William Barrett and how becoming a media junkie warps reality
I've been rereading William Barrett's Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. In one of the first chapters (pp.31-2), he discusses Kierkegaard and his idea of the follower "at second hand" where one comes to rely more on the message than on what triggered the message in the first place. In his Fragments, Kierkegaard refers to the state of Christianity and how Christians of his day were less concerned with faith -- the belief in the event of the concrete birth of the son of God, than they were with nitpicking and squabbling over the assortment of paperwork (e.g. the bible, church documents, etc.) that followed and the various interpretations of the event. (My apologies for the rough and lousy skimming over of Kierkegaard.) So Barrett refers to Kierkegaard and compares journalism to this same paperwork reporting the event. He writes that "journalism enables people to deal with life more and more at second hand" and that
"information usually consists of half-truths and 'knowledgeability' becomes a substitute for real knowledge. Moreover, popular journalism has be now extended its operations into what were previously considered the strongholds of culture--religion, art, philosophy. Everyman walks around with a pocket digest of culture in his head. The more competent and streamlined journalism becomes, the greater its threat to the public mind-- particularly in a country like the United States. It becomes more and more difficult to distinguish the secondhand from the real thing, until most people end by forgetting there is such a distinction. The very success of technique engenders a whole style of life for the period, which subsists purely on externals. What lies behind those externals--the human person, in its uniquness and its totality--dwindles to a shadow and a ghost."
(Forgive my lack of HTML know-how so that I can't block-quote properly.)
"information usually consists of half-truths and 'knowledgeability' becomes a substitute for real knowledge. Moreover, popular journalism has be now extended its operations into what were previously considered the strongholds of culture--religion, art, philosophy. Everyman walks around with a pocket digest of culture in his head. The more competent and streamlined journalism becomes, the greater its threat to the public mind-- particularly in a country like the United States. It becomes more and more difficult to distinguish the secondhand from the real thing, until most people end by forgetting there is such a distinction. The very success of technique engenders a whole style of life for the period, which subsists purely on externals. What lies behind those externals--the human person, in its uniquness and its totality--dwindles to a shadow and a ghost."
(Forgive my lack of HTML know-how so that I can't block-quote properly.)