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Re: Dead body fetishism?
Robert Snower (rs222@WORLDNET.ATT.NET)
Fri, 26 Jul 1996 14:23:41 +0000
At 05:56 AM 7/26/96 +0000, John Cole. wrote:
>To all of the commenters re: my original post, thanks--but I WOULD like to
>clarify one thing. I did not mean to say that recovering the dead and other
>rituals were new, as such--merely that they seem to me to have gone to new
>extremes in recent times in Western culture; it was the genesis of that
>exaggeration which intrigued me. Tarzia may have reflected my own ideas best
>about what I see as not QUITE the same old traditions.... I'd add that the
>media frenzy is fairly new as a paddle stirring the cauldron. There is some
>analogy to the trend in TV news to concentrate on photo ops for crimes,
>explosions, etc.instead of issues, I think. Causes of crime, un-photographical
>white collar crime, malfeasance of politicos not involving clear sex and money
>angles...etc. don't get much coverage, and the public seems to be conditioned
>to demand instant gratification--all or nothing. Even whistle-blower exposes
>focus on $500 hammers, not the nature of govt/corporate interaction, for
>example.
>
>Why is Al D'Amato a featured player in this plane crash, for example? Or any
>other politician, unless they are being exposed for promoting unsafe FAA
>policies? Are they not simply vultures looking for free TV time--which TV
>networks excitedly offer them? (A small case can be made for a President as
>"national chaplain," I suppose, but that strikes me as a fairly minor detail
>compared with the saturation news coverage.)
>
>I submit that there is political obfuscation and grandstanding and
>trivialization going on--wholesale promotion of "false consciousness" about
>real issues.
>
>Meanwhile, I'm still amazed but not surprized at the news media's promotion of
>"human interest" angles at the expense of other approaches; it plays up and
>into the myth of individualism, I think, at the expense of analyses of bigger
>or deeper issues.
>
>Even Olympics news coverage insistently plays up the "human dramas of
>individuals" rather than showing the competitions. That a swimmer, say, had a
>brother die in a car wreck 5 years ago is explained in detail, but the rules
>of the 100M freestyle don't even get a mention! (Pardon the leap, but to me
>there is some continuity between my threads (shreds?) of thought....)
>
>--John R. Cole
Ugh
Best wishes. R. Snower rs222@worldnet.att.net
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