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posted by martyb on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the pleasure!=joy dept.

In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.

[...] Many Americans get their news filtered through late-night comedy and their outrages filtered through Saturday Night Live. They—we—turn to memes to express both indignation and joy.

[...] Postman today is best remembered as a critic of television: That's the medium he directly blamed, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, for what he termed Americans' "vast descent into triviality," and the technology he saw as both the cause and the outcome of a culture that privileged entertainment above all else. But Postman was a critic of more than TV alone. He mistrusted entertainment, not as a situation but as a political tool; he worried that Americans' great capacity for distraction had compromised their ability to think, and to want, for themselves. He resented the tyranny of the lol. His great observation, and his great warning, was a newly relevant kind of bummer: There are dangers that can come with having too much fun.

In 1984, Americans took a look around at the world they had created for themselves and breathed a collective sigh of relief. The year George Orwell had appointed as the locus of his dark and only lightly fictionalized predictions—war, governmental manipulation, surveillance not just of actions, but of thoughts themselves—had brought with it, in reality, only the gentlest of dystopias. Sure, there was corporatism. Sure, there was communism. And yet, for most of the Americans living through that heady decade, 1984 had not, for all practical purposes, become Nineteen Eighty-Four. They surveyed themselves, and they congratulated themselves: They had escaped.

Or perhaps they hadn't. Postman opened Amusing Ourselves to Death with a nod to the year that had preceded it. He talked about the freedoms enjoyed by the Americans of 1984—cultural, commercial, political. And then he broke the bad news: They'd been measuring themselves according to the wrong dystopia. It wasn't Nineteen Eighty-Four that had the most to say about the America of the 1980s, but rather Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. "In Huxley's vision," Postman noted, "no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history." Instead: "People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think."

The vehicle of their oppression, in this case? Yep, the television. Which had, Postman argued, thoroughly insinuated itself on all elements of American life—and not just in the boob-tubed, couch-potatoed, the-average-American-watches-five-hours-of-television-a-day kind of way that is so familiar in anti-TV invectives, but in a way that was decidedly more intimate.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/are-we-having-too-much-fun/523143/

Are we having tooooo much fun ?


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by anubi on Monday May 01 2017, @08:23AM (4 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Monday May 01 2017, @08:23AM (#502181) Journal

    I love Aristotle's take on it.

    I find myself happiest when I am working... but on MY stuff.

    I can get interested in someone else's stuff, but they usually douse my enthusiasm quite quickly using proven managerial methods of micromanaging me.

    Probably the most effective means of turning the joy of work into misery is having to be subordinate to someone I have no respect for.

    Then the whole workplace experience degrades to yet another cappuchin monkey, cucumber, and grape demonstration.

    You an engineer? You create content. Will you work for $25/hour? Oh him? Lawyer. He protects the content. $600/hour! Oh, me? Manager. I find guys who will produce content for $25/hour. I get paid $200K/yr salary for my leadership and people handling skill. You mad, bro?

    I'd rather be working on my designs than damn near anything else, until I either get too hungry, too sleepy, or have to go take a crap.

    But that corporate cappuchin monkey thing has me so frustrated that I don't even try anymore to appease that type. Just a bunch of tie-guys trying to pass off least-effort attempts to investment groups.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 01 2017, @08:57AM (3 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday May 01 2017, @08:57AM (#502192) Journal

    Of course that is the point. For most wage-slaves, a job is only a way to pay for amusement. It makes not sense otherwise. But this is the point. A real job is something you do because it is worth doing, of itself, not a means to make money so you can afford a Blizzard Account. (Oh, too close?). So there is a difference between a job as a means, and a job as an end-in-itself, and I hope everyone will be able to find their calling, that job they want to do, not one they have to do, so they can find happiness in the end. Nothing is so pathetic as working very hard so you can stop working (retire), and then just wait to die. What a meaningless existence. Kind of like being a Real Estate Developer in New York, and at the end realizing you were just charging people more than you should because you could. And then running for President on a whim!

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday May 01 2017, @10:00AM (2 children)

      by anubi (2828) on Monday May 01 2017, @10:00AM (#502204) Journal

      I guess I was one who got out of having to play the part of a monkey for an organ-grinder. I hated dressing up in suit and tie, and having to watch what I told the customers.

      That is, if the customers ever saw me.

      Yes, I would like to leave something of me behind. Hopefully, if its good enough, it will grow.

      One thing I can say is that the stuff I have been economically forced to make wasn't all that good. Cheapened to the point that I certainly would not buy it. Anyone seeing something made in the last 20 years or so know exactly what I mean. There is some good stuff out there, but most big businesses want to get the new,shiny out there even if its buggy as hell.

      I just want to do it right. Even if it does take longer. I want to do it the way I would build it if I were making it to last forever.

      I had a PC made that way. It worked perfectly from the day it was made to the day I finally let it go from sheer obsolescence. Same with my old Western Electric 500 series telephone. Made to last.

      No, I never owned a gaming system. Some of my friends had them. I would watch them play it for hours on end... but, like watching sports on television, I simply found no enjoyment in it. I have a whole mess of games that came with the PC I am typing this on. Never have played a one of 'em. I was much more interested in LTSpice and Eagle.

      I will readily admit I probably spend way too much time on these computer forums. I am here, was at The Oil Drum, and recently joined a couple of diesel truck forums.

      But mainly to have access to other people like me. I find their stories and posts far more interesting than that endless stream of drivel coming from most sources - including those venues which use sound tracks to cue me into what I am supposed to laugh at, even though I found nothing amusing in it. I hardly find tolerating a bunch of smoking drunks at a nightclub my cup of tea. Nor the affection of the attendant whores there. That's not something I would want to bring home and wake up to tomorrow.

      I am probably autistic. Asperger. Have not been tested, but even if some doctor identifies me as such, its not gonna change what I like to do.

      Eventually, if things work out for me, I want to go to the middle of nowhere in some remote area and build a small city with some people like myself, make, and sell these things, as well as custom designs built around them. I mean somewhere where I can go enjoy nature for a while when I need to think about things... and have that same lifestyle for those I work with. New Mexico, Arizona, Maybe Texas, Arkansas, Rockies or Smokies. Somewhere out of this damned pressure cooker pot of regulation, traffic, and extreme real estate pricing. If I am flustered and wanna go fish - so be it. And I want the same for anyone working with me on this. I do not need to be number one. I just want to enjoy what life is left in me with friends who enjoy the same kind of thing. And get away from those who make life miserable.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @03:22PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @03:22PM (#502297)

        Have you visited Arcosanti? https://arcosanti.org/ [arcosanti.org]

        I've been there twice, in the early 80s and around 2000. The growth in 15+ years was well thought out. By now they might be open to adding in some new business activities in addition to casting bells, and visitors that pay to stay there for a period. Too much sun and too hot for my taste (I'm redheaded, sunburn in minutes), but an interesting intentional community that has survived.

        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:57AM

          by anubi (2828) on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:57AM (#502698) Journal

          That is an interesting link. Thanks!

          They noted no air conditioning. That is probably one of the first things I would want to work on. If I can get some solar panels, some compressors, propane, and heat exchangers, I'd have an ice-bank running. That looks like a really hot area. Hope they have access to water.

          I wonder why they are going conventional above ground housing? For something experimental like this... I am wondering subterranean.

          They are now on my "visit list" when I get my van all updated and ready for road trip.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]