My English essay just because I wrote it and it tool forever
Yep, I was bored so I posted my paper! It's sad, I know, bit I'm tired and I'm not thinking straight. I really liked the introduction and the last paragraph.
Tyrone Evans, the Boy You Don't Bring Home to Motha
English Honors
Mr. Gallagher, the Hottest English Teacher Ever
“Brought to You by Your Friends at Honda…”
The American people are, on a daily basis, constantly barraged in short spurts with trivial, irrelevant information, which is rarely, if ever truly, processed. As a result, the people who watch the most television, the most news, are usually the most uninformed. At least this is what Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, believes. The conditioning of the American people, by entertainment giants such as Fox and NBC, to handle only brief pieces of information before needing to be distracted by something entertaining and unrelated, has left the populace more ignorant than had they left their televisions off. As Postman feared, pertinent and important information is lost in a gray static sea of irrelevance. Had Postman survived to see the incalculably immense Internet and its almost infinite number of websites, he would be horrified at the wealth of knowledge hidden in the inundation of pop-ups and ads. It is near impossible to navigate this sea of information without encountering some random ad. (To Win $50 Click Here!) Television stations now have their own website. This way, if a person misses their forty-five seconds of meaningless jabber, he or she can now log on to the website and experience hours upon hours of ads. At the same time the Internet has become an essential tool in the scholastic lives of any student. Research is primarily conducted on the World Wide Web and the library has become virtually obsolete. Why bother searching for a book in a library when one can get what he or she needs from a website dedicated to the subject? Likewise there has been a decline in book printing due to the Internet, a matter on which I am sure Postman would have commented were he to be alive today.
The manner in which a person receives his or her news as well as how it is delivered is of surprising importance as emphasized in Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman writes about the music that is omnipresent in the coverage of the daily news. “If there were no music… viewers would expect something truly alarming, possibly life-altering” (Postman 102). The absence of sound or the interruption of it disturbs humans, who, due to the constant presence of television throughout their lives, are so used to being surrounded by a miasma of noise. The sudden break in the cloud of noise that envelops a person usually provokes some sort of reaction. When confronted with silence, some people become very nervous while others feel the need to break the silence with any type of noise. For example, when Lenina and Bernard go to the New Mexico Savage Reservation, the Warden assaults Lenina with random facts and numbers. “ ‘… upwards of five thousand kilometers of fencing at sixty thousand volts.’ ‘You don’t say so,’ said Lenina politely, not knowing in the least what the Warden had said, but taking her cue from the dramatic pause” (Huxley 101). Because he was providing so much information, she was unsure what would be an appropriate response, but chose to say something, even though it added nothing of importance to the conversation, when provided with an auditory cue. That one terrible moment of silence prompted Lenina to speak for fear of a hanging and awkward quiet. Instead of thinking about what she had been told, she felt the need to contribute to the conversation in any way possible.
Postman mentions, in his book, the inability of Americans to be given serious information without the immediate insertion of another unconnected bit of news. Anchor people tend, upon finishing the telling of a brutal murder, rape, or accident, to switch to an unrelated story. “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 you attention to another fragment of news or a commercial” (Postman 100). The Controller, in Brave New World, uses this method when discussing history with the young boys at the Directory of Hatchery and Conditioning. “Ch C H (NO ) + Hg(NO) = well, what? An enormous hole in the ground, a pile of masonry, some bits of flesh and mucus, a foot, with the boot still on it, flying through the air and landing, flop, in the middle of the geraniums - the scarlet ones; such a splendid show that summer” (Huxley 48)! Having just described a bloody explosion, the Controller immediately switches to how the geraniums were red and the display was so wonderful. Postman’s point is thus illustrated in this passage from Huxley’s novel.
Huxley creates a society in which beauty is held in high esteem. Only pleasantries are shown to the public and it is in this way that the World State may better control them. Were the government to approach the people in any other manner, that is, without the guise of beauty, the citizens would become frightened and unruly. Postman discuses the idea of the public’s willingness to listen to the “pretty people” in our society. When constructing a television show, Postman reminds the reader to keep this thought in mind. “This means that you will exclude women who are not beautiful or who are over the age of fifty, men who are bald, all people who are overweight or whose noses are too long or whose eyes are too close together. You will try, in other words, to assemble a cast of talking hair-dos. At the very least, you will want those whose faces would not be unwelcome on a magazine cover” (Postman 100 - 101). Once these people lost their good looks and “hampered viewer acceptance” (101), they were replaced with fresh faces. “Hampered viewer acceptance,” this phrase shows how important physical appearance of a person is to society when it is receiving its news.
However, most of what Postman brings to the attention of the reader corresponds with today. The way in which news stations deliver their stories, at the same time, both disturbing and interesting if and when the viewer decides to pay close attention to it. The use of music, pictures, and small, easy to understand pieces of information is the same technique implemented in the education of small children. Yes, if one watches an episode of any children’s show, one can see how the constant shift of color and pictures keeps the short attention span of a toddler occupied. By showing video clips and photos while speaking for a maximum amount of forty-five seconds, the news stations have become adult children’s shows, keeping a fully-grown person engaged for an hour. Media moguls Fox and NBC discovered this long ago and have used this idea for decades. Americans, regardless of their age, are entertained as children, and they seem to be content with this fact. According to Robert MacNeil the idea of television “is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action, and movement. You are required… to pay attention to no concept, no character, and no problem to more than a few seconds at a time” (Postman 105). If one is not meant to concentrate on anything in particular, then what is the purpose of television?
Tyrone Evans, the Boy You Don't Bring Home to Motha
English Honors
Mr. Gallagher, the Hottest English Teacher Ever
“Brought to You by Your Friends at Honda…”
The American people are, on a daily basis, constantly barraged in short spurts with trivial, irrelevant information, which is rarely, if ever truly, processed. As a result, the people who watch the most television, the most news, are usually the most uninformed. At least this is what Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, believes. The conditioning of the American people, by entertainment giants such as Fox and NBC, to handle only brief pieces of information before needing to be distracted by something entertaining and unrelated, has left the populace more ignorant than had they left their televisions off. As Postman feared, pertinent and important information is lost in a gray static sea of irrelevance. Had Postman survived to see the incalculably immense Internet and its almost infinite number of websites, he would be horrified at the wealth of knowledge hidden in the inundation of pop-ups and ads. It is near impossible to navigate this sea of information without encountering some random ad. (To Win $50 Click Here!) Television stations now have their own website. This way, if a person misses their forty-five seconds of meaningless jabber, he or she can now log on to the website and experience hours upon hours of ads. At the same time the Internet has become an essential tool in the scholastic lives of any student. Research is primarily conducted on the World Wide Web and the library has become virtually obsolete. Why bother searching for a book in a library when one can get what he or she needs from a website dedicated to the subject? Likewise there has been a decline in book printing due to the Internet, a matter on which I am sure Postman would have commented were he to be alive today.
The manner in which a person receives his or her news as well as how it is delivered is of surprising importance as emphasized in Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman writes about the music that is omnipresent in the coverage of the daily news. “If there were no music… viewers would expect something truly alarming, possibly life-altering” (Postman 102). The absence of sound or the interruption of it disturbs humans, who, due to the constant presence of television throughout their lives, are so used to being surrounded by a miasma of noise. The sudden break in the cloud of noise that envelops a person usually provokes some sort of reaction. When confronted with silence, some people become very nervous while others feel the need to break the silence with any type of noise. For example, when Lenina and Bernard go to the New Mexico Savage Reservation, the Warden assaults Lenina with random facts and numbers. “ ‘… upwards of five thousand kilometers of fencing at sixty thousand volts.’ ‘You don’t say so,’ said Lenina politely, not knowing in the least what the Warden had said, but taking her cue from the dramatic pause” (Huxley 101). Because he was providing so much information, she was unsure what would be an appropriate response, but chose to say something, even though it added nothing of importance to the conversation, when provided with an auditory cue. That one terrible moment of silence prompted Lenina to speak for fear of a hanging and awkward quiet. Instead of thinking about what she had been told, she felt the need to contribute to the conversation in any way possible.
Postman mentions, in his book, the inability of Americans to be given serious information without the immediate insertion of another unconnected bit of news. Anchor people tend, upon finishing the telling of a brutal murder, rape, or accident, to switch to an unrelated story. “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 you attention to another fragment of news or a commercial” (Postman 100). The Controller, in Brave New World, uses this method when discussing history with the young boys at the Directory of Hatchery and Conditioning. “Ch C H (NO ) + Hg(NO) = well, what? An enormous hole in the ground, a pile of masonry, some bits of flesh and mucus, a foot, with the boot still on it, flying through the air and landing, flop, in the middle of the geraniums - the scarlet ones; such a splendid show that summer” (Huxley 48)! Having just described a bloody explosion, the Controller immediately switches to how the geraniums were red and the display was so wonderful. Postman’s point is thus illustrated in this passage from Huxley’s novel.
Huxley creates a society in which beauty is held in high esteem. Only pleasantries are shown to the public and it is in this way that the World State may better control them. Were the government to approach the people in any other manner, that is, without the guise of beauty, the citizens would become frightened and unruly. Postman discuses the idea of the public’s willingness to listen to the “pretty people” in our society. When constructing a television show, Postman reminds the reader to keep this thought in mind. “This means that you will exclude women who are not beautiful or who are over the age of fifty, men who are bald, all people who are overweight or whose noses are too long or whose eyes are too close together. You will try, in other words, to assemble a cast of talking hair-dos. At the very least, you will want those whose faces would not be unwelcome on a magazine cover” (Postman 100 - 101). Once these people lost their good looks and “hampered viewer acceptance” (101), they were replaced with fresh faces. “Hampered viewer acceptance,” this phrase shows how important physical appearance of a person is to society when it is receiving its news.
However, most of what Postman brings to the attention of the reader corresponds with today. The way in which news stations deliver their stories, at the same time, both disturbing and interesting if and when the viewer decides to pay close attention to it. The use of music, pictures, and small, easy to understand pieces of information is the same technique implemented in the education of small children. Yes, if one watches an episode of any children’s show, one can see how the constant shift of color and pictures keeps the short attention span of a toddler occupied. By showing video clips and photos while speaking for a maximum amount of forty-five seconds, the news stations have become adult children’s shows, keeping a fully-grown person engaged for an hour. Media moguls Fox and NBC discovered this long ago and have used this idea for decades. Americans, regardless of their age, are entertained as children, and they seem to be content with this fact. According to Robert MacNeil the idea of television “is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action, and movement. You are required… to pay attention to no concept, no character, and no problem to more than a few seconds at a time” (Postman 105). If one is not meant to concentrate on anything in particular, then what is the purpose of television?