Socahtoa Sparknotes

Native American philosopher Sohcahtoa was pondering why good people die and what happens to them when they do. He went out into the forest along the river to consult the spirits. Three days he stayed there, singing and praying. He was alone with nature and nature’s spirit. His tribe traditionally used smoke signals to transmit messages over long distances. He had learned much from his time with the spirit and wanted to share it with his friends and family back home, however he was not ready to leave. He was not yet satisfied that he had a complete understanding of the truth. Socahtoa gathered his wood and smoke stacks. He began to send the coded message to his tribe, however he soon ran out of materials. This frustrated him into stopping mid-message.

In the colonies, most people learned to read because reading was an outworking of democracy. The information held in words was available to everyone, and they learned to derive its meaning. In schools, children were taught not only to read but also how to decenter and evaluate the truth of a source. Once they had determined if the source was reliable, the colonial citizens tracked the author’s logic to glean meaning from the piece. They applied their patience and logical reasoning to other areas of life, like politics. In a print culture, people listened to and engaged in political debates for hours. They were not bored by the lack of entertainment, instead they attentively listened to and evaluated the logic of the speakers. Print culture’s values of literacy, deriving meaning and logical reasoning applied to aspects of their lives beyond

Previous types of media had the purpose of entertainment, however no one would think of listening to music to check the weather, look at fine art to learn the current football score or watch a film to learn about politics. Television’s entertainment is unique because it affects all aspects of modern public discourse. One can watch political speeches, weather reports, sports games, reality TV, educational cartoons, live concerts and even religious services on TV. Because Television entertainment is so all encompassing that modern people expect everything to be entertaining.

This desire for entertainment affects all aspects of politics. Americans judge their political candidates on their images, as they see them on TV. This leads to the best crowd-pleasers getting the most votes. The short commercials and political debates broadcast on television promote candidates that are good at entertaining a crowd through shallow discourse. Many of the things people do not like about politicians—crowd pleasing, shallow discourse—are the characteristics that a visual culture