Fig & Olive

This Ramadan, many of us have decided to give up or decrease our TV and internet usage (especially social media). While we take this time to step back from habits that feel intuitively (bad?) Neil Postman’s, classic 1980’s book on TV may give us reason to continue refraining after Ramadan.

The World is Too Much With Us

In one of my favorite poems, William Wordsworth cries:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Like Wordsworth more directly put it over 200 years ago, being overly involved with a “world” outside of our direct (physical and spiritual) experience is something to moan about. Neil Postman, in his book Amusing ourselves to death, begs us to question the benefits of our new found “information age” in which the world is indeed, “too much with us”. Maybe we should not rejoice in the fact that we live in the “information age,” maybe it is, in fact, depressing. After all, what has the latest news in Iran have to do with a woman going about her day in Brooklyn, NY? Having more information than we have the agency to do anything about, isn’t new Postman posits, but the ratio has become exorbitant. Postman tells us to do an experiment and see if we read or watch in the news anything that causes us to change our habits for the day in any way. Maybe a weather report on occasion and not much else. As I reflected on this question for myself I realized that he was mostly right except that one other factor was almost always changed —my mood. The latest shooting makes me feel a bit less safe, the latest government flub chips away at my confidence in our leadership, another report on some international tragedy makes me feel helpless about the world. In other words, each day we inject ourselves with a kind of poison we’re told is good for us —information, even while we see ourselves slowly deteriorating. I don’t watch much TV news but social media isn’t any better, probably worse.

It turns important discussions into nonsense 

Postman tells us we live in a “now…this” culture. I’ve been trying to find the words for it lately but could only, at best, articulate the feeling —I’m tired of running from one hashtag to another. It seems every time I log on to Twitter there’s some new urgent topic I should be concerning myself with. A topic that only moments before logging on to Twitter I was blissfully unaware of. Postman’s book is primarily about TV but the truth of his words are only more amplified in the age of social media. However important a topic is —especially on “Muslim Twitter,” where topics range from apostasy to hijab, they weren’t my topics. Even if they are ultimately important discussions they weren’t discussions that I was prepared to have or engage in at that moment, it was just the latest chatter. It was the “now… this” culture imported from television and put on steroids.

““Now … this.” The newscaster means that you have thought long enough on the previous matter (approximately forty-five seconds), that you must not be morbidly preoccupied with it (let us say, for ninety seconds), and that you must now give your attention to another fragment of news or a commercial.” —Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (pp. 99-100)

No matter how important a topic is, if it’s only allowed a few seconds of the news or a few tweets, we’ve essentially degraded it. Someone recently said on Twitter that more scholars should use Twitter to “reach the people where they are” I wanted to reply to them but I found myself in front of the screen for 20 minutes —being unable to sufficiently reply in 140 characters. So I never replied but what I wanted to say that I couldn’t say succinctly at that moment is that social media is not worthy or well-suited for every kind of discussion. One of the biggest issues with social media is that gives users a false sense of democracy, how often has someone retweeted a scholar (since many of them do in fact use Twitter), to tell us that they ‘disagree’ as if their opinion is even worthy of being known on a matter outside their expertise? As Americans (and everyone else who copies our culture) we are hyper-optimistic about every new technology. We only see better, newer, shinier. We never really give ourselves the bother of weighing each new media’s pros and cons. But we should, because whether or not we acknowledge it all new media does bear both benefit and detriment.

In an Ancient Egyptian myth cited by Postman involving a King and the “god” of the invention, the “god” is showing his new inventions to the King and the King notes the pro and cons of every new technology before letting it into his society. Of writing he says, one will be writing to a general audience some of whom will misunderstand him. A few weeks ago I was discussing this exact issue, there’s a book by Zora Neale Hurston that was refused publication in her lifetime because it was written in the native language of the speaker —a former slave with broken English. Hurston insisted as did the subject of her book, that the book must remain in that format, transcribed as he truly spoke, preserving not just the content of his words but the character with which he spoke them. Black intellectuals of the time were appalled, here’s yet another means for white folks to degrade us and view us as uneducated, they won the day and the book remained unpublished until decades after her death. Yet, while it’s popular in our times to be against “respectability politics”, I believe both sides have an argument. When a book is written it is addressed to no one in particular, there is no author sitting beside you to clarify any possible misunderstandings. And thus while preserving the authentic way in which this former slave spoke, there is nothing to stop white people of the time to generalize his broken English to all black people and use it as another weapon in their arsenal to terrorize and degrade.

“…the Egyptian god Thoth, who is alleged to have brought writing to the King Thamus, was also the god of magic. People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it appears to a purely oral people—a conversation with no one and yet with everyone. What could be stranger than the silence one encounters when addressing a question to a text? What could be more metaphysically puzzling than addressing an unseen audience, as every writer of books must do?” —Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (p. 13)

When Bill Cosby went around to black churches speaking to young black men about their responsibilities to the community the response —as Ta-Nehisi Coates reports, was mostly positive “…full call-and-response mode, punctuating Cosby’s punch lines with laughter, applause, or cries of “Teach, black man! Teach!” However, Cosby’s misstep was in believing his words of advice should be taken from the private pulpit and into the written word. Who was his book Come on, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors written for? Why exactly was a book needed? His “Pound Cake” speech given to the NAACP, was also a misstep. At this time black and white liberals began to see Cosby as an enemy to the poor and oppressed, “If it hadn’t been for his decision to scold poor black Americans for their moral failures while decades of sexual-assault allegations had remained hidden, it’s possible that none of Cosby’s victims would have gotten their day in court” writes Adam Serwer in his essay ‘How Cosby’s ‘Pound Cake’ Speech Helped Lead to His Downfall.’ Suddenly Cosby was no longer a hero —however problematic, he was speaking down to black folks and unnecessarily criticizing them for their misfortune —what happened to the cheering crowds? Had Bill Cosby decided to take his message out in a Twitter rant, he would have been attacked no sooner than he got out his last tweet. Closed door lectures, public speeches, books and twitter rants are not interchangeable.

The medium is the message or, as I’d like to reword the infamous McLuhan phrase, the medium shapes the message. Many of the discussions taking place in the news, on TV, and on social media are important and that is precisely why we must consider what the limitations of each medium are before using it as a platform to share our ideas. A discussion about apostasy, abortion, colorism, racism, victimhood, community responsibility, sexism etc. all need to be had but in which format we should best have them is just as important a consideration. What are the pro and cons of utilizing each medium? How do we best utilize each medium? And how do we ensure that we are not trivializing our most important discussions?

We’d be better off without it (probably)

Neil Postman classifies Jerry Mander —author of Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, as a Luddite with the unrealistic call for people to get rid of their televisions. But by the end of his book, Postman’s call isn’t much more realistic or helpful. He states that we should create a TV show that teaches people how to watch TV, what TV is good for and what it’s not good for. Postman knows this is an unlikely solution and as far as I know in the 20+ years since his book, no station has taken him up on the offer. The other solution he offers is for schools to do the same, teach kids how to use the media —any and all media, what it’s pros and cons are and what would be better left to some other medium.

Instead of simply asking the question, How we can incorporate new technologies into our school? Let us first ask if we ought to. What is gained and what is lost when we do and are the gains worthy enough to suffer the losses? This is a better more probable solution but likely won’t happen in most schools until maybe college if one decides to take an interest in such a subject. Postman believes that simply asking the questions will be enough, demystifying our mediums will be enough to break the spell, to get us to ask the right questions will suffice. In that end I’m not so sure he’s right, television, internet —from social media to youtube, is created in a way to keep us there as long as possible, to keep us addicted. Once an addict is addicted it doesn’t really matter if he then learns what he’s addicted to is awful, nothing will keep him from his chosen drug. At this point how many of us can claim to be oblivious to the dangers of smoking? Yet Americans continue to smoke away, a few may take heed —smoking has indeed gone down in recent decades, but for some, it’s just too late.

And even habits are hard to break. How many parents not only know the detriments but see the poor results of giving their kids unfiltered access to the television —like taking them to be fit for glasses before the age of ten, but continue to plop them in front the TV anyway? I tend to lean more towards Mander, whatever benefit television has it is far outweighed by its detriment.

Computers are more complicated and as a writer, I consider it a near necessity, though I’m open to the possibility that it’s isn’t. One of my teachers states that writing by hand first makes for better prose and Leo Babauto makes the argument that not even personal computers are necessary, “I don’t even need a computer — I could write in a notebook and use a computer at a library to post to my blog.” When it comes to social media for personal usage, the detriment far outweighs the benefits. Postman states in his book that for every new technology there are winners and losers, the clear winner of social media are the company owners like Mark Zuckerberg who live in large mansions with tall gates to protect their privacy all while selling ours to the highest bidder. We are the losers. We’re like the dog who is feed meat while thieves raid his owner’s house. Sure, we get to voice our opinions on a myriad of issues for public consumption —but at what cost? For entrepreneurs the benefits are greater, we don’t make anything near what Zuckerberg makes for selling your information but we get to use the information you freely share on the internet to buy Facebook ads that allow our product/service to reach you (Though, maybe that too can be reconsidered).

And so even when I think of giving up social media I resist the urge because, how else would I share my thoughts with you? But I wonder if my writing would not be superior if I stayed off social media and thus the price of losing a few followers is worth a superior quality of writing? I don’t know, but these are the kinds of questions Postman is asking us to pose to our technology. Instead of simply lining up for the newest iPhone, we get out a pen and paper (or open the notes app in our current smartphone) and ask ourselves —what would be the pros and cons of getting this new phone? Instead of discussing any and every topic on any and every platform we ask ourselves, on what platform and through what media would the information I wish share be best suited? And before plopping our kids in front the TV, we ask ourselves do my children actually benefit from so-called “educational television”? Is television a suitable tool for education?

Are the questions alone sufficient in allowing us to make better more thoughtful use of our technology? I don’t believe so, but it’s a step in the right direction.

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Consider picking up a copy of my book, 40 Hadith of ‘Aisha: An English collection of 40 Hadith narrated by the beloved wife, scholar, and sage ‘Aisha bint Abu Bakr, available here. Also, consider signing up for our monthly newsletter here: bythefigandtheolive.com/newsletter. And don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast, new episode this Sunday: iTunes Soundcloud