Amusing Ourselves To Death Analysis
Letting Go of the Boob Tube
America’s intellectuals since the creation of television have belittled and criticized the effect that the ‘idiot box’ has on its’ viewers. In effect, television and its’ media have affected negatively the level of public discourse and intelligence in Contemporary America. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman explained how the gradual dumbing of our discourse and how our failed ‘treatments’ of this serious issue have been nothing more than fodder for entertainment. At the root of Postman’s central claim is a comparison between two very different fictional Dystopian societies in literature, the first being George Orwell’s gloomy Authoritarian society in 1984, and the second being Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, that warns of the dangers of giving the government power over new and influential technologies. Postman acknowledged that contemporary society has merely become that of Huxley’s dystopia, in that we are not oppressed by a higher power, but have allowed ourselves to become brainwashed into believing ourselves to be content and happy with distractions such as the television.
Postman …show more content…
The issue is that these have been infected by the imperative to entertain. He believes media such as these needs to be engaged in a different form, because they each hold a value of a better tomorrow, and growth in human beings. Television is not an “amplification of discourse but merely a replacement”, and this is problematic for Postman because he finds that our societies’ importance of knowledge has been valued as a commodity due to the universality of television (P. 108). Postman seems to evoke an image of a public-spirited humanist who simply wants to benefit the better man and allow people to reach their full
America’s intellectuals since the creation of television have belittled and criticized the effect that the ‘idiot box’ has on its’ viewers. In effect, television and its’ media have affected negatively the level of public discourse and intelligence in Contemporary America. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman explained how the gradual dumbing of our discourse and how our failed ‘treatments’ of this serious issue have been nothing more than fodder for entertainment. At the root of Postman’s central claim is a comparison between two very different fictional Dystopian societies in literature, the first being George Orwell’s gloomy Authoritarian society in 1984, and the second being Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, that warns of the dangers of giving the government power over new and influential technologies. Postman acknowledged that contemporary society has merely become that of Huxley’s dystopia, in that we are not oppressed by a higher power, but have allowed ourselves to become brainwashed into believing ourselves to be content and happy with distractions such as the television.
Postman …show more content…
The issue is that these have been infected by the imperative to entertain. He believes media such as these needs to be engaged in a different form, because they each hold a value of a better tomorrow, and growth in human beings. Television is not an “amplification of discourse but merely a replacement”, and this is problematic for Postman because he finds that our societies’ importance of knowledge has been valued as a commodity due to the universality of television (P. 108). Postman seems to evoke an image of a public-spirited humanist who simply wants to benefit the better man and allow people to reach their full