Tune up your crap detectors

 

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school,

It’s a wonder I can think at all.

Opening lyrics to Kodachrome, by Paul Simon (Released in 1973)

A little background: Paul Simon attended, and graduated from, Forest Hills High School in New York City’s Borough of Queens. So did I. Simon was graduated in 1958; I graduated in 1969. When the song was released, I was finishing college. For several reasons, I have always felt a special connection to Kodachrome. Kodak stopped producing Kodachrome film about two years ago. Obviously, Kodachrome is a metaphor in Simon’s nearly 40-year-old hit. Here’s a link to the lyrics in case you are not familiar with the song.

With traditional film cameras now replaced, for most of us, by digital photography, at least one thing crosses the boundaries of the two technologies—frames. We frame pictures; we view them in frames; we edit within frames of film or frames on our iPhoto or Photoshop apps. So metaphor and frames help us see and understand the world.

Paul Simon obviously recognized the “crap (he) learned in high school” for what it was. Contrary to his next line, it is probably one reason he can think well, certainly well enough to write great songs over the last half century. Neil Postman wrote about the need for “crap detectors,” playing off a line from Ernest Hemingway. You can read Postman’s essay (I agee with about 90% of what he says) and see what you think. I’d pay particular attention to Postman’s third and fourth laws. Or, to paraphrase Stephen Stills, be cautious of mostly saying “hooray for our side.”

The world has usually benefited from well-tuned crap detection. One of the traditional roles of the news media is sorting out what is real and what is not. Now doing this we have Jon Stewart and other entertainers working to expose purveyors of pap and crap on a nightly basis. That he makes us laugh is an added benefit.

There are many working journalists—likely most—who continue to point out what is legitimate information and what is not. Unfortunately, many popular media personalities—including so-called journalists--are spewing crap at an alarming rate. My goal is not to “call out” individuals who contaminate the airwaves, news pages, and digital platforms with crap. Rather, it is to suggest all of us tune up our detectors and know the difference between the crap we learned in high school and everywhere else, and what is real knowledge, reliable information, and true wisdom.

You could take beautiful pictures with Kodachrome and you can take beautiful pictures with a digital camera. It’s not whether it is digital or film that is important; it is about how we see.