Each person’s view of the world depends purely on the type of language they use, which is why we all have a different view of the world. The grammatical features of a language have a great influence on how concepts such as time and space are perceived, and on logical processes in general. These differences become apparent when learning a new language: it is common to find it difficult to understand some grammatical constructs and when to use them correctly.
Throughout human history, the structure – but also the technology – that underpins public discourse has helped shape not only the way people express themselves, but also their thoughts and opinions, and the very definition of the concept of truth. In fact, there is no universal way of perceiving the truth, but every civilization identifies it based on the forms of communication it uses and which over time, adapt to reflect that same society. For this same reason, the way public discourse is structured also depends on the biases of the media it uses. For example, a culture which revolves around verbal communication will place great emphasis on remembering proverbs, because truth is conveyed through their message, while a culture based on the written word will find oral proverbs colourful, and will look for truth in writing as the only medium authorised to preserve it.
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan argued that the medium is the message, i.e. that the content of any medium – be it a book, a television program, or a live speech – is defined by the type of media that presents it. Neil Postman, as a former student of McLuhan, proposes a modification to this assumption, emphasising how, in his opinion, the medium is not the message but rather the metaphor. This is because tools such as television communicate indirectly, thus diverting the attention of people who are no longer able to grasp the importance of the media for the development of their own culture.
When the year 1984 ended, people breathed a sigh of relief because none of what George Orwell described in his dystopian novel “1984” had come to fruition. Orwell’s book was a hypothetical premonition of a totalitarian scenario in which people’s thoughts and actions would be oppressed by government control forces. According to Neil Postman, however, during that time, America was unwittingly slipping towards another dystopian scenario, the one presented a few years earlier by Aldous Huxley in his book, Brave New World. Huxley envisioned a world in which human weaknesses, and the resulting desire for fun and pleasure, would push people towards laziness, stupidity and intellectual incompetence. In this existential limbo with no way out, entertainment technology would have supplanted democracy, thus becoming the dominant ideology.
