L Murasaki
19.08.2001, 01:10
I met Ernst Jandl several times shortly before he died, at home, over dinner, and I remember once, more or less out of the blue, he asked me what I thought about violence in the media .. I was a little surprised, and I think the first thing I said was : I don't particularly like it, but as far as I know, no one had really proven a direct causal relationship between violence in the media and violence in society .. in fact, I gave Japan as an example .. some of the most violent video games in the world are produced in Japan, yet Japan is one of the least violent societies on the face of the planet .. and, from a friend, who is a child psychiatrist, I had heard that not even so-called good television, educational television, like Sesame Street and Teletubbies, was really good for children .. what really seemed to matter was : how many hours did a child spend in front of a television, regardless of the program .. children who spent a lot of time in front of a television got lower scores on all sorts of aptitude and intelligence tests than children who did not watch television ..
I think this is where our discussion ended that evening, but I kept thinking about the question .. don't really know why, I just did .. actually, there had been some shootings in a school in Colorado, or something like that .. and people were claiming that somehow it was violence in the media that had caused the violence in the schools .. calls for censorship in Hollywood, new legislation in Washington .. Everyone wanted a quick fix, someone to blame; no one wanted to take the time to look into what might be the real cause for the shootings, no one wanted to ask more difficult or more painful questions, no one wanted to look for more demanding solutions .. violence in the media was obvioulsy the problem .. so, when I heard the reports about the shootings in Colorado, I thought about Ernst Jandl and his question .. and now I know what I think about violence in the media .. I don't like it, but I think Stumpfsinn is a much greater social ill than is violence on television ..
As far as I can see, Stumpfsinn (simple-mindedness is the only English term I can come up with right now)really is one of the worst, most dangerous social ills we humans face ..
thinking of you, Ernst Jandl
(Beitrag wurde von L Murasaki am 19.08.2001 um 00:12 Uhr bearbeitet.)
I think this is where our discussion ended that evening, but I kept thinking about the question .. don't really know why, I just did .. actually, there had been some shootings in a school in Colorado, or something like that .. and people were claiming that somehow it was violence in the media that had caused the violence in the schools .. calls for censorship in Hollywood, new legislation in Washington .. Everyone wanted a quick fix, someone to blame; no one wanted to take the time to look into what might be the real cause for the shootings, no one wanted to ask more difficult or more painful questions, no one wanted to look for more demanding solutions .. violence in the media was obvioulsy the problem .. so, when I heard the reports about the shootings in Colorado, I thought about Ernst Jandl and his question .. and now I know what I think about violence in the media .. I don't like it, but I think Stumpfsinn is a much greater social ill than is violence on television ..
As far as I can see, Stumpfsinn (simple-mindedness is the only English term I can come up with right now)really is one of the worst, most dangerous social ills we humans face ..
thinking of you, Ernst Jandl
(Beitrag wurde von L Murasaki am 19.08.2001 um 00:12 Uhr bearbeitet.)