A quick wiki search reveals:

>He also repeatedly states that the eighteenth century, being the Age of Reason, was the pinnacle for rational argument.

Hahahahahahahahaha oh my god no.

>>48783
Concur'd.

Bitch fulla shit.

>>48784

The more you look into the 18th century, the more you realize that 'oh, it's exactly like today, except slower because of travel time, and all the bullshit is sepia-toned'.

Also,

>To try to bring them into other realms of intellectual thought and social commentary is actually dangerous, since they will drive out other mediums which actually can support real thought, like literature and public debate.

That is bullshit of the highest order. The written word is always going to be the go-to for philosophy, expository academia, and intellectual circlejerking. Why? Because that's what it's good at, and that's where the good stuff is and always will be.

>Anime and television are only effective as entertainment
Stop reading there.

>>48781
>Anime and television are only effective as entertainment. To try to bring them into other realms of intellectual thought and social commentary is actually dangerous, since they will drive out other mediums which actually can support real thought, like literature and public debate.

So...we should dumb down television for the sake of giving literature a monopoly on...intelligence?

Fuck that, literature can just be pure entertainment and visual media can be deep and meaningful. No one should have to limit themselves on how they want to express their ideas.

"Seduction of the Innocent 2: Seduce Harder!"

>>48823

Nah, it doesn't seem to be that sort of book. Just intellectual circlejerking.

ITT a bunch of people make uneducated simplifications about the last century's most important book on epistemology and dismiss it's arguments without ever reading or understanding it.

>>48825

Well, Christ, man, you're not selling it very well. Be less antagonistic! First rule of sales is positive attitude!

>>48825
>the last century's most important book on epistemology

Thus just barely edging into position as the last century's 12,413th most important book overall.

Seriously, Anonymous, I'm sure that at the moment you think that this book is the greatest thing written in the past century. But you are doing a VERY poor job of selling me on the concept.

People don't respond well to having arguments forced into their face without basis or support provided; being told to "read this book, it'll give you the answers" is a surefire way to make them never want to read it. They'll get a shaded view of the book from the start, believing it to be antagonistic, pretentious (as in it has pretenses to being higher literature than it is), and generally a waste of ink and paper.

SUPPORT YOUR GODDAMN ARGUMENTS. I'm not asking you to source shit in Chicago format for your Internet posts, but at least give me some reason to believe you're more than a troll spouting nonsense about the impending death of literature and debate.

this isn't a troll?

oh wow

Pfft, the OP is trolling and trying to make everyone angry. It's been years since I read his books, but I can assure /jam/ hat he doesn't say "Visual media are the cancer killing brains."

First off, Postman criticized live-action media like TV and movies. I don't remember his saying anything about animation. I imagine he would hit it with the same criticisms he brought up for live-action media, but if you got the idea that he was singling animation out in some way, you can put your mind at ease.

IIRC Postman criticized TV and movies for using simple ideas and violent actions, and generally being about as subtle as a truck. He never said that intellectual or intelligent shows could not be done--what he said was that it took more work, both on the creator's part and the audience's part. An engaging storyline usually has some kind of conflict at its heart--right? Man Vs. Nature, Man Vs. Machine, Old Man Vs. The Sea.

Some conflicts are physical--such as, "Two Thugs Stab Each Other Over A Pile Of Money." Those conflicts tend to be violent. Some conflicts are mental or emotional--such as "Guy Wonders If He Should Quit His Job And Start A Band." Those conflicts tend to be quiet; they take place in someone's thoughts--and they are really, really hard to communicate to a TV audience. If you don't have a skilled actor, a damn good director and expressive music and lighting, that show is going to wind up "Guy Stares Into Space, With Droning Voice-Overs."
And then, Mr. Postman says, he and I and you guys out there are going to change the channel, because the Two Thugs Stabbing show is, at least, not boring and perplexing the hell out of us. To sum up, Postman never says that TV is inherently mindless--just that it usually ends up on the dumb side, because dumb things are easier to create and will still attract viewers (Hey, look! Stabbing! Let's see who sins and what the fight is about!)

There's a lot more Postman says about all this, of course, but I can't remember it and I have to go do things now.

>>politics has ceased to be about a canditate's ideas and solutions, but whether he comes across favorably on television.

BACK IN MY DAY POLITICANS WEREN'T CORRUPT AND WE HAD NO TELIVISION, NO SIR. AND WE LIKED IT. WE ALL GOT TOGETHER AND JUST READ BOOKS TO EACHOTHER OUTLOUD AND FREELY EXCHANGED INTELLIGENT THOUGHTS WHEN WE WEREN'T DYING OF SMALL POCKS AND CONSIDERING EATING THE IRISH LIKE THAT NICE SWIFT MAN WROTE.

>>48842
IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, POLITICIANS KNEW WHAT THE PEOPLE NEEDED: BREAD AND CIRCUSES. AND BY GOD, THAT BREAD WAS DELICIOUS AND THOSE CIRCUSES WERE SPECTACULAR.

>>48781
Nice troll. But everyone knows that academic shit with you know data and experiments and whatnot is going to be the go to shit for issues of whatever. But to say entertainment can't discuss it is just asinine. These are issues that people relate to.

Politics was never about the candidate's ideas and solutions. Before there was television it politics was about whether or not the candidate threw a barbecue in your home town or whether or not he was in the same party as you.

Which is more or less the case now, only instead of barbecue it's "He went on [insert pundit's television show I enjoy here]"

Alright, Christ. I'm sorry for propagating this. My troll-dar isn't as strong as it used to be.

Let's just walk away from this mess before it gets out of hand.

or, you know, keep enjoying it.

Personally, I don't think the OP was trolling. I suspect that he wanted to stir intellectual debate, with lots of strong opinions, theories and quotes, which he could copy down and turn in as his homework assignment.

>>48835

Of course, Postman doesn't explicitly mention anime. It's just all his points about TV apply equally to anime.

>>48786
>That is bullshit of the highest order. The written word is always going to be the go-to for philosophy, expository academia, and intellectual circlejerking. Why? Because that's what it's good at, and that's where the good stuff is and always will be.

You have to think of things from the viewpoint of the average person. It's not that "educational entertainment" prevents literature and truly educating things from existing...it's that "educational entertainment" distracts from it and draws people attention.

As an anecdotal example: It's like stepping into a college Political Science class, and realizing everyone there only gets there news from Colbert Report and The Daily Show, and doesn't read any actual news.

Sure, the deep material still exists, but the average American will ignore it in favor of the stuff with jokes and celebrities.

>>48859
>It's like stepping into a college Political Science class, and realizing everyone there only gets there news from Colbert Report and The Daily Show, and doesn't read any actual news.

Or going to an animation college and finding out everyone just wants to mimic Family Guy or an Anime and have no experience with animation from any where/when else...Damn it.

>>48859
But there's also trashy, entertaining literature that draws the crowd's attention away from intellectual sources. TV is just another format for a phenomenon that's been going on for centuries. I mean, how do you think the average person passed their time in the 18th century? The answer: working their trade, raising their family, and occasionally getting drunk.

It's a good thing we're talking about a pretend world where the value of a medium as a tool for commentary is in how esteemed it is by old people and snobby young people rather than how effectively it reaches and speaks to an audience.

Because if we weren't, television and literature wouldn't even be brought up in the same sentence. Television is far more effective at reaching a wide audience and communicating ideas to them than literature.

Incidentally, you can't really expect an unbiased opinion on this subject from a guy who is working in one of the media he's comparing. That's like asking the head of Disney whether Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny is better.

>>48859

>It's not that "educational entertainment" prevents literature and truly educating things from existing...it's that "educational entertainment" distracts from it and draws people attention.

Let me introduce you to my friend, the Penny Dreadful.

>A penny dreadful (also called penny horrible, penny awful,[1] penny number and penny blood) was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing a penny. The term, however, soon came to encompass a variety of publications that featured cheap sensational fiction, such as story papers and booklet "libraries." The penny dreadfuls were printed on cheap pulp paper and were aimed primarily at working class adolescents.

They were cheap, they were plentiful, and they were shit. They were also the only reading done back in the day by anyone not involved in the weekly intellectual circlejerk.

Cheap, dumb, easy, unchallenging entertainment is a fact of life. It always has been, it always will be. The people who were inclined to seek out the intellectual texts always would have, and the presence or absence of its cheaper cousins, no matter the format, makes no difference. The people who are not inclined to it watch TV and read penny dreadfuls. Your argument is shit.

>>48862
the answer is Bugs Bunny, btw.

>>48864
Yeah, I know, but the Disney guy would never admit it.

>>48865
I just felt the need to throw that out there.

I thought this was going to be a thread about Roger Waters complaining about anime. That probably would have been worse, though.

Also real thought has never existed, will never exist, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is just selling a book by way of telling you that only you, the author, and people who also bought the author's book think real thoughts. But that's just me.

Eh, whatever. I'm gonna go read a book about a wizard that rides zombie t-rexes now.

Sometimes we forget that people of all time periods will use any media available for porn, gossip, and stupid humor. Today that medium is TV, movies, and music, but it used to be text. Being written down does not make a topic holy.

So, Twilight, for example, is intellectual and haute culture because it's... a book?

This line of reasoning does not seem sound to me.