Two Cultures

Camille Paglia and Neil Postman argue different points about the inherent abilities of man, and how media in its different forms influences us. I agree somewhat with Postman, but only on a few ideas. Postman argues that humans are biologically programmed to be illiterate. But for me, from what I remember and what I have seen from some children, learning to read and write has been a first nature. Phonetics and the voice of words allows us to so easily transpose it onto paper, and take it from paper and turn it into sound. Paglia then argues that those are adept readers may not be physically active as others, but in many cases it simply is not true. I myself have played hockey for two years during highschool, and I started reading book at about the same time. Sometimes the books were about hockey, but more often than not they were fiction. Postman later argues that using images as a symbol in capitalism to sell products, like cars, or using God to sell hotdogs, you deprive the symbol of it's meaning. In some cases that is true, but there others where the product you sell gives the symbol meanings. For example, in music, album art created for a record is often in conjunction with the music of that record. A perfect example is Death Cab For Cutie's album art for their 2003 release Transatlanticism.



















The title track of the album, Transatlanticism", is about the distance between people in significant relationships and with that, the album art is of a blackbird trapped in red yarn. The album art is given meaning by the music itself, as much of the album is about feeling trapped and far away from parts of life, being romantic interests or from not wanting to wait to be old, like in "The Sound of Settling." I do agree with Postman that television and reading are two different things and require different analytical approaches. Analyzing literature is based upon itself, literature. You would compare two books together and determine one, which one was more sophisticated in it's prose and rhetoric, how it flowed through. But comparing literature to television is like comparing apples to oranges. Books and television programs require different things to make them successful, and different people can analyze them differently. For example, you wouldn't analyze a slap-stick, toilet-humor comedy program on it's sophistication of language. Most comedy programs are simply in their jokes to drive the success of the show. The more people that understand it, the more would watch. It also depends on the content of the show. Some you could analyze like a book, but you're really analyzing the vocal aspect of speech. A well prepared dialogue that is excellent in it's prose and rhetoric compared the same dialogue ill-prepared would have different affects on the audience. But if you read that dialogue on paper, it would stand out as being uniform, there is no difference between the two on paper. I also agree with Postman on the idea of a difference between the first television President, and the first image President. Just being on television and speaking to an audience doesn't create an image. It also takes a pragmatic speaker and a certain voice to capture an audience, not just being on television. This is also true for the words themselves. A well-written speech can mean nothing if the speaker isn't able to effectively capture his or her audience. The same goes for music, and many other forms of media outside of the written word. A well-written song loses meaning and success even if the vocalist can't "do it justice".

References:
Communication In History. Crowley, David. Heyer, Paul. 2007. Pearson Education Inc. Chapter 38: "Two Cultures - Television Versus Print. Neil Postman and Camille Paglia."