Reply #14: I'm "agin 'em all" - politics has been reduced to mud wrestling [View All]

[arendt]

I attack this stuff whenever a target presents itself. I am
not "focusing" on this particular show. Although, the
self-referentialness of a TV show about how politics is
done for TV should be obvious to everyone.

When politics is reduced to sound bites, nobody gets
to apply critical thinking to a logical argument. Instead,
everyone winds up emotionally manipulated.

Paraphrasing Jacques Ellul:

..The idea that propaganda from one side should be balanced
..with propaganda from the other side is akin to arguing
..that a blow to the right side of the head can be balanced
..by a blow to the left side of the head.

I could also quote Neal Postman, Warren Bennis, Jurgen Habermas,
and Hannah Arendt on this point, and I have in the past.

I watch as little "TV" as I can. It is beyond mind rot; it is
emotional re-programming in service of the corporate state.
It goes without saying that CNN, MSNBC, and FOX are
propaganda outlets. To say that I haven't even seen the
show in question assumes that this genre of voyeuristic
"reality TV" has any value at all. I won't watch it because
I have better things to do than rot my brain while ingesting
corporate propaganda.

If I want to see Howard Dean, I will go up to New Hampshire -
which I did on Friday night. My wife shook his hand. That is
reality. This media circus you are referring to is "unreality"
at its worst.

arendt

On edit: spelling, identation