Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Hoboken, NJ: USA
Posts: 96

America, freedom, intellectualism and media: a commentary from an unexpected source:

America, freedom, intellectualism and media: a commentary from an unexpected source:

"... But more importantly, it comes out of the fact that during this century, intellectualism failed, and everyone knows it. In places like Russia and Germany, the common people agreed to loosen their grip on traditional folkways, mores, and religion, and let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. Those wordy intellectuals used to be merely tedious; now they seem kind of dangerous as well.

We Americans are the only ones who didn't get creamed at some point in all of this. We are free and prosperous because we have inhereted political and value systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals, and with anything like intellectualism, even to the point of not reading books anymore, though we are literate. We seem much more comfortablewith propogating those values to future generations nonverbally, through a process of being steeped in media. Aparently this actually works to some degree, for police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it's explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they ebcome outraged. Starsky and Hutch reruns, dubbed into diverse languages, may turn out, in the long run, to be a greater force for human rights than the Declaration of Independance."

--Neal Stephenson, In the beginning was the command line..


I did NOT expect that.

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I'm not apathetic; I'm a Taoist.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Bangor, ME
Posts: 10181

quote:

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Originally posted by wonderaz:

Even here, the cops don't point to the back seat of a cop car and tell the suspect to go have a seat, occasionally cuffing them in front. The real deal is you have to be back cuffed, ground into the asphalt, groped better than you get from a $100 hooker, then tossed in the back with a good thumping or two, in order to properly validate the cop's existance.

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Amen. try getting beat when trying to tell your jailors that you have to piss


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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-Ernest Hemingway

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Upstate NY
Posts: 10152

quote:

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Originally posted by PseudonymX:
"...Starsky and Hutch reruns, dubbed into diverse languages, may turn out, in the long run, to be a greater force for human rights than the Declaration of Independance."

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Which is why France and China are doomed to perpetual second-class status, given their efforts to minimize the infiltration of Western culture/media into their countries. Places like Japan, Germany, and even Russia to some degree now are recognizing that we had to have done something right to be where we are today.

Have a link for the rest of that?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26420

quote:

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Originally posted by PseudonymX:
Aparently this actually works to some degree, for police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it's explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they ebcome outraged. Starsky and Hutch reruns, dubbed into diverse languages, may turn out, in the long run, to be a greater force for human rights than the Declaration of Independance."

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Sedona, Arizona
Posts: 19119

Very interesting.
It also seems rather on the mark in regards to what is happening in the US.
The influence of our culture in other countries in regards to what was stated is a little disturbing in that our entertainment, being based on real life twisted and inflated to the point of absurdity, could very well have an even more profound effect upon the populaces of other countries than it does on our own.
The average Achmed can easily forget that he is not the average Joe and get his ass in a sling, trying to behave like the characters on American TV in his homeland.
Even here, the cops don't point to the back seat of a cop car and tell the suspect to go have a seat, occasionally cuffing them in front. The real deal is you have to be back cuffed, ground into the asphalt, groped better than you get from a $100 hooker, then tossed in the back with a good thumping or two, in order to properly validate the cop's existance.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Nanaimo, BC
Posts: 424

quote:

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Originally posted by PseudonymX:
America, freedom, intellectualism and media: a commentary from an unexpected source:

"... But more importantly, it comes out of the fact that during this century, intellectualism failed, and everyone knows it. In places like Russia and Germany, the common people agreed to loosen their grip on traditional folkways, mores, and religion, and let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. Those wordy intellectuals used to be merely tedious; now they seem kind of dangerous as well.

We Americans are the only ones who didn't get creamed at some point in all of this. We are free and prosperous because we have inhereted political and value systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals, and with anything like intellectualism, even to the point of not reading books anymore, though we are literate. We seem much more comfortablewith propogating those values to future generations nonverbally, through a process of being steeped in media. Aparently this actually works to some degree, for police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it's explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they ebcome outraged. Starsky and Hutch reruns, dubbed into diverse languages, may turn out, in the long run, to be a greater force for human rights than the Declaration of Independance."

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I disagree with most of this.

First of all, I don't think 'intellectualism' failed the world. I think the crux of the problem is that intellectualism was never embraced by the general populace, and that rational thinking still escapes a lot of intellectuals because they fail to question the premises upon which their ideas lie. I also think a lot of people are (unconsciously or not) intellectually dishonest to themselves (myself included, at points), which further reinforces their systems of belief and ideology - simply displacing the religious premises which the Western world had relied upon for stability for an unstable millenia. Really, not much seems to have changed. Today, we rely on words like 'democracy' and 'freedom' instead of on the myth of Christ and on Christian values - ideas that have had their original intent and significance eviscerated and replaced with only the loosest, vaguest interpretation of the words. 'Democracy' no longer indicates that each person can contribute to and have a meaningful impact on the governing of their country, but that they are allowed to select one of two to five people to run their affair for them - and even then, in many 'democratic' countries, the process is entirely subverted and wholly meaningless. Demonstrably.

I'd agree that America is materially prosperous in comparison with the rest of the world - that much is true - and it is indeed due to its ingrained political and value systems. Systems which exploit the labour and resources of foreign countries, and crushing those that threaten U.S. interests - particularly ideological stability - even if that includes self-defense. However, I must say that internally, Americans are quite lucky to have the latitude of freedom they enjoy, especially considering the degree of freedom which most citizens of the world don't.

However, literacy is not a measure of intellectualism by any standards. Being able to read does not equate with being able to think for yourself, and it shows in the kind of words that we use in describing the political and economic systems we have today.

For example, you can watch CNN's 'Dollars and Sense' for an idea of what I'm talking about. The program revolves around the state of the economy, constantly fretting over recent downturns as if it is of dire significance to the American people. The truth is that 'good' economic tidings really mean nothing to average working class citizen because they are measured not in average wages, working hours and conditions, but in profit margins and stock prices - which are really only significant to stock brokers, shareholders, and corporate executives whose multi-million incomes depend upon them. It is the value system of an economic elite, and the American public at large is really quite unaware of this because they really haven't developed, nor have they exercised, faculties of critical thinking that are core to 'intellectualism'.

Considering how selective (read: constrictive) the mainstream media is in reporting news and in expressing intellectual opinion (it is also demonstrable), it is no wonder that it has failed the public, which has really has not been exposed to criticism of established values - which is key to intellectualism and was key, at one point, the ideas that formed the political system which is in place in America today.

And I really don't buy this 'cultural imperialism for a better world' pitch that Stephenson seems to fond of. Starsky and Hutch have not planted the seminal ideas for revolution or even significant change - assuming that Stephenson is accurately reporting. Asking for Miranda rights indicates only that these people in countries without those rights realize there is something better than getting clubbed without trial for some offense. It does not educate people about the principle of justice upon which Miranda rights (and the Declaration of Independence) rest, nor does it give them the impetus to create change when they have little in the way of resources or organizational ability. Starsky and Hutch is not even an accurate depiction of reality, and we are treating it as a force of 'democracy'? That's ridiculous. What our cultural imperialism has brought other countries is monoculture and its associated values represented by the elite who can afford to run television networks... which in turn reinforces anti-intellectualism and the ass-groove of Homer Simpsons the world over, and not would-be reformers of foreign governments.

Of course, that's just the way I see it.
Please criticize.

edit:clarity

[This message has been edited by Gavin (edited 07-29-2001).]

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 7236

Well, I find it funny the 'intellectuals' refered to are 18th century. Seems Locke got missed out of there, without whom you would'nt have much of your philosphy. Could it be because he was a limey?

But seriously, I think this a prime example of the cultural imperialism that I often allude to by the US. The McDonalds diplomacy as Paint calls it is double edged. Yes so its good to have some influence through media to ideas etc in other countries, countries perceived to be lesser in their moral freedoms than the US. But the flip side is the imperialistic tendancy of this media diplomacy. The arrogance of the idea that somehow the US is on the moral highground and right.

Another country used to be like this too. The country of Great Britain during the Empire. It believed it was on the moral highground and did its own equivalent, by going round the world killing pygmies and the like and enforcing its way of thinking on people. And we all know what happened there.

I think the article, whilst making an intersting, although unoriginal, observation, is in itself an example of an extremely insular and arrogant nation. Sorry.

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sp00ky
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Rude alert! Rude alert! An electrical fire has knocked out my voice-recognition unicycle! Many Wurlitzers are missing from my database! Abandon shop! This is not a daffodil! Repeat: This is not a daffodil!

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location:
Posts: 543

Gavin, excellent post. You cannot expect the "general populace" to ever embrace intellectualism, and even the majority of intellectuals at any given time are bound to be intellectually dishonest to the extent of not questioning the premise upon which their ideologies lie. In the first intellectual courage is lacking and in the second moral courage is lacking.

A person whos nature it is to honestly question the premise of ideologies, even their own, will likely extrapolate a deeper more realistic message from the exagerated and absurd bits and peices of American culture they absorb via popular media. Even Starsky and Hutch.

The general population will do as the general population does when exposed to media of any level of quality and that is fail to question the premise of their perception of the idea presented.

My veiw is that cheese-ball American culture does as much good as spreading the word about things such as the Declaration of Independence because as I said, the honest intellectual will extrapolate from the various peices a whole message as expressed in things such as the Declaration and pass that message along.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Hoboken, NJ: USA
Posts: 96

Good posts everyone.

As to obtaining the rest of that via a link, i got my copy @ B&N.

But its not all political commentary. Its mostly computer-ish stuff.

Mostly about the CLI.

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I'm not apathetic; I'm a Taoist.

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