Random rambling on epistemology
Rehashing:

It Pays to be Ignorant was an explicit parody of "experts" who know less than we do. Couldn't happen now. It was modeled on Info Please, which had a panel of arrogant condescending NYC "experts". Ignorant had three intentional idiots, expert COMEDIANS, who found an infinite number of ways to fuck up the most obvious questions.

Nearly all of the questions were tautologous or self-answering.

How many lakes are in the five Great Lakes?

Which wild animal is on the buffalo nickel?

Can you name a President who started life as a baby?

How many two-cent stamps in a dozen?

When is a June Bride married?

And the best of all:

Can you name the four people who star in the radio program 'It Pays to be Ignorant'?

A few of the questions required real knowledge:

What causes knotholes in a piece of wood?

And a few were fake tautologies, which the listeners would know if they listened to other radio shows like Hix or MacHarrie.

Which river is shown in the painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware?

Tautology? Nope. The river is the Rhine, as you'd know if you listened to Hix.

What hill was the Battle of Bunker Hill fought on?

Tautology? Nope. It was fought on Breed's Hill, as you'd know if you listened to MacHarrie.

Were these questions meant to let the listeners feel even more knowledgeable, or were the writers unaware of the non-obvious facts? Probably the latter, but we'll never know.

Separate observation about levels of knowledge: These Vaudeville-trained comedians knew when to break out of the script and talk personally to the audience, and sometimes reminded the audience that there was a script. "Wow! How did you know that?" "I read it right here." This level-crossing disappeared in movies, and then disappeared in TV, which mainly hired movie-trained actors. In movies and TV the script is the ONLY reality. No breakouts or level-crossing allowed.

In the '90s, "reality" TV and cable "news" practiced a new form of deception. Shows are rigidly scripted but appear to be spontaneous. Rush brought this deception to radio. Previous talk shows, from the '40s to the '80s, had a few guests each day, typically local politicians or local business owners pushing their agenda or product. Rush eliminated the guests, pretending that he was totally spontaneous, "walking a tightrope". In fact the elimination made it possible to script every second of the show. Guests are unpredictable. Trump, master of "reality" TV, brought "reality" TV openly into politics. "Spontaneous" random utterances and "orders", all precisely scripted to maximize conflict and chaos and increase the wealth and power of Deepstate.

Musical sidenote: The best part of Ignorant is Nat Novick's parody on classical music. Novick was a serious classical musician and his orchestra included virtuosi in all sections, especially the flutes. His remixes or quodlibets are pure genius, flipping between various composers and modern tunes seamlessly. Unfortunately host Tom Howard felt the need to keep up a constant patter during the music. I'd love to hear Novick's work on its own without Howard's play-by-play, but so far I haven't found it online. In fact Novick isn't even mentioned online, outside of specific references to Ignorant.

Labels: Entertainment, epistemology, SES

  ¶ 11:03 PM