“Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour, rains from the sky a meteoric shower of facts. They lie unquestioned, uncombined. Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill is daily spun. But there exists no loom to weave it into fabric” – Edna St. Vincent Millay
I found the transcript of the late Neil Postman’s speech delivered at a Brown Bag Luncheon talk given at the Shorenstein Center on February 7, 1995 to be quite profound and provocative. In this speech Postman, referring to Edna Millay’s poem, artfully and eloquently made a compelling case for our society’s need for more people skilled in the art of story-telling who can “weave a pattern for our lives” out of the meaningless information out there. I build on this premise. However, I argue that our society does not need skilled weavers. I think that we are all weavers, but unfortunately, we often weave poorly. I suggest that we can learn to be better weavers by incorporating other people’s stories into our own. It is only with stories that cross cultural, religious and ethnic boundaries that we can truly weave “patterns for our lives”.
Postman discussed at length some of the curses of the information age. As a case in point he suggested that “the coming of television in 1946 destroyed the idea of childhood and also resulted in corrupt political discourse” (paraphrased). I contend that in as much as effort is made to weave an authentic message through TV programs television may in fact enrich the childhood experience. Take for instance the popular cartoon for kids called “Captain Planet”. In this show, 5 kids from 5 different continents with special powers work tirelessly to save Gaia, who is mother earth. I think such a cartoon uses stories with a multicultural perspective to teach children very important lessons about the need to be stewards of the earth. One may argue that children learn a lot through social interactions with their peers and that TV takes this away from them. However, I say that TV does not take away from the childhood experience but adds to it. I believe that kids get ample opportunity to play with their peers at school and at home. TV offers another dimension to a child’s learning. For instance, while a child’s peers at school and in the neighborhood may come from very similar economic and social backgrounds, TV shows, such as Captain Planet afford kids the chance to learn about kids who are socio-culturally different but share their sense of childhood.
I agree with Postman that Television has corrupted the political discourse but I say, only to an extent. Too often journalists color news with their own prejudices. In spite of this, I think that the political discourse has been enhanced greatly because of this information explosion. We have seen more transparency and accountability in government than in any other age because people in authority are kept in constant public view. More than any other age, we have been able to follow the political process through news conferences and seeing live parliamentary proceedings. We even know how our representatives vote on issues in the house. Most of all before elections we get to hear candidates debate on the issues that distinguish their platforms. So what do we do with all this information? I think it allows us to see to some extent what the different stories of the different candidates are. We are thereby empowered to choose the candidate with the story that we believe will help us to weave a “better pattern for our lives”.
There is a close association between information and technology. In view of this, Postman offered us some insight into the problem with the parallel explosion of technology alongside the “information glut”. He suggests that sometimes technology does not solve existing problems and quite paradoxically may in fact limit our options. To buttress his point, Postman told a story of his attempt to buy a Honda Accord a time ago. The salesman’s pitch was: “this car has cruise control.” Postman asked him, “what is the problem to which cruise control is the solution?” I think that if I were the salesman my response will be: cruise control is meant to solve the problem of inconvenience. Now, in this particular case the convenience brought about by cruise control may not be necessary. As postman points out, he had been driving for 35 years and never really found keeping his foot on the gas to be a problem. However, I think there are many other instances where the convenience brought on by technology leads to higher efficiency and productivity. For instance, over the past few years computer software have been introduced into medical care where doctors have the convenience of typing their patient notes into a program making the information readily available for all other providers in the network. While handwriting of notes may not be particularly burdensome for a lot of providers the convenience of being able to type notes brings a lot of other advantages. First of all, it takes some mystical or should I say mythical powers to decipher what doctors write. Now people can actually read the notes that doctors write concerning their patients, which has enhanced patient care in no small way. Secondly, doctors separated by vast distances but sharing the same patients can have easy access to patient notes which facilitates continuity of care and decreases medical errors significantly.
Even in this age, I think the “information glut” does not seem as daunting when we approach it selectively. Although, we are confronted with a lot of information we can through our personal experiences select how we use this information to enhance our lives; we can be our own information filter. So yes, we may be submerged in a sea of information. But instead of being threatened by the waves we can choose to make this an adventure and surf.