When I read more about Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, I find myself reading the thoughts of a man who sits himself atop a pedestal on a level of the famous Adam Smith and the infamous Karl Marx. Where he ultimately fails in this regard is that it isn't a form of governance he is arguing for, it's a way of communication and the transmission of information, which has been an evolving aspect of human nature since the beginning of human history.
The transference of knowledge between groups of people have always been known to have been caught up in some sort of mixed translation along the way, so why is Postman just now realizing this with the Age of Television? He writes as if the problem is exclusive to the era, to which it isn't. It's only visible here because television offers a wide range of examples of information being altered due to some misunderstanding, which has been true for literally any other medium. The Bible having over hundreds of different translations is bound to be problematic for the ideas it originally offered.
Also, why is he criticizing entertainment being used as a way to get a message across the general public? That does not undermine the entirety of the message; if anything it amplifies it through the general means of entertainment. It isn't so much about "amusing ourselves to death", rather, it's more upon the lines of "amusing ourselves to understand". In an age where information is made available to such a large audience, getting a message across - whether it be political or social - always requires a means of entertainment to bolster its recognition, and personally I don't consider that necessarily as a bad thing. What do you guys think?
-Jaeden Sahilan
Amusing ourselves to death makes more sense to me. Throughout the whole book I felt he was just explaining how television and social media constantly changes our views so we don't have our own. I understand where you're coming from, but Postman is just explaining how truly bad the show business and television has affected us. I mean you're talking about how hes criticizing it when hes just stating his opinions and what he is clearly observing. Entertainment does get the message across the general public, we listen to the news, the radio and watch stories on social media to get our information, don't we? So why shouldn't we believe Postman when we're living through it?
ReplyDeleteOf course it's Postman's opinion to criticize the use of entertainment, what I'm having trouble believing is that whether or not it is truly valid criticism. Take school for example, in which teachers often utilize entertainment to the best of their ability to get their lesson across to their students, so why specifically target television for that?
DeleteI agree that Postman is overreacting to the television era and the problems it caused. However, I think you may fail to realize his idea that the problems it causes are at the worst they've ever been at the time of the writing of the book.
ReplyDeleteI liked your use of how something like the Bible as a form of communication can cause problems. I also found it interesting that you chose to use that example and Postman promotes Christianity throughout the book.