Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (Review)
In Neil Postman’s introduction, the author provided a quick comparison George Orwell’s, 1984, and Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World. I greatly enjoy dystopian writing and have long been in the camp of fearing Orwell’s vision for the future: one of extreme government control and hard limits on freedom. But the older I get, the more I veer toward Huxley’s fearful prediction: a world stupefied and numbed by the constant dopamine hits of entertainment. Sadly, we probably find ourselves in a potent combination of the two, but Neil Postman explores why we should be far more concerned about the latter.
It is a theme he explores in a crisply written book that offers insight into modernity nearly forty years after its publication. In some ways, Amusing Ourselves to Death illustrates a line from his book: “Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist—all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.” Writing places ideas in statis for people to consider, and Postman’s ideas are worth exploring all these years later. As such, I give Amusing Ourselves to Death a full endorsement. It is a short book, almost an essay in nature. While some of the political references are dated and some of the points seem quaintly quixotic, I cannot speak highly enough about the value in Postman’s book.
I have been chewing on his ideas for a few weeks now, and here are some of my thoughts:
Postman does not see the problem with the triviality of society’s entertainment. Instead, Postman measures society by what it considers important. Today, triviality reigns as supreme.
Postman and historian Richard Hofstadter highlighted why I so love reading about the American Revolution. It is a country founded by intellectuals: “sages, scientists, men of broad cultivation—many of them apt in classical learning who used their wide reading in history, politics, and law to solve the exigent problems of their time.”
Printed material was exclusive until the rise of radio in the early 1900s. It had a complete monopoly. Tocqueville observed that Americans spoke as if their speech was an oral dissertation modeled on the printed word. Sermons were largely written speeches that reflected the organization of thought necessary to place words on paper. This foundation built upon the printed word shaped the very structure of discourse in America.
Postman observes that a society primarily dependent on written words is necessarily shaped by its communicative stylings. Discourse in the 1700s through much of the 1900s was content heavy and serious. “It is serious because meaning demands to be understood. A written sentence calls upon its author to say something—upon its reader to know the import of what is said.”
When both are working toward meaning, they are engaged in the most serious challenge to the intellect, a meeting of the minds.
Postman concludes this section by highlighting the value of reading. He notes the process of reading helps with rationality, because the written word helps readers develop an analytic management of information. Reading develops the tools to sort through messages embedded in the words, and readers must be equipped to sort through what is said to consider the message’s validity.
One argument in Amusing Ourselves is that the telegraph made a three-pronged attack against typography: the medium added “irrelevance, impotence, and incoherence” to messages because it allowed for context-free information.
Postman made a distinction between the technology and the medium of television. He noted that technology is a medium as the brain is to the mind. A technology becomes a medium as it integrates into society. Medium is the social and intellectual environment that a technology creates.
The following critique is how Robert MacNeil, co-host of The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, views a society dependent on video rather than text: “[the goal is] constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action, and movement. You are required to pay attention to no concept, no character, and no problem for more than a few seconds at a time.” MacNeil also notes that “complexity must be avoided…nuances are dispensable…[and] visual stimulation is a substitute for thought.” Such traits can only contribute to a polarized society—particularly as it relates to the absence of nuance.
Postman observed an important trait of a video-centric culture: contradiction is meaningless. Typographic discourse connects ideas—words to sentences to paragraphs. Yet our modern, cultural discourse reflects a news approach where one story occurs without context from the last story. There are mere fragments of larger ideas. Similarly, people can make statements with discontinuity and not see any issue with truth or credibility. The contradictory statements are old news and not worth rehashing.
The second half of Postman’s book seems more dated than the first. Or perhaps the issues he raises are too far embedded to be recognized as concerns. Regardless, he noted one point on modern politics that should still startle voters. Postman referenced the Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, who observed that “men create the gods in their own image.” Today’s political campaigns modify this idea: “those who would be gods refashion themselves into images that viewers would have them be.” If voters seek candidates whose images reflect what we want to be, then substance does not matter. The tangibility of policy ideas is secondary to the candidate’s image. Relatedly, history can play no role in politics, because history only matters insofar as someone takes seriously the idea that patterns of the past can inform what we face today and the days to come.
Postman was prescient in his discussion on censorship. He noted that banning books throughout history was the horrifying act of tyranny. Yet book banning today is more of a nuisance. Such bans scarcely impede a person from reading because television serves as the great impediment to books by displacing them. Huxley had it right, entertainment today encourages continuous watching to access information that is superficial and lacking context—it only entertains.
In describing the effect of television on education, Postman quoted Cicero who observed that “The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of present.” Thinking critically does not come easily or naturally; instances of critical thinking are hard-fought victories that look ahead to the benefits of learning and wisdom—delayed gratification.
At the end of “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Postman asks questions about what the information changes mean for us as people. He welcomed discourse on how the changes to a video culture will affect us. My follow-up question is what virtues does this nation value? Benjamin Franklin wrote about the values he and presumably other early Americans valued: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity and Humility. Similarly, Socrates had various lists of virtues with the most valued being piety, courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. My impression is fame, fortune, and power are what people most desire. Yet even if there are less cynical virtues that people pursue, I think few people would say any of the virtues that Franklin or Socrates valued still make the cut today.
I found myself thinking on Postman’s book, even when I wasn’t reading. His ideas were in some ways unnerving because his predictions were so prescient. But I also found them peace-inducing because Postman’s writing helped explain so much that has seemed crazy and inexplicable in recent years. Here is one final observation the author made, “Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.” If you have ever found this statement as you look at the world around you, I highly recommend reading Neil Postman’s book. It will certainly be worth your time.
