As terrible as that sounds, it’s not unusual. This is what we do. We learn about systemic problems, social injustice and general uncouthness, we get mad, we share it on the web, possibly adding an indignant statement. A few of our friends click “Like” and we all go about our day, a job well done. It would be easy to blame the internet, but this behaviour isn’t new. It’s called “narcotizing dysfunction” and researchers Paul F. Lazarfeld and Robert K. Merton identified it in the late 1940s. Basically, they discovered that by learning about a particular issue, we think we’re somehow helping. Because I saw—and shared!—a video about educational reform, I can sleep at night knowing I’ve done my part to reform education. Organizers have said that the goal of TED “is to make ideas accessible in a way that matches modern attention spans,” as though our growing inability to focus on one thing for any amount of time was something to be accommodated instead of overcome. Even more tragically, the sizable audience a TED talk brings its presenter has led to 18-minute aphorisms competing for attention, often to sell books or future speaking gigs for big money. TED offers ideas packaged as Happy Meals and self-help masquerading as science. It’s a pseduo-intellectual Thunderdome where complex issues are reduced to pablum. The typical TED talk has become so ridiculous that when the Onion decided to parody them with a series of hilarious “Onion Talks,” the send-ups were so spot-on that although mostly insane, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out at least a few people couldn’t discern them from the real thing. https://medium/better-humans/492bc0271e79
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:10:55 +0000