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Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business |  | Author: Neil Postman
Creator: Andrew Postman
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  146 reviews
Sales Rank: 3512
Media: Paperback
Edition: 20 Anv
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 014303653X
Dewey Decimal Number: 302.23
EAN: 9780143036531
Publication Date: December 27, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780143036531 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
Originally published in 1985, Neil Postmans groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic mediafrom the Internet to cell phones to DVDsit has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 146
 A must read... March 6, 2010
Maven Blackwell (Baltimore, MD)
Postman delivers a stirring perspective of the effects technology plays on society today, both politically and socially. The book was clearly before its time and almost all scenarios could be applied to today's technologies. It's a must read for anyone looking to better understand how technology has shaped their life and ideals as well as for anyone who is concerned about the origins of current public discourse.
 ANGRY February 15, 2010
Kristi Winkler (Springfield, PA, US)
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
I never received the item I paid for! I need it for school and I am very angry about this!
 Is One Picture Really Worth a Thousand Words? February 13, 2010
Big D (Auburn, AL. USA)
Good, fascinating and sometimes alarming read about the effect of electronic media (in particular television and to some extent computers) on our culture and decision making process--in every area, particularly politics, business and even religion.
Outlines how we have gone from a culture of words to a culture that relies almost exclusively on images and soundbites, and it affects virtually every area of our life. And not always positively. It has had a profound effects on our ability to make reasoned, well-thought decisions especially in electing our leaders and deciding on the issues of the day.
Good read. Quite interesting. And is one picture worth a thousand words? Read it and see. You may be amused and alarmed. We should be!!!
Postman goes to the heart of it. He urges us to look at the deeper implications of modern Media. January 30, 2010
C. Marshall
This is an excellent book. Don't let the cover fool you. It's level runs much deeper than that of morals and values. Postman lays out public discourse through out History explaining the epistemological effects that it has on a society. He then unpacks modern media (mostly T.V.) and it's effects on our society. Wonderful and thought provoking, this is a must read!
Postman the Prophet January 20, 2010
Norman Horn (Austin, TX United States)
Originally posted at the LibertarianChristians Blog:
Neil Postman is a cultural observer and critic, educator, and communications critic at New York University. His well-known book Amusing Ourselves to Death gives us a chilling reminder of how much the media we use on a regular basis affect our thought patterns. In particular, Postman's main concern is the effect of television on public discourse. It is not the entertainment value of television that concerns him so much as the elevation of television as a primary conveyor of what is considered "the truth." He was keenly aware of the power of the media to influence at a basic level how people think and feel about the world around them. Considering how much we as libertarians criticize the mainstream media for capitulating to the State at every turn - whether the left or the right - Postman helps us get behind the medium itself to understand the epistemology. We can then see that while Orwell's 1984 is still of great concern, perhaps the even greater danger is the Huxleyan vision from Brave New World:
"Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture."
*The Medium is the Metaphor*
Part 1 of the book is a fascinating exposition of epistemology - how we come to know what we know. The media we use is an integral part of the equation. Media helps build the structures of thought, and thus thought communication. Postman writes:
"When Galileo remarked that the language of nature is written in mathematics, he meant it only as a metaphor. Nature itself does not speak. Neither do our minds or our bodies or, more to the point of this book, our bodies politic. Our conversations about nature and about ourselves are conducted in whatever `languages' we find it possible and convenient to employ. We do not see nature or intelligence or human motivation or ideology as `it' but only as our languages are. And our languages are our media. Our media are our metaphors. Our metaphors create the content of our culture."
The "bias" of a medium upon a culture is unseen yet deeply felt. Nowhere is the difference more clearly seen than between typography and television. In a culture characterized by print, thought processes will tend to organize themselves into a similar linear and logical order that is seen on the pages of books. Proper use and expression of words becomes the norm. This was the state of America during the founding era and lasted, for all intents and purposes, until the late 20th century. It was the culture enriched by the likes of Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Paine, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain. Postman explains how widely available print media constructed the culture of America.
*"And Now . . . This"*
Television, as a different medium, changes the metaphor. Postman says, "Television has achieved the status of `meta-medium' - an instrument that directs not only our knowledge of the world, but our knowledge of ways of knowing as well." It is no longer a pseudo-mystery but is in the background of everywhere we go and everything we see.
And thus, we come to Postman's primary criticism of how television is used and what it affects negatively: in religion, in education, and in news and politics. Most of the Christians I routinely interact with understand his criticism of religion distinctly well. The so-called "televangelist" movement certainly diminishes the depth of theological discourse throughout Christendom. It is presented primarily as entertainment, losing what makes religion a historic, profound, and sacred human activity. Instead of spiritual transcendence, the preacher is tops. "God comes out as second banana." (Given, this is not universally the case but it is certainly the right characterization.)
The educationists can be heard praising the television medium as "the future of education" just as often today as when Postman wrote initially in 1985. "We face the rapid dissolution of the assumptions of an education organized around the slow-moving printed word, and the equally rapid emergence of a new education based on the speed-of-light electronic image." Postman's harshest criticism is reserved for those who would dumb us down in deference to the lowest common denominator.
I know of no libertarian that does not clearly see the vacuous nature of television news programs. Moreover, this flows straight into the political arena. There was once a time when the President of the United States could walk down the street without people recognizing him, simply because no one knew what the president looked like. Now, however, "looking presidential" is just as important, perhaps more important, as knowing the Constitution or having good ideology. This is the power of television: to put the superficial and unimportant into the forefront.
*Culture is Dead! Long Live Culture!*
Neil Postman can almost come off as a Luddite by the end of Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his criticism should still be heeded. It is not simply that Postman despises the very pixels of your new 42 inch LCD panel. On the contrary, he admits that as entertainment it is excellent and quite fun. I don't think he is even saying that no serious message can ever be conveyed through television or a movie (or else he would be throwing all theatre out the window as well). No, the main message is a warning that serious messages are easily lost within the medium, and there is great danger when matters of utmost seriousness are couched as mere entertainment.
Amusing Ourselves to Death truly helped coalesce many disjointed thoughts in my own mind about the usefulness, or lack thereof, of the television medium. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to those of you who observe culture with a watchful eye, and wish to respond accordingly to a trend that we intuitively understand to be negative in the long run.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 146
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