Amusing Ourselves To Death: An Analysis

Through David Letterman, Rudy and Ron’s fear as well as Edilyn’s confusion, Wallace examines television’s role in American culture especially in making pop culture. In fact, this

In their article “Moving beyond the 'Vast Wasteland'”, Laurie Ouellette and Justin Lewis critique how public broadcasting functions in the US. Liberal reformers hold to the view that television needs protection from commercialism. The liberal reformer view contains cultural and class hierarchies. They believe that public television is for the white, college-educated middle-class viewer who has “cultural capital”(Ouellette & Lewis, 96). As a result, funding for public broadcasting has gone primarily towards high culture and intellectual programs and not sitcoms or other popular forms of television. Ouellette and Lewis disagree with this, saying that these types of high-brow programming are not the only ones worthy of public investment. Instead, they argue that popular programs that are being commercially maintained also merit public support and investment (96). Rather than reserving public broadcasting for more educational programming, the authors argue that there is a more progressive solution that can incorporate popular media forms while still veering away from commercialization.

    The form of communication created by the television is not only a part of how our modern society communicates, but is has changed public discourse to the point that it has completely redefined it, argued Neil Postman in his convincing book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He viewed this as very harmful, and additionally so because our society is ignorant of it as they quickly becomes engulfed in its epistemology. When faced with the question about whether the television shapes or reflects culture, Postman pointed out that it is no longer applicable because "television has gradually become our culture" (79). What kind of culture is this? Postman warned that it is one in which we

Postman then goes on to acknowledges that there are several different places that exist in the world where the totalitarianism of thought control exists. Another well-known author named George Orwell describes this in his fantastically written book ‘1984’. Postman does not see America that way…in the way that Orwell viewed America. As an alternative, Postman believes that America is actually threatened by “an enemy with a

Neil Postman is deeply worried about what technology can do to a culture or, more importantly, what technology can undo in a culture.  In the case of television, Postman believes that, by happily surrendering ourselves to it, Americans are losing the ability to conduct and participate in meaningful, rational public discourse and public affairs.  Or, to put it another way, TV is undoing public discourse and, as the title of his book Amusing Ourselves to Death suggests, we are willing accomplices.

Growing up as a child my mom made a habit of watching the morning news regardless of the events taking place in America. Whether my mom watched the news for entertainment purposes or just to see what was significant to her has been left unanswered. I start my paragraph to prove a point that Neil Postman makes in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. In Postman’s book, he argues that the news today is for entertainment and it is irrelevant to the people who obtain it. Postman’s character, Henry David Thoreau gives an example of Postman’s debate stating, “Perchance the first news that will leak into the flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.” Which reminds me of a news segment I observed on News 7, January 25, 2017. The segment affirmed that a birth

Postman highlights the power of passivity in society when he contrasts the prophecies of Orwell and Huxley. Orwell predicts the confinement of the future would come from an external source, the government

Edgerton notes that, “TV was a fantasy “bomb shelter” kind of escape, featuring showgirls and dancing puppets – a perfect tranquilizer for a nation worried about Commies at the door and subversives under the bed. And yet it brought the reality of war, politics, and the real world into pristine suburban living rooms.” (Edgerton, p. 109) We see this correlate with the example of Television historian Horace Newcomb upbringing in a small town in Mississippi in the early 1950’s with the exposure of television. Newcomb recalled that, “television intruded into his life at age nine and irreversibly altered his experience of what he terms his region ideology, racial attitudes, and localism.

Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death is a trenchant piece of social commentary about the very nature of society at the time of his writing in the final decades of the 20th century. The book assesses the importance of television in the lives of its viewers, and denotes how that importance itself shapes those lives and, by extension, the surrounding world. The particular time in which this manuscript was published is immensely significant, since it occurred a year after 1984, which was also the title of an exceedingly dystopian novel by George Orwell. Postman's narrative alludes to similarities between the social perspective of people in 1985 and that depicted within Orwell and other dystopian novels (such as Aldus Huxley's Brave New World), to demonstrate what he views as the overall negative effects of television and the culture it has bred. He reaches this conclusion after systematically examining several historical eras (and their cultural precepts) that preceded those invoked through the age of television.

Postman expresses in his assertion that to many, it may appear that Orwell and Huxley foresaw the same future of the relationship between technology and humanity, but that is not the case. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, Orwell expressed the fear that we, as a society, would become captive to the oppression that technology causes. To simplify, Orwell feared the censorship this oppression would cause. Conversely, Huxley stressed that we would not object to the oppression, and even show love and adoration to it. Postman’s analysis of Orwell and Huxley’s visions for the future is accurate due to the willing submission society has to technology.

Americans appreciate the open doors for political civil argument and engagement that online networking encourages, however many more express renunciation disappointment over the tone and substance of social stages. People can experience clarification they might consider profoundly disagreeable and highly offensive, even if they don’t know anything about the topic. This leads to toxic arguments which divides us as Americans.

Postman's use of Orwell and Huxley to show that there can be a problem but two different reasons to why that has become a problem. The problem being that Postman believes that with the use of technology, we as a society will become useless. How does Orwell and Huxley fit into this well “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one” (Postman 14). Orwell believe that someone like a dictator that would take away or ability to think and learn and we wouldn't have control over it. Huxley believes that we would lose our will to want to learn. As how does this connect to Technology and

Young and dumb, they say! Stable and old, I say? In their view, the people who are old enough to receive their retirement funds, find that too much television can cause brain damage and all these other horrendous circumstances and oh let us not start with cell phones…. In our view, teenagers and young adults, find no harm is watching “too much” television and relying on our mobile devices to often. Some topics to be discussed are: Sleeper Curves, realism, linguistics, and overstated context. The point of this paper is to reflect how mass media has effected society in a positive and successful way although many people do not believe it.

The book begins with Neil Postman describing how the way we communicate, whether it is orally or through written material, has an effect on how we interpret our world. He then goes more specifically into how television has changed our culture. Postman’s intention for writing this book is to “show that a great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense”(16). There is no problem with television being used as a form of entertainment, but when entertainment takes over serious issues, it may become dangerous. I agree with this to some extent; I think that there are current events that need to be taken seriously, but some audiences may need that comic

    Even though I do not recall, I would like to believe that there was a time when people actually engaged conversation with one another. People relished in the topic disregarding which side you were on and spoke to a person with respect as we should considering we are all humans. Because of this we all have the ability to band together; as intended for us to do. If you ever asked yourself why you were put on this planet and what role you play on society, Ill tell you one thing, it most definitely was not to sit around on a phone all day.