If a writer has friends connected with the press, it is the plain duty of those friends to do their utmost to help him. What matter if they exaggerate, or even lie? The simple, sober truth has no chance whatever of being listened to, and it’s only by volume of shouting that the ear of the public is held.
George Gissing - New Grub Street (1891)
It’s a sobering thought this one. We've mostly renamed 'the press' as 'the media' now, but we have been subjected to daily non-stop shouting by the press for our entire lives. As our parents were and no doubt our grandparents. On current form, our children and grandchildren are also destined to go through a lifetime of non-stop media shouting.
Yes – it’s a sobering thought.
I’m re-reading some of Aristotle’s work at the moment. Like a breath of cool, mountain air. Not so much a contact with ancient times as a contact with a simple and methodical analysis of the human condition. A striving for clarity without our baggage.
‘Without our baggage’ – now that's a good, modern way of putting these things. We have many more vivid terms and phrases, but unfortunately they tend to be drowned out by the incessant shouting and misused by legions of shouty folk.
It’s one reason why I pass idle moments by reading old detective stories. Many of them manage to capture a flavour of their times without being loaded with all of our baggage. More baggage than Aristotle perhaps, but no shouting. That's a blessing.
Yes – it’s a sobering thought.
I’m re-reading some of Aristotle’s work at the moment. Like a breath of cool, mountain air. Not so much a contact with ancient times as a contact with a simple and methodical analysis of the human condition. A striving for clarity without our baggage.
‘Without our baggage’ – now that's a good, modern way of putting these things. We have many more vivid terms and phrases, but unfortunately they tend to be drowned out by the incessant shouting and misused by legions of shouty folk.
It’s one reason why I pass idle moments by reading old detective stories. Many of them manage to capture a flavour of their times without being loaded with all of our baggage. More baggage than Aristotle perhaps, but no shouting. That's a blessing.
6 comments:
I think that the shouting has gone on since the inception of mass circulation newspapers and radio. The shouting was in unison, though, and could be made sense of. Today, we have a cacophony of shouting as people are obsessed with getting their message across. It's unpleasant, but at least the contrast between different messages shows some of them to be nonsensical.
What Aristotle are you reading? I might give it a go. Cool mountain air is what I need...
I'd like the cool mountain air, too, but I'd prefer it attached to a large portion of the French Alps!
I agree with Sam Vega that there is a cacophony of shouting nowadays - but in my opinion it is not driven by a desire to get a message across so much as a desire to capture attention. The media (broadly speaking) are competing for eyeballs and eardrums.
“If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.” Much of the media is free, or low cost - the media delivers people to an advertiser.
And that's why they shout so much, careless about the message being received or remembered for more than a day.
Sam - I bought Aristotle's complete works for my Kindle. I'm reading Rhetoric at the moment, then I'll probably read Nicomachean Ethics again.
Jannie - hills are more in my line these days.
DJ - that's why I try to be parsimonious with clicks, although it still seems to be important to know something about mainstream propaganda and that can't be done without the clicks.
I once asked a young Oxford graduate what she learnt from her studies in philosophy. She replied "Aristotle's the man".
dearieme - that sounds about right to me. Not many philosophers seem to have anything better to say.
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