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A review by missprint_
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
2.0
There are two dystopic novels in the canon as it relates to my experience in a New York City high school: 1984 (1949) by George Orwell (the original home of Big Brother and the Ministry of Truth) and Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley (a frivolous world controlled by fancy toys and a drug called Soma).
"In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."
The quote above comes from the forward of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) and is one of my favorite ways to explain two of the scariest novels I have ever read. It is also a quote I read either in high school or college, suggesting that Postman's reach is farther than I would have thought before graduate school when I realized I had seen his writing (at some point) before.
What, exactly, is Postman so worried about? Television. Postman's core argument is that, like the printing press before, the television has fundamentally and irrevocably changed the way society lives, interacts, and even thinks. Postman's fear, as his mention of Huxley suggests, is that these changes will create a frivolous, complacent society that will not need to be oppressed with Orwellian devices because they do not know they are being oppressed in the first place.
As was the case with Technopoly, Postman makes a lot of interesting points here (in a lot of ways, it felt like reading the same book twice just replacing the word "technology" for "television" depending on which one you are looking at) but very few points that I could wholeheartedly embrace. Twenty-plus years after its original publication, Amusing Ourselves to Death is being touted as more relevant than ever before. And yet I can't help but think, if the book is so relevant and so accurate, shouldn't society as we know it have collapsed by now?
For example, Postman dedicates a whole chapter to how politics and indeed our very understanding of politics has changed now that television is used to broadcast political commericials and debates. Could a man like Taft (weighing in at around 300 pounds) be elected in this day and age? Postman thinks not. And perhaps that is fair. But having seen the outrage over the 2000 (and 2004) election results, and the huge turnout just recently to elect Obama--I can't take Postman's pessimisstic view. Society is changing, yes. Television was part of that change, yes. But neither of those things mean we are going to start taking Soma and spouting aphorisms like "Ending is better than mending."
Many parts of this book are interesting. Broken into two parts, the first offers a thorough examination of life in the age of the printing press that appeals to my inner history buff. Postman's lamentation on the advent of tel-evangelism was also fascinating though more sociologically and psychologically than as the Huxleyan caution Postman is trying to put together.
Maybe it's already too late for me. Maybe I have already bought into Postman's Age of Show Business and am now beyond hope. But I don't think so--the key word there being think. As Postman notes:
"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."
Again, perhaps I'm being optimistic, but I believe people are thinking now more than ever--partly because of the technologies that Postman is so wary of. With the Internet and blogging and even Twitter, there is so much more interconnectivity and awareness now than there was before that, once again, I think Postman might have it wrong. Huxley might prove right in the end but for now my fears lie with Orwell because, for my part, I still know exactly what I'm laughing about and I'm positive I'm still thinking.
"In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."
The quote above comes from the forward of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) and is one of my favorite ways to explain two of the scariest novels I have ever read. It is also a quote I read either in high school or college, suggesting that Postman's reach is farther than I would have thought before graduate school when I realized I had seen his writing (at some point) before.
What, exactly, is Postman so worried about? Television. Postman's core argument is that, like the printing press before, the television has fundamentally and irrevocably changed the way society lives, interacts, and even thinks. Postman's fear, as his mention of Huxley suggests, is that these changes will create a frivolous, complacent society that will not need to be oppressed with Orwellian devices because they do not know they are being oppressed in the first place.
As was the case with Technopoly, Postman makes a lot of interesting points here (in a lot of ways, it felt like reading the same book twice just replacing the word "technology" for "television" depending on which one you are looking at) but very few points that I could wholeheartedly embrace. Twenty-plus years after its original publication, Amusing Ourselves to Death is being touted as more relevant than ever before. And yet I can't help but think, if the book is so relevant and so accurate, shouldn't society as we know it have collapsed by now?
For example, Postman dedicates a whole chapter to how politics and indeed our very understanding of politics has changed now that television is used to broadcast political commericials and debates. Could a man like Taft (weighing in at around 300 pounds) be elected in this day and age? Postman thinks not. And perhaps that is fair. But having seen the outrage over the 2000 (and 2004) election results, and the huge turnout just recently to elect Obama--I can't take Postman's pessimisstic view. Society is changing, yes. Television was part of that change, yes. But neither of those things mean we are going to start taking Soma and spouting aphorisms like "Ending is better than mending."
Many parts of this book are interesting. Broken into two parts, the first offers a thorough examination of life in the age of the printing press that appeals to my inner history buff. Postman's lamentation on the advent of tel-evangelism was also fascinating though more sociologically and psychologically than as the Huxleyan caution Postman is trying to put together.
Maybe it's already too late for me. Maybe I have already bought into Postman's Age of Show Business and am now beyond hope. But I don't think so--the key word there being think. As Postman notes:
"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."
Again, perhaps I'm being optimistic, but I believe people are thinking now more than ever--partly because of the technologies that Postman is so wary of. With the Internet and blogging and even Twitter, there is so much more interconnectivity and awareness now than there was before that, once again, I think Postman might have it wrong. Huxley might prove right in the end but for now my fears lie with Orwell because, for my part, I still know exactly what I'm laughing about and I'm positive I'm still thinking.