The Public Discourse
Weaver, Paul H.
The Public Discourse ...... . . . . . .. Play Theory What we say to one another is a ser-ious business" ideas have consequences. A good idea can bring forth all sorts of blessings; a bad...
...People, after all, are not total dummies, and total dummies are what we would have to be to swallow the most flagrant nonsense of our edi-torialists, columnists, professors, and po- liticians...
...It then led into an unnecessary paragraph which the reader was asked to skim, followed by an unnecessary reference to the title and an unnecessary recapitulation of all these things...
...Its the- sis was that people derive pleasure, not only from the content of communication, but also from the simple act of communi- cation...
...Meanwhile, I shall do my best to try to help everyone read the article with a minimum of boredom and disappointment...
...Entitled "An Inside View of Bangkok," it is in its entirety that which follows: I should admit at the outset that the title of this article is a lie...
...But many articles which claim to be informing the reader are equally uninformative...
...If you are still reading every word, you will no doubt be quite disappointed by the time you conclude the paragraph and discover that it really does not say anything...
...A few will be reading more slowly and with increased interest...
...If you do insist on reading every word, I can not accept any responsibility in the event that you become bored...
...And the idea that people read in order to gain information is largely an illusion anyway, since most of the time when people read they are not gaining information so much as sim-ply exercising a skill they have learned...
...So please skim over the sentences so as not to waste any more time on them than necessary...
...Then, too, certain people acquire an in-terest in the perpetuation of bad ideas because they can make a living from them, and this accounts for much of the nonsense perpetrated by politicians, advertisers, and other such publicizing persons...
...I suppose if I had been to Bangkok and felt that I had some kind of inside view, I might write an article on that subject...
...But I am sure you have other interests aside from Bangkok...
...Though there are still many paragraphs remaining, they are all writ- ten in more or less similar style, and none of them deal with any subject in the usual sense...
...If, despite advice to the contrary, you find yourself reading this paragraph, you should at least not read every word...
...Or perhaps you will not wish to rea/l further now that you have been told that the article is not about Bangkok...
...Of course, you may read it if you like, and I imagine most readers who have ventured this far into the article will not be able to overlook it completely...
...The third time-you read it--and it bears even a third read- ing-you will see how acute Stephenson's theory is, and how completely one can become engrossed into a reading that says literally nothing...
...So readers who are only interested in reading about some-thing would be well advised to turn to something else at this point...
...Our infirmities can account for a lot of what we do --but clearly not for all...
...Some readers will already have turned the pages to something else, but most will no doubt read on into this second paragraph despite the disconcerting nature of the first one...
...Well, some parts of the answer are clear enough...
...Those who continue reading should do so with- out any great anticipation of something to come...
...I realize it is difficult to read without anticipating, but readers who can manage to do so will find the article much more enjoyable than readers who can not...
...Not that it isn't a good-idea...
...Bad ideas are harder to recognize than we might wish...
...If, despite advice to the contrary, you still find yourself reading this paragraph, you should at least try not to read every word...
...Perhaps it was wrong to select such a title in the first place...
...Thus I feel obliged to warn the reader not to anticipate anything...
...People have a seemingly endless capacity to make honest mistakes...
...Thus, one reason we take and enjoy nonsense is that we often don't care whether what we are reading makes sense or not --so long as we are in fact reading it and enjoying the pleasures of reading per se...
...Now I could go on at some length explaining Stephenson's subtle and elegant thesis• I am not so sure that I am willing to count on your readingpleasure alone to carry you through to the end of this column...
...Given the penal-ties that attach to this reasoning, one might expect that public discussion would resemble the wise, benign semi-nars of geniuses and angels...
...If they read expecting the article to make some point, they will only be disappointed when they discover that it does not lead up to anything in particular...
...Some will be reading faster and more skeptically now than when they began...
...And not merely take it, enjoy it...
...a bad one can make life miserable...
...In fact, it is more often just the opposite, and experience teaches us that we must keep a vigilant and critical eye on the public discourse simply to avoid disasters...
...Why is this so...
...But since that is not the case, it would be presump- tuous for me to do so...
...And you probably will become bored by the redundancy and the lack of content...
...We read, for instance, not only because we want to know what's going on, but also because we enjoy exercising the skills of reading...
...Perhaps the best advice I can provide at this point is that you skip the following para- graph, which is probably the least interesting one in the article...
...Yet, more important than why nonsense exists is the question: why do we take it...
...One man's confused brain-storm today, if unexposed and un-checked, will become everybody's grotes- que reality tomorrow...
...So please skim over the sentences so as not to waste any more time on them than necessary...
...You will understand what I mean if you continue reading for a while...
...In all, it has been quite uninformative...
...The article was written by Tom Johnson and was pub-lished in The Village Voice on June 1, 1972...
...Play Theory What we say to one another is a ser-ious business" ideas have consequences...
...Even though this article does not per- tain to Bangkok, it seems only right that I should ref~ again to "An Inside View of Bangkok," and thus make some attempt to relate article with title...
...A few will already be suspicious that the article is going to continue in much the same way it began...
...Most will be proceeding on the assumption that the writer has simply chosen a very indirect way of intro-ducing his subject, and that the article will soon begin to present concrete ideas of some sort or another...
...While I am not concerned with inform- ing or entertaining readers in the usual way, I do not Wish to disappoint anyone...
...The article began with a discussion of its erroneous title, proceeded with a few remarks about how readers would react to the article and some warnings about what to expect...
...You will become bored with the redundancy and the lack of content...
...If the reader did not know quite what to think when I warned him initially not to anticipate anything from this article, he will now have a better under- standing of what I meant...
...If you do insist on reading every word, I can not accept any responsibility in the event that you become bored...
...Yet an article does require a title, and it is impossible to devise a title for an article of this nature which will not be misleading in one way or another...
...Several years ago, a psychologist by the name of William Stephenson pub- lished a fascinating book called The Play Theory of Mass Communication...
...So I propose to offer you instead an inspired piece of writing that is utterly without "con-tent" and yet is still capable of arousing emotion and reader interest...
...Indeed, we do not even care whether what we read has any content whatsoever...
...We need to find the missing link in our explanation...
...So perhaps you will continue reading, if only to find out what the article really is about...
...The first time you read it, it will seem rather strange...
...The second time through, you will be amused...
...You will become bored by the redundancy and the lack of content...
...Of course, the latter are correct...
...continued on page24) The Alternative April 1973...
Vol. 6 • April 1973 • No. 7
