Sleepwalking During War-Time
Are we all too distracted by spectacle to take any meaningful action to prevent a dangerous escalation over Ukraine?
When media critic Neil Postman wrote his book Amusing Ourselves To Death, he couldn’t have known that the very week that the world’s two greatest nuclear powers lurched closer to full-scale war, much of our attention would instead be focusing on a spat between two famous actors at the Oscars. Right now, far more people are aware of the fact that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for telling a disrespectful joke about his wife than know that Russian generals have rebuffed repeated efforts by their American counterparts to speak by phone, even though the latter conflict has far more importance to life on earth. But here we are, and Postman couldn’t be more timely.
Postman’s point was that in an age of information glut, much of what we see and hear has no actionable importance to our lives. He wrote:
“You may get a sense of what this means by asking yourself [a] series of questions: What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime and unemployment? What are your plans for preserving the environment or reducing the risk of nuclear war? … I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do…
