Numbed by News 21 November 2005
Posted by VARANGALI in Culture, VARANGALI.trackback
by VARANGALI
“[T]he massive influx of impressions is so great; surprising, barbaric… in the youthful soul; that it can save itself only by taking recourse in premeditated stupidity.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)Nietzsche considered his contemporaries to be adrift in a “vast goo of meaningless stimulation” (T Zengotitia, “The Numbing of the American Mind,” Harper’s Magazine, March 2004); today we have already drowned.
If happiness, as per conventional wisdom, is the end to a good life, then meaningless stimulation is now our means to achieve it (or to spend a lifetime in the pursuit thereof). This meaningless stimulation comes in various forms; the usual suspects cited include Hollywood blockbusters, haute couture, and FM radio, to name a few.
News is rarely on this list. The explosion in news, allegations in bias aside, is generally considered beneficial. Yet the assault on our senses by 24-hr television news channels, talk show radio, and news commentary websites is very real, and made the more insidious by news’ claim to moral legitimacy (“news is good for you”).
The events of the day do concern me, and it is my responsibility to shape my actions to account for their occurrence. But I pine for the days when the newspaper, delivered each morning, summarized what one needed to know. The constant barrage of news items from various sources and mediums not only blunts the acuity necessary to properly understand the news, but it also blurs the distinction between what is clearly important and that which is clearly trivial.
The 24-hr news cycle, constantly requiring new stories (often of manufactured importance) to generate demand, further confuses the mind. Scott Peterson, for example, has garnered more headlines in major US papers than retiring Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Commentary on the news has also proliferated: talking heads regurgitate all the points and counterpoints, blustering one moment and blubbering the next.
We are told what is newsworthy and why it is newsworthy, all the time. Much like Nietzsche’s contemporaries, we are taking recourse in “premeditated stupidity,” and we are numbing our minds with the very pursuits considered to be its antidotes.
other|matters 
as-salaam alaykum
thanks for writing this up. it’s a valuable reminder that too much of a good thing isn’t great. let me ask for clarification on one point on the last paragraph, which isn’t clear to me:
for most of the piece, you say that while news is good for you, a barrage of news trivializes what is newsworthy. you’re nostalgic for the daily newspaper what prioritized and organized the news. you end, however, by saying that “we are told what is newsworthy and why it is newsworthy”. this may be a problem for independent reasons, but doesn’t seem to be consistent with your earlier remarks. am i misreading something?
For children under the age of ten, there are roughly 105 deaths by drowning in swimming pools for every one death by firearms. The news coverage on these two events suggests that the opposite would be true.
We are told what is newsworthy (death by firearms) and why it is newsworthy (the dangers of owning guns). Honest journalism would reflect reality, and let us draw the conclusions. And leave us with enough time to smell the roses.
[…] (Incidentally, the article’s first section on Amnesia dovetails nicely with VARANGALI’s “Numbed by News” post.) […]