, it wouldn't make them low brow or anything?

That's a ridiculous analogy. The 17th century equivalent of Hee-Haw was about as likely to perform for the court of a monarch as I am to play linebacker for the Bears. For the matter, how many cheap, lowbrow performers have been invited to the White House to perform for the president in the last eight years? He's making a valid point: if Shakespeare was actually considered cheap, lowbrow entertainment for the masses (a factual assertion made by Jim Raynor, not a subjective statement of quality), he and his company wouldn't have been invited to perform for the king.

Except that Bush isn't a good comparison. Think monarchy- the critics, the patrons and the power all unified in one person.

Let's try not to be absurd here. Bush has many flaws, but if he's going to invite a performer to the White House, it's going to be Yo-Yo Ma, not Toby Keith, no matter how much Bush might actually prefer the latter. The comparison to Bush is actually valid--they're both heads of state in countries that share a number of social and political traditions--it's the idea that either one would embarrass the office they hold by inviting "cheap, lowbrow" entertainment to perform.

[Darth Wong]

He's making a valid point: if Shakespeare was actually considered cheap, lowbrow entertainment for the masses (a factual assertion made by Jim Raynor, not a subjective statement of quality), he and his company wouldn't have been invited to perform for the king.

Uhhh ... why not? Gladiator combat was lowbrow entertainment for the masses in ancient Rome, yet the Emperor himself would often show up. Today, major-league sports are considered lowbrow entertainment for the masses, yet the US President himself calls to congratulate the winners and invites them to come to the White House.

[RedImperator]

He's making a valid point: if Shakespeare was actually considered cheap, lowbrow entertainment for the masses (a factual assertion made by Jim Raynor, not a subjective statement of quality), he and his company wouldn't have been invited to perform for the king.

Uhhh ... why not? Gladiator combat was lowbrow entertainment for the masses in ancient Rome, yet the Emperor himself would often show up. Today, major-league sports are considered lowbrow entertainment for the masses, yet the US President himself calls to congratulate the winners and invites them to come to the White House.

Sports have always been treated differently in the West. Football and monster truck rallies appeal to the same demographic, but it would be considered a national embarrassment if the President attended the latter but not the formal.

At any rate, though, it seems, from a cursory Internet search, that the Jonas Brothers played at the White House recently, so so much for that theory. On the other hand, James I was hardly some stumblefuck idiot like the Wonder Chimp--he was a scholar and a patron of the arts who wouldn't invite just any minstrel to perform. Shakespeare's contemporary reputation was mixed--Ben Jonson and John Milton effusively praised him, while Samuel Pepys thought he wrote rubbish. It wasn't until the late 18th century that the modern critical view of Shakespeare was established. However, there's little evidence that Shakespeare was widely considered some lowbrow hack. It's true the lowbrow masses did like his plays, but all that proves is that the 17th century wasn't saddled with a distinction between "art" for the elites and "entertainment" for the proles.

[Mr Bean]

Hannah Arendt died 33 years ago.

Excuse me then it's not Hannah Arendt's fault it's once again the OP writers fault

Read this again and don't tell me it sounds like something attributed to Hannah

Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that "Hamlet" can be as entertaining as "The Lion King" and perhaps as educational. "Culture," she wrote, "is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment."

To my semi-trained eye it looks like something she wrote about then an exact quote of something she had said. Speaking of which if she did die 30 years ago I pardon her for not making the Lion King comparison, however I still think she was wrong then and wrong now. There are things in this world which are "culture" and thus boring and there are things which are entertainment and thus boring(Mostly because there bad or niche entertainment). But to make a good comparison can we not say Disney is a cornerstone of American Culture at this point despite it originally being all entertainment some eighty years ago?

[Darth Wong]

The biggest conceit of this argument is that "high art" or "culture" will somehow give people critical thinking skills, which they can use to analyze politics and make sound decisions.

To call this a fantastic leap in logic would be entirely too charitable. I have never seen a shred of evidence that a thorough knowledge of high art and culture produces even a whit of critical thinking skills.

How much Shakespeare does one need to read before it somehow teaches you that you can't demand proof of an existential negative? Does "Hamlet" somehow show people the importance of controlled vs uncontrolled variables when examining forensic statistics relating to social policy? Has anyone ever seen through the more obvious fallacies of global warming deniers thanks to his intimate knowledge of "Romeo and Juliet"?

The argument also suffers from another serious flaw: it assumes that our society was more literate in the past because presidential debates used a more sophisticated vocabulary, citing the Lincoln-Douglas debates as an example. However, that is an apples-to-oranges comparison: in the era of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, general literacy rates were actually much lower, not higher. The debates could take place at a more sophisticated level because they were intended for a narrower target audience than they are today, not because society itself was more literate. Modern political debates are not intended for the consumption of the intellectual elite; they are intended for the consumption of the entire public, including the yokels who would have been completely illiterate in the 19th century and who have only a 6th grade vocabulary today.

The real problem is populism: the fact that the uneducated yokel class has become so arrogant that it actually thinks it knows more than the educated elite class.

[Big Phil]

What data supports the claim that 42 million Americans cannot read?

A 14% illiteracy rate (your link - among adults presumably) only comes to 28 million illiterate Americans. Assuming the writer used the same data as you did, he's making a better argument for his own mathematical inadequacies than he is for American illiteracy. (14% x 200m adults = 28 million; 14% x 300 million Americans = 42 million.

While this guy is making some credible arguments, overall he gives the impression of being a massive douchebag who can't do basic math.

[fgalkin]

The idea that being more "educated" and following print sources makes one more resistant to manipulation is a myth created and perpetuated by the intelligentsia to feel safe and superior to the "masses." It is patently false. Being literate makes one more resistant to simpler image-based propaganda, but does nothing to address issues of framing and bias. In other words, they are just as succeptible as those who watch Fox News all day long, but simply to a different medium of communication.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

You are ignoring the fact that sensory conditioning affects us at a more instinctive psychological level, and is probably more difficult to overcome through logic. That's why radio and TV advertising is more effective than print advertising, and why colour image print advertising is more effective than text advertising.

It's true that you can be very deceptive in print, but on TV you can be not just deceptive, but downright Pavlovian.

While this is true, the intelligentsia have another gaping vulnerability, or, rather two. The first one is that they have been even more indoctrinated in the society's values during their schooling, which makes them MORE, not less succeptible to certain types of propaganda (observe how most American socialists, or Middle Eastern radical Muslims are actually educated young adults from a middle-class background). The second is that they not only do not realuze this, but assume that their schooling has given them an immunity to propaganda, one needs to look no further than this article to see the error of that.

And, of course, print journalism can be even more deceptive than TV journalism. This applies even to legitimate outlets like the New York Times.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin