184 pages
English language
Published Nov. 13, 1986 by Penguin Books.
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) is a book by educator Neil Postman. The book's origins lay in a talk Postman gave to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1984. He was participating in a panel on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and the contemporary world. In the introduction to his book, Postman said that the contemporary world was better reflected by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, whose public was oppressed by their addiction to amusement, rather than by Orwell's work, where they were oppressed by state violence. Postman's book has been translated into eight languages and sold some 200,000 copies worldwide. In 2005, Postman's son Andrew reissued the book in a 20th anniversary edition.
A fascinating and well articulated argument, this was a much more compelling book than I expected. While I'm uncertain I'll change any of my viewing habits, my opinions of television's place in the realms of both education and political discourse have been shaken and clarified, respectively. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
DeedThesis in chapter 2 is silly
Historical review of the written word in chapter 3 is interesting.
Discussion in chapter 4 of the "typographic" mind Is built on a sequence of "No true Scotsman"-style critical thinking errors and generalizing from exceptions. This chapter is destroying my trust in the author. He expresses the opinion that psychology and porosity all reasoning are opposed to each other.
Chapter 5 -- he makes up a lot of terms where perfectly good ones exist. E.g. Samuel Morse's " information grid. " it's a network, buddy; not a grid. No one calls it a grid. His arguments again decontexualized information does not support his thesis, as there has always been unactionable information. He complains that the world now lacks coherence and sense. This is a symptom of information overload. Perhaps the author is unable to cope with all the information availability and has lost his …
DeedThesis in chapter 2 is silly
Historical review of the written word in chapter 3 is interesting.
Discussion in chapter 4 of the "typographic" mind Is built on a sequence of "No true Scotsman"-style critical thinking errors and generalizing from exceptions. This chapter is destroying my trust in the author. He expresses the opinion that psychology and porosity all reasoning are opposed to each other.
Chapter 5 -- he makes up a lot of terms where perfectly good ones exist. E.g. Samuel Morse's " information grid. " it's a network, buddy; not a grid. No one calls it a grid. His arguments again decontexualized information does not support his thesis, as there has always been unactionable information. He complains that the world now lacks coherence and sense. This is a symptom of information overload. Perhaps the author is unable to cope with all the information availability and has lost his ability to support his worldview narrative. Redefined "myth" to mean "biases." Agree with him that people often accept what they see on TV without critical thought. However, I think that the so-called millennial generation is most critical of what they're shown on television and openly critique every aspect of it, including the medium's idioms and tropes.
Part 3.
Disagree completely with his statement that technology has an inherent bias. Particularly because right before he said that, he explained very carefully that the bias came from the social "medium" the technology creates, not the technology itself.
I don't disagree with him completely. His reasoning is seriously flawed and is coupled with a cocky attitude. In ending the book here on page 84 out of 163, and declaring this book a "recyclable good." (I intentionally left it in the seatback pocket of an airplane.)
