Why Windust & Maxine?

[David Morris]

Although I think P does note the mind-numbing potential of mass media like
TeeVee, I think he also knows that it is nothing new. Tabloids have always
made people stoopid.  Likewise commercials.  Headlines are blatant
bait-switchers. All that is about the manipulation of the viewer for the
media's ends.  Point taken.

But Pynchon loves his Hollywood and Cartoons.  Over the top entertainment
is his revelry and hilarity.  So media and popular are not Death. Not at
all. He loves all that funk.  He has a big sense of humor, and it is not
all dark. He loves Disney & Dumbo.  Dumbo's feather is from the dead
Albatross. Sin versus Hope (not Saintliness).

David Morris

On Sunday, December 15, 2013, Fiona Shnapple wrote:

> 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
>
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