Amusing Ourselves To Death

A summary of:

Postman, N. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse inward the Age of Show Business. Methuen London Ltd: London.

Take a appear at this genuinely creepy promotion for Apple’s Macintosh computers inward 1984:

A similar declaration has been made yesteryear Nicholas Carr as well, inward relation to the Internet. He uses the phrase, “The Great Unbundling”, pregnant “we are able to pick together with take away amongst advanced pick tools what nosotros read/consume, etc., leading to a greater symbiosis betwixt media together with advertising (news stories are selected on the reason of their mightiness to larn individuals to click on advertisements, rather than their noun quality) together with also to greater polarization of beliefs” (Carr, 2008).

As a society, nosotros receive got bought into the notion that data media shrinks the world, together with inward doing so, brings us together. Morse prophesied that “telegraph would brand ‘one neighbourhood of the whole country’” (66). But decontextualized data sharing does non seem to locomote doing this: “The telegraph may receive got made the province into ‘one neighbourhood’, but it was a peculiar one, populated yesteryear strangers who knew zilch but the most superficial facts most each other” (69).

This exact same declaration could locomote made most Facebook. You may telephone yell upward Facebook a community; but it is a community inward which members portion solely the most superficial facts most each other. The whole endeavor is disappointing, the results banal.

This is a error of the medium: “that the shape inward which ideas are expressed affects what those ideas volition be” (32). In other words, non solely is McLuhan’s famous phrase, ‘The medium is the message’ (“Each medium, similar linguistic communication itself, makes possible a unique way of discourse yesteryear providing a novel orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility. Which, of course, is what McLuhan meant inward maxim the medium is the message” (10)), true; but the medium delineates the boundaries of possibility for its use. For example, a medium (i.e. technology) that is at its foundation non-spiritual, cannot facilitate the spiritual. Postman uses the instance of televangelists, who he rightly criticizes as non doing especially spiritual work: “What makes these boob tube preachers the enemy of religious sense is non then much their weaknesses but the weaknesses of the medium inward which they work” (119).

The implication of this is that, given that the globe broad spider web is non built on a spiritual foundation, nosotros cannot appear to locomote able to practice anything especially spiritual amongst it. In other words, what nosotros need, if nosotros wishing a spiritual internet, is a completely split medium, built upon spirituality, hence delineating the possibility for spiritual experiences. We demand an alternative that does non but tweak the old, but very exists on a completely dissimilar historical/developmental track.

Postman makes around other interesting signal most media. He says,

“…television has achieved the condition of ‘myth’, as Roland Barthes uses the word. He agency yesteryear myth a way of agreement the globe that is non problematic, that nosotros are non fully witting of, that seems, inward a word, natural. A myth is a way of thinking then deeply embedded inward our consciousness that it is invisible. This is directly the way of television. We are no longer fascinated or perplexed yesteryear its machinery. We practice non tell stories of its wonders….” (80).

This is exactly how mightiness operates – i time it becomes invisible, it tin exert itself. And as Postman says, “the loss of the sense of the foreign is a sign of adjustment, together with the extent to which nosotros receive got adjusted is a stair out of the extent to which nosotros receive got been changed” (81). We receive got implicitly accepted technology, together with inward doing so, accepted its values, meanwhile abandoning our own.

Postman emphases the questions are nosotros must necessarily ask: “What is television? What kinds of conversations does it permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of civilization does it produce” (86)? I suggest nosotros should locomote quest this most all of our technology, together with I volition usage these as a starting signal for give-and-take most the pros together with cons of diverse technologies. What’s clear is that “ignorance of the score is inexcusable. To locomote unaware that a engineering scientific discipline comes equipped amongst a programme for social change, to keep that engineering scientific discipline is neutral, to brand the supposition that engineering scientific discipline is ever a friend to civilization is, at this belatedly hour, stupidity apparently together with simple” (162).

So inward conclusion, what are the primary issues Postman raises amongst regards to the television:

1. Lack of context

2. Lack of continuity

And these inward plow contribute to 3. Incoherence, together with 4. It erodes our human mental abilities:

“In the absence of continuity together with context, [Terence Moran] says, ‘bits of data cannot locomote integrated into an intelligent together with consistent whole.’ We practice non turn down to remember, neither practice nosotros abide by it exactly useless to remember. Rather, nosotros are existence rendered unfit to remember. For if remembering is to locomote something to a greater extent than than nostalgia, it requires a contextual (140) reason – a theory, a vision, a metaphor – something inside which facts tin locomote organized together with patterns discerned. The politics of images together with instantaneous tidings provides no such context, is, inward fact, hampered yesteryear attempts to render any” (141).

5. Age of Show Business – all is produced for purposes of entertainment

So what are the solutions? Should nosotros but switch off? Clearly, this is non a feasible option, inward role because no i volition practice it. George Gerbner, Dean of the Annenberg School of Communication, says: “Liberation cannot locomote accomplished yesteryear turning [television] off. Television is for most people the most attractive affair going whatever fourth dimension of the solar daytime or night. We alive inward a globe inward which the vast bulk volition non plow off. If nosotros don’t larn the message from the tube, nosotros larn it through other people” (143).

As Postman aptly summarizes, “Americans volition non near downward whatever role of their technological apparatus, together with to suggest that they practice then is to brand no proffer at all. It is almost as unrealistic to appear that nontrivial modifications inward the availability of media volition ever locomote made” (163).

So it is hopeless? Postman proposes ii solutions, i he calls the ‘nonsensical answer’ together with the other the ‘desperate answer’:

“The nonsensical reply is to create boob tube programmes whose intent would be, non to larn people to halt watching boob tube but to demonstrate how boob tube ought to locomote (166) viewed, to demo how boob tube recreates together with degrades our invention of news, political debate, religious thought, etc.” (167).

“The desperate reply is to rely on the solely bulk medium of communication that, inward theory, is capable of addressing the problem: our schools” (167).

He concludes his volume amongst this appeal for educating the masses most the trial media is having on us:

“What I suggest hither as a solution is what Aldous Huxley suggested, as well. And I tin practice no ameliorate than he. He believed amongst H. G. Wells that nosotros are inward a race betwixt teaching together with disaster, together with he wrote continuously most the necessity of our agreement the politics together with epistemology of media. For inward the end, he was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people inward Brave New World was non that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did non know what they were laughing most together with why they had stopped thinking” (168).

Perhaps this is exactly what Jon Stewart was trying to do.