Neil Postman was a prophet
What ails us? Our lack of reliable information? Or our lack of a "great narrative"?
I miss Neil Postman (1931-2003).
(Although I created the following audio clip for a different (now mothballed) Substack, Postman’s insights about the barrenness of information and the value of “transcendent narratives” helped inspire the Substack you’re reading right now.)
One of the key passages:
… But there are schools that have been animated by a transcendent spiritual idea which may be called a god with a small ‘g’. Now I know it’s risky for me to use this word even with a small ‘g’, because the word has an aura of sacredness [and] is not to be used lightly. And also because it calls to mind a fixed figure or image. But it is the purpose of such figures or images to direct one’s mind to an idea, and more to the point, to a story. Not any kind of story but one that tells of origins and envisions a future; a story that constructs ideals, proscribes rules of conduct, provides a source of authority and gives a sense of continuity and purpose. A god in the sense I’m using the word is the name of a great narrative, one that has sufficient credibility, complexity, and symbolic power so that it’s possible to organize one’s life and one’s learning around it. Without such a transcendent narrative, life has no meaning. Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without purpose, schools become houses of detention, not attention.
How many “great narratives” can you name that have “sufficient credibility, complexity, and symbolic power so that it’s possible to organize one’s life and one’s learning around it”?
No rush. Take your time. I’ll wait here.
Links to three (of many) books by Neil Postman:
The problem with "meaning" and "meaningful" is that they have no meaning! How would you set about defining meaning or meaningful? It's like these words exist not to mean anything, but to invoke that which forever escapes those who utter them!
Why, Heartworker, do you make this a matter of politics & a political divide? That is so bafflingly limited & mistaken as an approach. You think non conservatives are getting this right ? That is absolutely wrong. What you cite is a pervasive cultural problem and has nothing to do with some Right/Left split. What is childhood understood to be? How are children treated & understood? This should be a widespread conversation but it's not. Look at elite, liberal schools of education: they are failing across the board because childhood is so poorly understood along with children.