A review by danitrieskey
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman

5.0

The medium is not only the message but is also the metaphor. Reading this book triggered my Communication Studies. What I enjoyed about this book is that it is more relevant today than it was over 25 years ago. I don't see Postman devaluing TV and its ilk. He argues that it has a place as entertainment but we are right to be concerned when social pillars such as education, politics, religion and news are simplified into the equivalent of media Happy Meals. As we find ourselves living more of a Huxleyan's Brave New World, I enjoyed this quote: "For in the end, he was trying to tell us what afflicted the people in 'Brave New World' was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking."
— Neil Postman