Saturday, March 27, 2010

Paddy Chayefsky: Part 2 Of Interview


Some of the interesting comments posted on youtube with this clip
man what i would give to sit down and talk with this man...such a brilliant mind, constantly spouting strong, intelligent thoughts and ideas...

I wonder what Paddy would think of the Internet. I'm sure that he would praise it as a means for anyone to not only express themselves but also be able to search and find information and not necessarily rely on the old established outlets that only give you a limited perspective on a story. But I'm sure he'd have other opinions about it as well. I wish he were still alive today and still writing powerful satire.

And he's not the only one who has been saying it for a long time. There's McLuhan and Postman and Chomsky, they all speak of the isolationist, apathy inducing effects of the medium configuration. I wonder why we haven't been paying attention to these dozens of very important intellectuals telling us about the dangers of our post literate televised culture? Guess.

The uncritical interaction with mediums and ignorance of process over content is the root of most of our current problems.

Granted, but to be fair I think that in many cases, guys like Chomsky and McLuhan were so far ahead of the curve that at one time their ideas sounded quite bizarre. Many if not most people found McLuhan's books totally incomprehensible, and large chunks of them are still beyond a lot of people even today. What will this world be like when we've caught up with McLuhan (assuming that ever happens)?

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