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A review by michaelacabus
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
5.0
“We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”
― Marshall McLuhan
"You've got a beautiful face but got nothing to say (oh)
You look famous, let's be friends and portray we possess something important
And do the things we like, meaning
We've just come to represent
A decline in the standards are what we accept
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, no"
--The 1975, "Love me"
It would be easy to disregard 'Amusing ourselves to death' as a relic of new media analysis; published in 1985, and making quaint sounding references to 'television programs' (quite different, we could argue, than the user-generated experiences of YouTube, and the near-relative, Netflix, which may not be user-created but certainly has a flavor of YouTube, with entertainment indiscriminate and vast), one could argue that Postman failed to see the evolution of television and the new media he warns his readers about.
However, it's that subtitle that may give the reader pause; the U.S. president is a product of show business: not just his reality TV show, but his entire career; one could counter he is a product of this 1980s-era Postman writes about, as are a majority of his voters, but the truth is that Trump has proven skillful at adapting to new forms of show business and entertainment, as his effective use of Twitter has proven. Given his trajectory, Trump may be the greatest showman on earth.
The broader argument Postman makes is convincing as a way to understand television in the 1980s and social media in 2019. To Postman, if we could point to a dystopia that is most likely, it is less Orwellian and more Brave new world: it's not that the thought police will control our reading and thoughts, but rather we will just happily slip into unknowing.
Looking at any social media feed can provide evidence; we may have access to a lot more information, but, as Postman points out, its relevancy to us often isn't significant. He points to politics as an example: most of us can only do one thing about who is an elected official: vote, at one designated time. The constant information that abounds sometimes a year and half away doesn't help us, Postman would argue, and could even be preventing us from taking action on issues that really matter to us.
Postman seems heart broken over the loss of the typographic era that preceded television media: changing the way we act and think, digital media has meant, in Postman's view, the loss of the ability to follow sustained arguments, to vote for personality over substance in politics, the diminishing of religious experience which has become more entertainment and less divine, to make education defined by making the audience happy.
It is discussion of religious experience that seems most like our social media world today and indeed seems heart breaking: when even the sacred is thought of as entertainment, the way objects are framed, the way the rituals appear visually, all take precedence over actual sacred experience (which can appear dull on camera or social media). If food can be thought of as spiritual experience (and trust me, it can be), mobile phones can be thought to try to beat, and hence make worse, that experience.
Are things that dire? Yes, most social media is a nest of fake accounts, information that is often questionable in terms of value or even truthfulness, and ugly comment sections; and, yes, the US has a president who seems to lack real skill, except his ability to co-opt media to make the ugliness of it to his advantage.
However, to regard the new media revolution as purely useless is to ignore the potential it represents, particularly as a way to facilitate personal creativity and expression. Postman was writing in a time in which television was largely a product of large corporations, that had wide control over what content was available; in theory, the Internet is malleable for new kinds of media creation, really in whatever form we design.
This is the hope of new technology, but currently we've drifted towards the very models and systems Postman outlines,systems largely controlled by a handful of large corporations; perhaps that is a form of determinism, but it would be one of the saddest evidences of it. While we watch episodes of The handmaid's tale on our devices, and worry about some external force, it could just be we ease our way into misinformation and complacency, that books and intellectualism and thoughtfulness will just be naturally evolved out of us. The way forward may be to embrace the openness of technology as a medium; and, as Postman states, to recognize what current models of media do to us, and resist it, by all becoming the artists the internet wants us to be.
A+
― Marshall McLuhan
"You've got a beautiful face but got nothing to say (oh)
You look famous, let's be friends and portray we possess something important
And do the things we like, meaning
We've just come to represent
A decline in the standards are what we accept
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, no"
--The 1975, "Love me"
It would be easy to disregard 'Amusing ourselves to death' as a relic of new media analysis; published in 1985, and making quaint sounding references to 'television programs' (quite different, we could argue, than the user-generated experiences of YouTube, and the near-relative, Netflix, which may not be user-created but certainly has a flavor of YouTube, with entertainment indiscriminate and vast), one could argue that Postman failed to see the evolution of television and the new media he warns his readers about.
However, it's that subtitle that may give the reader pause; the U.S. president is a product of show business: not just his reality TV show, but his entire career; one could counter he is a product of this 1980s-era Postman writes about, as are a majority of his voters, but the truth is that Trump has proven skillful at adapting to new forms of show business and entertainment, as his effective use of Twitter has proven. Given his trajectory, Trump may be the greatest showman on earth.
The broader argument Postman makes is convincing as a way to understand television in the 1980s and social media in 2019. To Postman, if we could point to a dystopia that is most likely, it is less Orwellian and more Brave new world: it's not that the thought police will control our reading and thoughts, but rather we will just happily slip into unknowing.
Looking at any social media feed can provide evidence; we may have access to a lot more information, but, as Postman points out, its relevancy to us often isn't significant. He points to politics as an example: most of us can only do one thing about who is an elected official: vote, at one designated time. The constant information that abounds sometimes a year and half away doesn't help us, Postman would argue, and could even be preventing us from taking action on issues that really matter to us.
Postman seems heart broken over the loss of the typographic era that preceded television media: changing the way we act and think, digital media has meant, in Postman's view, the loss of the ability to follow sustained arguments, to vote for personality over substance in politics, the diminishing of religious experience which has become more entertainment and less divine, to make education defined by making the audience happy.
It is discussion of religious experience that seems most like our social media world today and indeed seems heart breaking: when even the sacred is thought of as entertainment, the way objects are framed, the way the rituals appear visually, all take precedence over actual sacred experience (which can appear dull on camera or social media). If food can be thought of as spiritual experience (and trust me, it can be), mobile phones can be thought to try to beat, and hence make worse, that experience.
Are things that dire? Yes, most social media is a nest of fake accounts, information that is often questionable in terms of value or even truthfulness, and ugly comment sections; and, yes, the US has a president who seems to lack real skill, except his ability to co-opt media to make the ugliness of it to his advantage.
However, to regard the new media revolution as purely useless is to ignore the potential it represents, particularly as a way to facilitate personal creativity and expression. Postman was writing in a time in which television was largely a product of large corporations, that had wide control over what content was available; in theory, the Internet is malleable for new kinds of media creation, really in whatever form we design.
This is the hope of new technology, but currently we've drifted towards the very models and systems Postman outlines,systems largely controlled by a handful of large corporations; perhaps that is a form of determinism, but it would be one of the saddest evidences of it. While we watch episodes of The handmaid's tale on our devices, and worry about some external force, it could just be we ease our way into misinformation and complacency, that books and intellectualism and thoughtfulness will just be naturally evolved out of us. The way forward may be to embrace the openness of technology as a medium; and, as Postman states, to recognize what current models of media do to us, and resist it, by all becoming the artists the internet wants us to be.
A+