. . . Americans Are The Best

I Do Not Mean To Imply That Television News Deliberately Aims To Deprive Americans Of A Coherent, Contextual Understanding Of Their World. I Mean To Say That When News Is Packaged As Entertainment, That Is The Inevitable Result. And In Saying That The Television News Show Entertains But Does Not Inform, I Am Saying Something Far More Serious Than That We Are Being Deprived Of Authentic Information. I Am Saying We Are Losing Our Sense Of What It Means To Be Well Informed.

Information Is Now A Commodity That Can Be Bought And Sold, Or Used As A Form Of Entertainment, Or Worn Like A Garment To Enhance One's Status. It Comes Indiscriminately, Directed At No One In Particular, Disconnected From Usefulness; We Are Glutted With Information, Drowning In Information, Have No Control Over It, Don't Know What To Do With It.

Our Priests And Presidents, Our Surgeons And Lawyers, Our Educators And Newscasters Need Worry Less About Satisfying The Demands Of Their Discipline Than The Demands Of Good Showmanship.

Childhood Is Analogous To Language Learning. It Has A Biological Basis But Cannot Be Realized Unless A Social Environment Triggers And Nurtures It, That Is, Has Need Of It. If A Culture Is Dominated By A Medium That Requires The Segregation Of The Young In Order That They Learn Unnatural, Specialized, And Complex Skills And Attitudes, Then Childhood, In One Form Or Another, Will Emerge, Articulate And Indispensable.

But It Is Much Later In The Game Now, And Ignorance Of The Score Is Inexcusable. To Be Unaware That A Technology Comes Equipped With A Program For Social Change, To Maintain That Technology Is Neutral, To Make The Assumption That Technology Is Always A Friend To Culture Is, At This Late Hour, Stupidity Plain And Simple.