Why Windust & Maxine?

[Fiona Shnapple]

Postman distinguishes the Orwellian vision of the future, in which
totalitariangovernments seize individual rights, from that offered by
Aldous Huxley inBrave New World, where people medicate themselves into
bliss, thereby voluntarily sacrificing their rights. Drawing an
analogy with the latter scenario, Postman sees television's
entertainment value as a present-day "soma", by means of which the
consumers' rights are exchanged for entertainment.

The essential premise of the book, which Postman extends to the rest
of his argument(s), is that "form excludes the content," that is, a
particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas. Thus
Rational argument, integral to print typography, is militated against
by the medium of television for the aforesaid reason. Owing to this
shortcoming, politics and religion are diluted, and "news of the day"
becomes a packaged commodity. Television de-emphasises the quality of
information in favour of satisfying the far-reaching needs of
entertainment, by which information is encumbered and to which it is
subordinate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l