No faith in you
“Al Gore’s ’The Assault on Reason’ puts forward a pessimistic view of the public, which apparently is politically illiterate, and questions our capacity to engage with the big issues of our time. Although Gore retains some hope in the democratic potential of the World Wide Web, his overall analysis suggests that off-line, in the real world, public life will continue to be the slave of the over-powerful media for some time. …
“The main culprit identified by Gore in his examination of the decline of public engagement is the media. In effect, he offers his own customized variant of the classical ’media-effect’ thesis. Seduced by the idea that there is an omnipotent media, Gore seems to have little faith in the capacity of the public to discriminate, reflect and make up its own mind on important issues.”
— Frank Furedi, writing on “Why political thought is imprisoned in the present,” July 3 in Spiked at www.spiked-online .com
Unnatural play
“What could be more natural than a mother down on the rec-room floor, playing with her 3-year-old amid puzzles, finger-puppets, and Thomas the Tank Engine trains? …
“Actually, parent-child play of this sort has been virtually unheard of throughout human history, according to the anthropologist David Lancy. And three-fourths of the world’s current population would still find that mother’s behavior kind of dotty.
“American-style parent-child play is a distinct feature of wealthy developed countries — a recent byproduct of the pressure to get kids ready for the information-age economy, Lancy argues in a recent article in American Anthropologist, the field’s flagship journal in the United States.
” ’Adults think it is silly to play with children’ in most cultures, says Lancy, who teaches at Utah State University. Play is a cultural universal, he concedes, ’but adults aren’t part of the picture.’ Yet middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans — abetted, he says, by psychologists — are increasingly proclaiming the parents-on-all-fours style the One True Way to raise a smart, well-adjusted child.”
— Christopher Shea, writing on “Leave those kids alone,” July 15 in the Boston Globe
Meme-less magic
“[T]here is a very big difference between a successful novel and a great novel. It is very rare that a great novel is also one that is hugely popular with the masses. Umberto Eco … describes ’mass culture’ as being an inherent contradiction bordering on an oxymoron, which is why an author is wise to decide early on if he wishes to pursue critical acclaim or sales numbers. …
“I very much doubt … that the ’Harry Potter’ phenomenon will outlast this generation of children, because at the end of the day, there simply isn’t any substance to the books. Books that last for generations have memes that resonate with the reader regardless of his distance from the social environment in which the book first became popular; the Christian parable of ’The Chronicles of Narnia’ will cause them to resonate so long as Christianity persists, while the power of ’Anna Karenina’ will last as long as men and women are tempted by infidelity.
“But what is the essential meme of Harry Potter? Being orphaned by a dark lord? Being special? Improbable friendships? The always popular cliche of being true to yourself? There simply isn’t one.”
— Vox Day, writing on “Why Harry Potter can’t survive,” Monday at WorldNet Daily.com
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