[ExI] reading vs hearing

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>

> Okay, a conjecture: those merely listening
> will devote more emotional processing time
> to what is heard (or images seen, for that
> matter), than those reading. Of course,
> that's pretty easy to say: I refer people
> to one of P.J. Manney's posts a year or two
> back in which she described the great chapter
> entitled "Typographic America" in the book
> "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman.
>
> The thesis is that by watching at listening,
> educated Americans now are in effect a lot
> dumber and less rational than were educated
> Americans a century ago when print was king,
> although Postman reserves most of his scorn
> for images (TV) as opposed to audio (radio).

Oh, balderdash!

It was "educated" Americans in the PAST who were not as smart and a lot less 
rational than they are now.

A century ago women still could not vote.  Was this smart and rational?

A century ago gays were in the closet, and being homosexual was considered 
abnormal by psychologists and psychiatrists.  Was this smart and rational?

Many public school classrooms allowed teachers to conduct prayers with their 
students.  Was this smart and rational?

A century ago discrimination of all kinds (in jobs, schools and housing 
against Jews, other ethnic groups, and even going so far as de jure 
discrimination and segregation against American citizens who were "black") 
was not just common, but the order of the day.  Was this smart and rational?

And television?  A bad influence on these smart and rational people in the 
past?  Fiddlesticks.

The link below is an essay by my husband - just a few thoughts:

http://home.sprynet.com/~inniss/coldwar.htm

Olga