Struggle Between Words and Pictures!!

We live in a culture in which entertainment is essential. It is what breaks through the monotonous routine of our day to day lives. In the article “Two Cultures—Television versus Print,” we’re able to read through the dialogue between to critics with polar opposite views on Television. Neil Postman and Camille Paglia are both from two different cultures and thus have extremely different values. After thoroughly reading the dialogue I believe Camille Paglia’s arguments are much stronger and clearly backed up. Television not only provides an escape for people in today’s society, but presents them with new ways to think about and interpret different issues.

Neil Postman is a professor of communication arts at New York University (Crowley, 283). He grew up in an era that before the introduction of television. Postman argues,

“that reading is an ordered process requiring us to sit at a table, consume ideas from left to right, and make judgments of truth and falsehood. By its nature, reading teaches us to reason. Television, with its random, unconnected images, works against this linear tradition and breaks the habits of logic and thinking.” (Crowley, 283)

He is a strong believer that television takes away from of skills of critical thinking as well as trivializes ideas such as religion. Camille Paglia on the other hand argues, “That instead of criticizing television, most academics and other cultural critics simply turn up their noses dismissively at its enormous power—a kind of intellectual denial” (Crowley, 283). She, unlike Postman, was born post World War II and is a professor of humanities at the Philadelphia College of the Arts.

As I said before I found Camille Paglia made a much stronger case for her arguments. At one point Postman says, “The Nazi regime was only the most recent example of seducing through word and images, one of the most literate populations on earth.” Postman is worried about “the seductions of imagery,” but as we read early this semester, “That Hitler came into political existence at all is directly owing to radio and public-address systems” (McLuhan, 236). McLuhan also says that, “Had TV occurred on a large scale during Hitler’s reign he would have vanished quickly.” This makes complete sense because television provides us with immediate access to information that was previously unavailable. Therefore, the world and the citizens of Germany would have been able to see Hitler and realize the extreme idiocy of his ideals.

Prior to television the primary sources of information were radio or the newspaper. These mediums informed citizens but were not immediate and up to date. You had to wait until the morning to get your newspaper about yesterday’s news, or listen to pre-determined radio programs. Television now made up to the minute information accessible. It also made it possible for people to see, rather than hear or read the news. Television is an extension of visual learning. It is estimated that approximately 65% of the population is visual learners. It is not hard to figure out why people respond so well to television as a medium.

“In this case, I think the only defense against the seductions of imagery is a literate education” (Crowley, 293). Postman believes, “that education should supply what the rest of the culture is not supplying.” However, if we were only educated on things that were not supplied by society what would we learn? If teachers did not utilize the new technologies available to them, they would lose the interest of the students. This is not because students are unable to focus, but rather because in today’s society new mediums of technology have become essential in the way that they learn. Paglia notes, “Watching TV has nothing to do with thought or analysis. It’s a passive but highly efficient process of storing information to be used later” (Crowley, 289). To exclude television and commercial advertising from a communications class would be like excluding the bible from all literature classes.

“Our culture paid a price for literacy, and it will pay a price for its transformation into a visual culture” (Crowley, 291). Postman has clearly taken a technological deterministic attitude toward television. While I do not claim that television does not alter media in our society, I do believe that new mediums only succeed if there is a particular demand for them in a society. “TV is not something you watch; it is simply on, all the time” (Crowley, 289). I believe that Paglia makes an important point. People turn on the TV for a number of different reasons. We can all learn new things from watching television, or get the latest news. But, most people simply turn the TV on to avoid silence or for an escape from their daily routine.

Maybe Camille Paglia’s ideas resonated with me because I too was born into a television society, but either way I found that she made the better argument of the two. She had examples and explanations to back up her arguments. I think people living in today’s society rely heavily on television. They use it as a learning tool, a source of information and news, and even to relax and escape the monotonous routine of their day to day lives. Like Paglia I am inclined to believe that “remembrance of facts has nothing to do with television’s significance or effects.” It portrays reality and connects people from all around the world. Television gives life and new meaning to the words you see in a book. It is because of this that I believe television to be an essential part of the media in today’s society.