E Pluribus Blogum

Assault of the butterfly ballots -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I’m listening to the first chapter of Al Gore's Assault on Reason. Gore covers some well-worn territory -- he’s critical of our TV-saturated boob tube popular culture. He says that the American people have let several things slide (e.g. no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, global warming) because we're basically under entertainment hypnosis. We no longer even have much desire for hard news. He points to the fact that NBC recently cut $750 million from its news budget as well as Dan Rather's comment that CBS news has been 'tarted up and dumbed down'. Gore points out a legitimate concern, but nothing that hasn't been said many times before. As far back as 1960, FCC Chairman Newton Minnow dubbed TV the 'vast wasteland'. Nobody is in strong disagreement from any side of the aisle.

Next, Gore decries the fact that paid TV advertisements and smooth marketing techniques play a bigger role in campaigns than any intelligent considerations of party platform. Gore admits that his own campaign manager used such powers to Gore's advantage in a 1984 election. The manager rightly predicted that X dollars of advertising would gain them 8.5 points in the polls. They actually had it down to polling points-per-dollar formula. Again, this is a well-traveled road. 1968's Selling of the President discussed the same topic. To a large extent, political loyalties can be purchased. Gore points out that many more candidates have to be millionaires now in order to mount a viable campaign.

Gore next takes us back fondly to the Age of Reason -- a period when books and printed material prevailed. This is where he starts to lose credibility. Gore paints a picture of a genteel world where lords and ladies read and discuss political treatises between Mozart concerts and poetry readings. The fact is, television hasn't made that much a difference in how we discuss "treatises". The Mozart scenario is more imagined than real. In the 18th and 19th century most people were poor, and printed material was hard to come by. People had equally low-brow entertainments like cock fights and "Turkey in the Straw". Anyone with a library full of books was likely wealthy, and the books on the shelf likely reinforced a conservative point of view.

Gore paints a pessimistic picture overall, but he considers the internet a ray of hope, hope for rational discussion. This is good, considering that he earlier has implied that the American populace is a group of slobbering mutants who like to download porn, watch YouTube and vote on American Idol. He frets that literacy and reading comprehension are at risk. Actually, most internet content is text-based even if it's infused with MP3 and AVI files. Right now, you are reading this article -- not watching it. Emailing and blogging call for a certain level of literacy and technical proficiency if not accuracy in punctuation. In fact, bloggers have been credited with breaking some news stories that the mainstream press overlooked. You might say that literacy and information-sharing have taken a big step forward -- no need for negative projections here.

In sum, I agree with many of Gore's mildly cynical observations but none of them are that original. It almost comes across as sour grapes from the guy who lost out in 2000 due to hanging chads. I still have 10 chapters to go, so there may be some follow-up or revisions to this review. Yes, TV is a boob tube that devours 30 hours of your life each week. But I somehow think the human race will survive. A significant number of non-mutated people still read the paper, step outside the house and engage in intelligent discourse.

© 2007 blogSpotter