Why Blame Powerpoint?

I learnt from watching this Ted Talk by Julian Treasure that silence and listening is an invaluable, if increasingly rare, skill. As a result, I try to keep at least three minutes of absolute silence every day and dedicate that time to letting my mind go through small thoughts. A few days ago, in my musing, I wondered why one I always hear more calls for banning things than for letting people decide for themselves.

Looking at an article in the Guardian, I received an email link to this piece by Julie Bindel covering the quest by a determined political group that wants to ban the use of Powerpoint in Switzerland. I agree too that some of the worst presentations that I have sat through were by people who misuse of Powerpoint while thinking that flashing pictures and flying bullets on the screen is replacement for intelligible presentation. It may well be that the existence of Powerpoint reduces the cost of producing full colour gibberish. Despite that fact, it seems that this political party is mistaken in thinking that use of flip charts is a solution. tTo start with, it is obviously paternalistic for anyone to insist on another's use of flip charts in addition to the fact that this solution fails to reckon with the fact that poor presentation is often a sign of poor public speaking skills and cluttered thinking. In my view, one cannot resolve that merely by changing presentation tools.

This reminded me that it is often much easier to build a political case around what should be banished from society than what decisions should be reversed. To my mind, it would be helpful for people who sit through pPowerpoint presentations to remind presenters that colour and theatrics do not a good presentation make. pPerhaps it would help for someone to just stop a presenter and ask, "Assume that you did not have the graphics, what would you want me to know?"