http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028224992Oh my.
Well, I suppose when it comes to short attention spans, the primitives know what they're talking about, having long ago mastered the trick.
[note: the Philadelphia dentist's comments have been paragraphized for ease of comprehension]PCIntern (16,260 posts) Wed Oct 12, 2016, 07:26 AM
The media and the populace are not up to the task...
Many many years ago one of the early criticisms of Sesame Street by those in early childhood education and development was that although the content of the program was excellent, it conditioned children to have relatively short attention spans.
Trump and his fascist-studying minions have perfected the art of altering the landscape every forty-five minutes it seems and have overwhelmed the system with multiple scandals and what would normally have been interpreted as missteps which would have invariably proved fatal to candidates even four years ago.
It is a form of Gish Gallop in extremis and although Trump has probably lost this election, it will be a tactic which will be utilized in the future by these strategists who represent what would have been otherwise unelectable candidates in the past.
The people cannot manage this: it is cognitive overload, something we endure during disasters involving the loss of many lives, or even how we view a serial killer who has committed so many heinous acts that his celebrity status eclipses the individual horror of his deeds.
The RWers have been fine-tuning this tactic for years and we are witnessing the rollout and sacrifice of their boy Trump, all the while refining the technique for further use in the future and for political races which do not have the shrewd operators on the other side to blunt the attacks,
I believe we have entered a new phase of Orwellian Manipulation. One of which Orwell himself may not have been able to conceive.
Nay (8,927 posts) Wed Oct 12, 2016, 01:34 PM
4. An old book, "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television," by Jerry Mander, is
still entirely relevant today. One of the arguments is exactly that -- it makes your brain enjoy short attention spans and, after a while, you can't pay attention to much of anything for more than a couple of minutes.
Your library should have a copy. It's illuminating.
<<<used to own that very same exact book.
It has a cult following, but the cult's pretty tiny, which is a pity, as the four arguments are great arguments.
But what would our good friend Atman do without the boob-tube?
