My friends are used to hearing me decline an invitation to a movie, gawping at my ignorance in regards to the latest primetime hit show, or my pestering about whether or not an activity, in spite of being enjoyable, is
fruitful. I rarely get a chance to explain just why it is I see these things as not only wastes, but ultimately detrimental to society- people are pretty brief in planning these things, and no matter what the setting conversation does not provide a captive audience for a lecture circuit.
Fortuantely, my primary assumption in writing this journal is that you, the reader, have an active interest in what I'm about to say- my conscience has been soothed, and the soapbox has come out of the closet. Here we go!
Verisimilitude: Having the appearance of, or being percieved as true, factual, accurate.
We live in a world where the printed word is declining. Not that it is on the way out, mind you, but it is now the lesser of two forms of knowledge; it has gone from the primary source to a co-source, to being relegated to some scholarly use. Most of our media, information, entertainment comes in the form of images- which is the first thing I'll disambiguate. We have, for around 700 years, been a world of symbols. Far before they were even the tool of the masses, it was
logos that allowed the Herbrews to write their Tanak, Plato his
Republic, and Virgil the
Aeneid. What has changed isn't that we use symbols, its that we now use
images.
The difference is striking, when you take the time to examine it.
The study of logos is nothing new; its greatest achievement was the creation of the written word. When you consider the power of text it is truly awe-inspiring: This is in itself a powerful paradox, the ability to take an abstraction- a thought- and make it concrete- a text. The most complicated abstractions can, with care, be taken out of the mind, out of flux, and put into a context and medium that is definite and unchanging. Text will communicate precisely what a person means, always.
Images do not fill this same role, as is evident to anyone who has ever seen one. I'm going to use one right now- a first and last for this blog- as an example.
Now, what am I thinking?
To be fair, I'll tell you right away that the prompt is impossible to answer. Everyone who looks at this picture will give you a slightly different answer, but none of them will ever get it right, absolutely, concretely.
That isn't to say there is a lack of information in this image. I'm holding a razor, in casual dress wear, a book on Logic, and a slightly-confused look on my face. That could mean a lot of things- the problem is that we can't know for certain which things. Ultimately, this is due to a lack of context; imagine I'm holding that razor to a mans throat. If all you see is an image, you could either convict me of manslaughter, or say that I'm shaving him. Without textual information, you cannot know which is true.
An image is a very thin slice of any moment; it can tell you manifold things about a moment, but only that moment. It has nothing to say about before, after, or any surrounding circumstances. In that sense, an image is context free- it cannot definitively tell you about anything other than what was happening at exactly the moment it was made. Furthermore, an image is incapable of communicating to you any useful information about the present: Neil Postman wrote (Amusing Ourselves To Death, p. 127)
"To be rationally considered, any claim must be made in language-- more precisely, it must take the form of a proposition, for that is the universe of discourse from which such words as "true" and "false" come. If that universe of discourse is discarded, then the application of empirical tests, logical analysis, or any of the other instruments of reason are impotent."
An image is incapable of presenting any proposition whatsoever; it cannot be expository, it makes no arguments and no presentation of facts. An image does not engage in discourse, and is incapable of abstraction: Where text can engage in dialogue and communicate a specific message through abstraction, an image can only speak in concrete terms. It tells you that I have a razor; what I intend to do with it you can only guess at.
This fact about image-based communications has caused a major shift in our society's understanding of information, specifically with regards to the connotative meanings of text. In a very post-modern fashion people today will tend to look at connotative meaning as being specific to the person reading the text; many will go so far as to say that interpretation makes it impossible to clearly communicate between people because connotation is so varied and individual.
Before the age of imaged information, however, connotation was seen as a universal trait. While a woman and a lady might be denotatively similar, connotatively one was expected to understand the difference in behavior and social class between a woman and a lady. This is where text gains its ability to be abstract; the skilled use of connotation allows for thought, double entent, and complex argumentation. Rhetoric is born in this connotative conception of the world.
Because of image fixation, however, we have led people to think connotation is the same as a lack of context; that words are as loosely guided as images. We have allowed the laxness of our entertainment media to beg the question of connotation, leaving us with nothing to fall back on for reason or discourse. There is a distinct differnce between interpretations because of worldview and the kind of pseudointellectual free-for-all that ensues when we treat words like they are images. Ultimately, when we view the world without context, we not only fall ill to the image plague but rob text of its ability to invoke, incite, abstract, direct. We become incapable of discourse.
Because there is no chance for exposition in an image, we are required to find another means by which to authenticate any message we might percieve from it. Ultimately, this boils down to what is called verisimilitude; the quality of appearing true. When there is logical thinking and accompanying discourse something which appears true may be shown to be false- and vice versa- but when only an image is given to use we cannot make this distinction. Even the most rational thinker is left with his evoked emotions and perception of the verity of the image as a method by which to judge the veracity of any claims the image tries to make.
Take television advertising, for example. They show you a product, and they show successful people using the product. They do not tell you what it does, how it works, why you need it, why it is better than similar products. The simply show you the product in an apparently positive pseudocontext, and based on its verisimilitude a majority of viewers will choose it over a competitor. Sans reason.
Why this is important is that as we become more and more attuned to image-based media we see a shift in the basic thinking of individuals toward a standard of appearance rather than content. Once this happens everyday life begins to be driven not by reason or logic but by feelings. As an example, I will give you a fellow seen on college campuses everywhere: Joe Clean.
Joe, to all appearances, is a nice guy. Joe is quiet, clean, and doesn't bother the people around him. He is studious, disciplined, and always busy. Joe also has more hookups with women, and more of them simultaneously, than most of the football team. One of these things is
not like the others- why?
Our culture still has certain ideas abou social context- for all of the first attributes, we do not expect Mr. Clean to have the last one. Because of this, young women in his presence see him as being safe, sweet, genuine. After knowing him for a time, their guard goes down- they assume him to be a secure figure, based on his appearance. It is then that Joe Clean makes his move; when the operating assumption is that Joe does clean things, it follows that anything Joe does is clean. Joe gets away with some very dirty things because they've been reassigned as clean- all because of verisimilitude.
Verisimilitude has created a society in which a red herring- like Mr. Clean's behavior- is the only focus. We're not ready or able to analyze any deeper than the surface appearance- we don't even realize there is anything more. We don't judge the book by the cover, we read the cover as though it were the book. Because of this now innate tendancy to accept facades as full content it is possible for us to believe someone who is honest to be a liar because of appearance; worse yet it makes us believe a lying scoundrel because they
appear to be honest. If a man can throw a red herring, he can make anyone believe what he wants. There is
no business but show business!
In ancient times there was a practice, believed to remedy bad luck, of killing the bringer of ill tidings. We remember this today with the adage 'don't kill the messenger'. Why not? Because all through the early parts of history what matter most about a piece of information whas said it: You always trusted the priest, or the king, because their position warranted them an image of trustworthiness. In the enlightenment, however, the philosophers had the realization that it didn't matter what the packaging looked like, it matter what the content was. Even someone who looked like a theif could be shown to be an honest man if the content of his message was rationally examined.
We continued in this manner until only recently. We have reached an age, hailed by the television and the photograph, in which it is the packaging, and not the content, which matters. Does it seem far-fetched to say verisimilitude has led us back into the fallacy decried by the Rationalists so long ago? I give this quote from a February 9th press conference with President Obama:
"When it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility, again, it’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they’ve presided over a doubling of the national debt. I’m not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility."
What is his argument? That because of a past failure, the present criticism of his plan is invalid. He makes no argument, no engagement, no discourse about his plan (which he should be anle to do, regardless of the critic, if it is a solid plan) and instead attacks the ability of his critic to engage in discourse. This, reader, is the classic
argumentum ad hominem.
It was hailed by the media as a sign of "A President Who Thinks".
Reason is dead, and we have killed her.
Ultimately, the blame is indeed ours but we need not give up the fight. Can we go back to an age before the image? No, alas, but we can teach ourselves not to assume that an image is innocuous, nor that it belies an accurate representation of content.
We may limit our own exposure to images- and let text, and spoken language, socialize our children. In a world of entertainment, this is not easy, but ultimately is the only way we will prevent our species from destroying itself.
We must stop taking images seriously; TV and film are at their worst when they play at being serious forms of discourse- this is when the assumptions about content and context are at their worst, and we are most malleable to the power of
logos.
Ultimately, we must cling to text, to reason, in this age of emotion and imagery. If we do not, we will suddenly find ourselves wandering into
A Brave New World.
- Benjamin
