Popular Culture and the Noosphere

Popular Culture and the Noosphere

The chapter, Popular Culture and the Noosphere, defines the realm of cinema knowledge.  This idea of knowledge in broken up into different parts; Youngblood displays the root of the knowledge, as well as the different ways in which it is used, for art or for entertainment.  Youngblood begins the chapter with the root of the knowledge, by revealing that contemporary Man has access to a tool.  This tool is one that expands his awareness of enculturation (cultural habits and characteristics that have gradually developed), giving man freedom that was never experienced by his ancestors.  This tool is called the Noosphere.  The Noosphere is a culmination and organization of knowledge of twenty-five percent of the human race.  It is dispersed through the intermedia network, creating World Communications.  These closely interacting communications have changed the definition of cultural traditions.  The comprehension of other cultures’ traditions has produced “…a commonly-shared cultural experience…” and the ability to “…span the world …in unprecedented ways.”  All of this would be impossible without the Noosphere.  With an understanding of this fact, Youngblood refers to the Noosphere as potentially becoming “… one of the most powerful tools in man’s history.”

The Noosphere has produced an overwhelming amount of knowledge that is available to every person.  With this abundance of knowledge, humans are constantly impressed with the “influx of information”.   This easily impressionable attitude creates opportunity for manipulation.  Youngblood points out the negative uses of the Noosphere by disclosing the capability of craft to appear as creativity.  This opportunity to mislead is just the beginning of a world for of impersonation within cinema.  Youngblood then goes on to differentiate between craft and industry.  Craft he condescends as being local, whereas industry he defines as having a universal effect.  A similarity of these two opposites is shown in the differences between art and entertainment.  Similar adjectives are used to describe the differences between art and entertainment.  He refers to art as being universal with unlimited significance in its effect, while entertainment is described as limited and local.

The Noosphere has made it simple to imitate art.  This has become something of regularity in the world today.  Youngblood states: “A decade of television-watching is equal to a comprehensive course in dramatic acting, writing, and filming.”  We, of course, know this to be untrue, but in today’s world it is becoming all too easy to master a skill.  Where in 1970, when this text was written, the Noosphere was television, our Noosphere has become the internet.  With access to Google and YouTube, it is simple to type a skill or topic into the search engine and receive step-by-step instructions.  Youngblood’s point is that because a person has the ability to view and learn information with such ease, does not equate to phenomenal effects.  In fact, Youngblood states that these imitators can only comprehend effect and not cause, leading to their effect being defined as “…sub-mediocre talent in the entertainment industry.”  An artist has the ability to create art.  Youngblood defines the imitators abilities simply by saying, they “…are little more than adroit (skillful) imitators, collectors of data and phenomena, which they glean from the Noosphere and amalgamate (combine) to create packages that are far from whole."  Essentially, this leads to an unsatisfying performance.

The Noosphere has provided us with the information needed to form opinions about the popular arts.  However, this battle, between imitation and true art, creates a cloud of confusion.  This cloud causes difficulty in deciding the differences between excellence and sub-mediocre.  Youngblood expresses how eclectic (ideas deriving from many outside sources) thinking becomes confused with creative thinking.  Keeping this in mind, the parameters that Youngblood sets for creativity are connected to originality.  Since eclectic thinking is developed through many different sources, styles and ideas, creative thinking must derive from the original thought process of the artist. 

Through Cinema knowledge, and the text, we discover how science and art interact.  In Youngblood’s words, “…art and science function to reveal similarities in an a priori universe of dissimilarities.”  Youngblood is pointing out a sense of tug-o-war between the functional similarities of art and science and the dissimilarities that are evident in the world.  However, all of the segments of the Noosphere somehow find their way back to the difference between art and craft.  Throughout the chapter, Youngblood continually points out how industry, entertainment, and eclectic thinking are topics of craft thinking; the skill is developed to deceive humans that what they are viewing or learning is art.  Nevertheless, art is still the goal of craft thinking, but because it is local and not universal thinking, craft can never reach that goal.

In the final paragraph of the chapter, Youngblood states that television is cinema’s imitator.  Because craft thinking, or television in this scenario, has brought about a do-it-yourself way of thinking, cinema is forced expand its way of thinking into complexity.  Unfortunately, Youngblood expresses that the state that we live in, hyperawareness, we become overloaded with information.  This overload removes our “…technological zeal…”, leaving us without opportunity to explore the lengths and depths at which the Noosphere is capable.