It is difficult to compare politics to sports, because in sports everyone knows the rules. Sports are (fairly) transparent, and politics are dirty. Television has only perpetuated this. Commercial advertising has changed the game in an unprecedented way. An average forty-year old, Postman says, will have seen over one million television commercials in that lifetime. We accept the television commercial as a normal form of discourse, so political soundbites are acceptable in these advertisements. In doing this, we simplify things that have to be complicated. We do not trust the complex, so everything must be diluted.
Television does help to show us who is "more capable of negotiation," and who is more knowledgeable, but this is solely through perpetuation of an image. We vote for our own interests. However, Postman says, our interests are largely symbolic. People like Abraham Lincoln could not survive these image politics. Television has no time for history; it is focused solely on the image, and because of that, we are often immediately aware of what is happening, but we do not understand the context.
Orwell was wrong once again. As printed matter fell to the wayside, the government did not need to control print. We have to be entertained constantly.
In what ways can image deceive us?
Would we have elected the same politicians the previous years had image politics not held such great sway over the public?
What are the implications of simplification in regards to art?
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