Neil Postman’s nonfiction book, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1986) has recently impacted my worldview. The depth and swiftness of this impact baffles me. This text informs who I am trying to be.
Postman argues that the epistemological functions of television are not only insufficient but harmed by the medium’s tendency to both appeal to emotions and subsequently revoke appeal to logic and reason. He elaborates the fundamental influence content mediums have on their cultures. The success of Printing Press produced a typographical society. The successes of telegram and radio have produced a culture where information move unrestrained by space. Television has produced a society that largely depends on sounds and images for information but confuses information with the entertainment they consume from the same picture-box. This is not the fault of humanity – even “serious information” on TV bears the marks of entertainment which is tailored by TV producers in response to audiences’ preference to be entertained. It seems that TV is unfit as a medium for serious information, but America before and after the 1980s relies on TV above all other content mediums for serious information. The result is an uninformed and harmed society which relies on TV as the insufficient harbinger of values – Politics, Current Events, Society, and moral values are all filtered through entertainment.
Neil Postman’s son Andrew Postman republished this book in 2006; it occurred to him at the eclipse of The Age of Television that the dual advent of internet and smartphones further illuminated the book’s value. This book may be subjected to several judgments. Neil’s tone seems condescending at times. His confidence in his word appears supercilious. The text and examples are dated by the book’s original time of writing. But most of his commentary appears to me to be worse than correct. It is applicable to the current social moment – my sitting in a hall, typing this on a screen, with another screen occupying my pocket.
The Television screen has shrunk to entertain us beyond our living rooms. It dwells in our pocket – following us so that we are never alone. Musician Bo Burnham wrote that today, “Apathy is a tragedy and boredom is a crime.” (Inside, “Welcome to the Internet). We are better equipped now than ever for the hellish disintegration of our own intellectualism as a society. We are amusing ourselves to death.
I first encountered the text at the recommendation of an admirable peer. In spite of better counsel, I delayed ordering the book for excuses X, Y and Z. When my first quarter at UCLA began; however, it delighted me: finding the book on the syllabus for my communications class.
I have attended the book’s council like a disciple. Perhaps the velocity of its influence is explainable – I enjoy the professor who assigned it and I admire my peer who suggested it.
Nevertheless: baffled.
My experience with this piece informs conclusions on my pseudointellectual campaign towards real intellectualism. The book tells me I am voluntarily demolishing my brain and grasp of reality. I react. I employ self-discipline in my phone usage – to the detriment of many relationships which rely on the connection my phone has furnished our relationships with. My response elucidates my desire to be a great reader and writer – I’m reading more in the aftermath of my complete reading. It furnishes my desire for Reason which I referenced in my About Me page on this website.
This particular media form demands a public reaction. It is a sermon beyond the value of the heightened understandings of society, politics, and culture which is generated by adherence to typography. This is a fire-sermon against the way technology bends our understanding. It is affirmed by the passage of time. It demands a reaction unless we decide, perhaps within our preference for it, to amuse ourselves. To Death.
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