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Pop Talk

Pop language may drown us in a sea of irrelevance. Read this excerot from Leslie Savan's Slam Dunks and No-Brainers.

As the late Neil Postman wrote in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Aldous Huxley painted a more probable future in Brave New World than George Orwell did in 1984, because, over the long run, pleasure is more likely than fear to produce compliant citizens. In "Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history," Postman wrote. "As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. ... Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance."

Today, there are clearly attempts by the government and corporations to conceal truth and to insist, as Newspeak did, that War Is Peace and Ignorance Is Strength -- but rarely in so many words. Such harsh notes don't jibe with our vernacular. Much more effective is the let-me-entertain-you language of the mass media; it bubbles and bops, tickles and cajoles until we come to adore it. I'm not saying that pop language is a tranquilizing drug with totalitarian side effects, like Huxley's soma. In its ability to break through obfuscation, which it does every day, pop can be a powerful force for truth. But in its ability to divert thought and numb our imaginations with commercial confetti, pop can also be a force that drowns the truth in "a sea of irrelevance."

jon posted this at 6:47 PM
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