Everything In Our Background Has Prepared Us

Because He Did Not Have Time To Read Every New Book In His Field, The Great Polish Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski Used A Simple And Efficient Method Of Deciding Which Ones Were Worth His Attention: Upon Receiving A New Book, He Immediately Checked The Index To See If His Name Was Cited, And How Often. The More "malinowski" The More Compelling The Book. No "malinowski", And He Doubted The Subject Of The Book Was Anthropology At All.

[it] Is Not That Television Is Entertaining But That It Has Made Entertainment Itself The Natural Format For The Representation Of All Experience. […] The Problem Is Not That Television Presents Us With Entertaining Subject Matter But That All Subject Matter Is Presented As Entertaining. (87)

The Written Word Endures, The Spoken Word Disappears

The Line-by-line, Sequential, Continuous Form Of The Printed Page Slowly Began To Lose Its Resonance As A Metaphor Of How Knowledge Was To Be Acquired And How The World Was To Be Understood. "knowing" The Facts Took On A New Meaning, For It Did Not Imply That One Understood Implications, Background, Or Connections. Telegraphic Discourse Permitted No Time For Historical Perspectives And Gave No Priority To The Qualitative. To The Telegraph, Intelligence Meant Knowing Of Lots Of Things, Not Knowing About Them.

The Idea Of Taking What People Call The 'entertainment Culture' As A Focus Of Study, Including Historical Perspective, Is Not A Bad Idea.