A win for Paglia as she slides into the homeplate? No, the touchdown area.

The person’s argument that won me over in the Television Versus Print argument was Camille Paglia, the one arguing for television. There are many reasons for this that I can see.

I think a part of it is oddly that she is closer in age to me than Postman. One of her arguments is that age is an important factor in how one views mass media, and that is why she looked into the age of Postman. I was raised in a generation that can almost be described as raised by the television by some. Television is a part of my life and I do not have as much of the cynicism regarding television as Postman.

He is wary of television. He sees it more of a thing which destroys that which was once held sacred. Such as taking away the meaning of God through overexposure and differentially associating God with something more mundane such as hot dogs. Paglia pulled her argument on this wonderfully I thought. That these references to symbols only serve to strengthen the meaning of the symbols is incredibly interesting. The symbol is used to reinforce a meaning, and the reinforcement of that meaning, via hot dogs or whatever, serves to reinforce the meaning of the symbol to the public. Postman does have merit in thinking that it would serve to desensitize one to the meaning. In that we are desensitized to violence via constantly seeing it on television is hardly refutable. However, his thinking that it is secularizing religious symbols via their gratuitous replay is thinking that is refuted by Paglia’s previously mentioned thinking. It also seems to base itself very much on his religious practice, which does not reach an agnostic thinker such as myself.

Paglia also does something which strikes me as exactly what should be done in an argument and I would have done myself had I been there. She called Postman’s statistics into question. In my many psych class, it has been very much emphasized that, in order to understand statistics in research, one really needs to know exactly how that research was conducted. Someone can say that more people than not enjoy hot dogs more than any other food through a survey, but one must ask what question they were asked to get why they put down that they enjoy hot dogs. They could have asked the question, “What food do you enjoy on a hot dog bun, hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, or peanuts,” and of course the answer would then make much more sense. Paglia questioned Postmans statistic about how the literacy rate being high during the American Revolution. Postman did not really seem to know how to respond to this claim. He seemed to change the argument to something else because he lacked a retort.

Something which both sides did but I felt Paglia did particularly well was being flexible in thinking. This includes taking the other side’s opinion into account and being able to speak off of it. She, at many points, agreed with Postman and then explained her perspective on his right opinion. The one part that well sticks out in my mind on this is when they were talking about Charlie’s Angels and how it was about hair. At first, it seemed like an odd sort of argument that the show is not supposed to make sense because it is really about hair. Paglia agrees with this point of Postman, saying that it is a celebration and worship of beauty which had a strong impact on the culture. Put this way, the reason for all of these shows which are so sexually charged and full of “beautiful women” start making more sense. Of course, that does not mean that there is not an over saturation of sexuality going on in the mass media. They seem to have run off with the worship.

Postman, throughout the essay, seems to be trying to present television as this destroying force of culture. He is saying that there might have some not-so-good results from the globalization of development of the brain that television might encourage, as if it would not develop some part of it as much. However, Paglia argues this differently. She edges more on saying that this development is a good thing, that it gives us broader abilities to think and act, which are important. I am more inclined to go with her argument because it is often thought that general development is better than specific development. Then general development can lead into more specific development more easily.

Overall, I really did feel like both critics did a fantastic job presenting their arguments. They were quite intricate and each had some strong arguments. I have the feeling that, had I been about as old as Postman, I would have been more inclined to agree with his arguments more, but I am the age that I am. Yet Paglia’s arguments also seem more applicable to the more modern times than Postman’s somewhat outdated thinking, and thus would probably be more agreed upon.

Citation:

1. Crowley, David, and Heyer, Paul. “Communication in History - Technology, Culture, Society.” Two Cultures—Television versus Print. Ed. Bowers, Karon. Person Education, Inc., 2007. 283-295.