kind of, but if i'm thinking of like, Neil Postman's argument about literacy vs electronic media, and he makes this exact same argument in one of his books with regards to literacy in america and film and television. and i don't think i necessarily agree with this kind of argument because the data is stuff like the willingness of a crowd of people to listen to and process the inherently literary rhetoric of the Lincoln-Douglas debate, and i would argue that american literacy has never really made americans themselves anymore revolutionary or any more able to reason about the conflicts of their day.
To what you said about being "revolutionary" though, Communism in America was far more popular before electronic media. Not saying there is a causal relationship there, and in that period literacy was likely lower. But the way that electronic media has alienated us from each other definitely doesn't help, and I can't help but feel like the kinds of social interactions produce in situations like this video aren't great for anyone involved.
As a side note, political debates have gotten a lot dumber in the last hundred years though. The way mainstream politics has effectively become directed at electronic media, and that it's only purpose seems to be to go on TV and generate shareable clips isn't great. That goes way back though.
I agree with this analysis in particular, and your response as a whole as well. I think what's reactionary is the tendency some have to write off a deeper analysis in favor of assigning a pseudoscientific hypothesis like "the screens are making the kids dumber and this anecdotally weird thing I saw is proof" which isn't really analysis. I think technology has been a tool for creating dumber americans and diluting people's rhetoric about political ideology, but as we see from even well-read liberals, that doesn't necessarily mean that people are smarter for knowing how to dress up reactionary ideology. I would also argue though that technology didn't defund the public education system and materially obliterate their sense of political ownership. Neoliberalism's impact runs much deeper than our latest form of media consumption.
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kind of, but if i'm thinking of like, Neil Postman's argument about literacy vs electronic media, and he makes this exact same argument in one of his books with regards to literacy in america and film and television. and i don't think i necessarily agree with this kind of argument because the data is stuff like the willingness of a crowd of people to listen to and process the inherently literary rhetoric of the Lincoln-Douglas debate, and i would argue that american literacy has never really made americans themselves anymore revolutionary or any more able to reason about the conflicts of their day.
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I agree with this analysis in particular, and your response as a whole as well. I think what's reactionary is the tendency some have to write off a deeper analysis in favor of assigning a pseudoscientific hypothesis like "the screens are making the kids dumber and this anecdotally weird thing I saw is proof" which isn't really analysis. I think technology has been a tool for creating dumber americans and diluting people's rhetoric about political ideology, but as we see from even well-read liberals, that doesn't necessarily mean that people are smarter for knowing how to dress up reactionary ideology. I would also argue though that technology didn't defund the public education system and materially obliterate their sense of political ownership. Neoliberalism's impact runs much deeper than our latest form of media consumption.
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