Pawlowski’s recommendations would have benefited from less hand-holding and more tough love. Get a life: turn it off.
A muddled and derivative look at how television influences our lives, from media ecologist Pawlowski (Communications/Univ. of Northern Colorado).
Pawlowski’s stated intent is to examine how television has subverted and usurped the family’s role as tribal bearers of manners and customs. Has the blue glow, she wonders, strangled familial intercommunication? But little time is spent in this vein. Rather, the author prattles on about what an evil force television has become: “It cuddles up next to us” (as if we didn’t ask it to), “demands” our attention (as if we didn’t give it), and forces “its culture . . . its jargon” upon us (as if the transistors wrote the script). We hear from an army of experts on television’s role distorting the harmonies and disharmonies of everyday life, its encouragement of premature sexuality and hyper-consumerism, its antiheroes and dreadful role models (from Homer Simpson to Calista Flockhart). While the author’s sanctimony and lack of humor are far from appealing, it is her lazy writing and thinking (“television tapped into a need most of us didn’t know we had—the need for entertainment”) that repels the most. But she concludes with some sensible, if hardly original, ideas about how to pry the monster’s fingers from our collective throats—which pretty much come down to waking up when you are watching the tube: be discerning, critical, and aware of television’s place in your life, and appreciate the good things the medium has to offer.
Pawlowski’s recommendations would have benefited from less hand-holding and more tough love. Get a life: turn it off.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-57071-459-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
Many readers will feel uneasy reading Wright's dark and cynical portrayal of human nature, but he does a superb job of...
A provocative book by a senior editor of the New Republic, author of Three Scientists and Their Gods (1988), examining the vibrant new science of evolutionary psychology.
Even though, according to this science, natural selection has molded human nature into a deterministic pattern of selfish behavior, says Wright, there is still hope for developing a common moral outlook as long as we accept the ramifications of our evolutionary legacy. Natural selection insures that individuals are subconsciously preoccupied with the propagation of their genes. Although the cold, underlying logic of natural selection doesn't care about our happiness, it fools us into thinking that by pursuing goals that make us happy, we will maximize our genetic legacy. Lost in this pursuit is any genuine concern about community welfare. This volume covers much of the same ground as William Allman's superb overview The Stone Age Present. Wright extends Allman's arguments in much richer detail and a more authoritative tone, although he explains the science in a more roundabout manner. He weaves a complex and fascinating treatise in explaining the paradox of how society can engender moral and responsible actions when a strict Darwinian interpretation implies that human behavior is deterministic. Wright resolves this paradox by arguing that once people understand the Darwinian paradigm, they will understand their own subconscious motives, which is the first step towards addressing the bias toward self that natural selection instills in our minds.
Many readers will feel uneasy reading Wright's dark and cynical portrayal of human nature, but he does a superb job of anticipating questions and objections. He points to a growing body of evidence that says this is the way we are whether we like it or not, and he argues we're better off if we accept this fact.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-40773-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
Not everything you wanted to know, and probably some you didn't (or didn't know you wanted to know, or were afraid to ask because someone might be offended, like ``What was so great about the Inca?''). But for people whose only link with Latino culture is the occasional enchilada, Cuban-born journalist and lecturer Novas lays it all out. From Montezuma to Tito Puente, from santer°a to bacalao, Novas offers a nifty (if glib) blend of history and pop culture (did you know that Desi Arnaz's ``Babaloo'' was a ``song to the Yoruba deity Babalu''?). Perhaps best of all, she offers help with the all-important question facing p.c. gringos (and if you are benighted enough not to know who they are, Novas will tell you that, too): Is it more correct to say ``Hispanic'' or ``Latino''?
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-452-27100-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Plume
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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