Postman called television a propagator of “irrelevance, impotence, and incoherence.” That seems an apt description of the first presidential debate, as well as of broader trends we have witnessed this year. In Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Postman criticized television as a medium of information that, regardless of its content, caused Americans to understand all of public discourse through the lens of entertainment. Thirty-five years ago, New York University professor of communication Neil Postman predicted the political and social implosion we have witnessed in 2020.
Neil postman amusing ourselves to death tv#
Biden, in turn, called the celebrity president a “ clown.” The whole thing appeared a bit like a reality TV show gone off the rails this is perhaps appropriate, given that Trump was himself the host of a long-running reality TV competition. Trump constantly derided Biden’s 47-year political record, and told him he lacked the “blood” to govern. “ Chaotic,” “ vicious,” and “ ugly“ were some of the words used to describe the sharp exchanges between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. But like peek-a-boo, it is also endlessly entertaining.Few Americans, one imagines, walked away from the first presidential debate this year feeling optimistic about national politics. It is a world without much coherence or sense a world that does not ask us, indeed, does not permit us to do anything a world that is, like the child’s game of peek-a-boo, entirely self-contained. Postman investigates the changes our American culture has gone through as we have moved from an age of books, pamphlets and newspapers to the age of television, or, “from the magic of writing to the magic of electronics.” (The first Macintosh was only a year old when the book was written.) He describes our new world as “a peek-a-boo world”:Ī peek-a-boo-world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. “This book,” Postman wrote, “is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.” (For a graphic adaptation of the introduction, see this Stuart McMillen comic. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us.
Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture…. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. What Huxley feared was there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. Brave New World infographic created for the film Killswitch As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”Ī 1984 vs. In 1985, Americans had been saying, “Look! 1984 didn’t happen! We’re still here!” But Postman pointed to Brave New World, a book that was “slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling.” In Huxley’s vision, Postman writes, “no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. ” The book is a perfect example of how if you want to understand the present, look to the past… even the recent past. Earlier that year, Postman’s son, Andrew Postman, wrote an op-ed titled, “ My dad predicted Trump in 1985 – it's not Orwell, he warned, it's Brave New World. I read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business in 2017, just as I began working in earnest on what would become my book Keep Going. These might be pretty weirdo, sometimes challenging, books that are near and dear to my heart.
Neil postman amusing ourselves to death series#
You can think of this series as an extension of the Read Like an Artist book club, except I won’t be limiting the selection to books I think will be great for a book club discussion.
This is a first in a series of what (I think?) will be monthly posts about my favorite books, the books that have been influential on my work. In that spirit, today I want to start something new. The death of summer was the birth of new adventures. When I was a kid, the start of school came with a sense of new beginnings.
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