I was encouraged to read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (AOSTD),shortly after graduating college in the late 1990s. My conservative Christian friends described it as a critique of how television had negatively altered our society. This sentiment seemed to align with my indoctrinated mistrust of “secular” media, but ultimately I didn’t love the book. It wasn’t an easy read, and I found Postman's logic hard to follow. With the advent of the internet,the book felt dated to me, furthermore, as a young man reared by a "wild pack" of televisions, who attended a "seeker-sensitive" evangelical church, I found myself on the defensive,
As I grew older and drifted away from the big evangelical machine, I mostly discounted AOSTD as conservative dogma from a different chapter of my life. This is ironic, given that the book has a wide following across a broad spectrum of belief and philosophical systems.
Fast forward 17-plus years: a real estate developer turned reality TV celebrity turned social media troll won enough electoral college votes to become President of Murica. As I pondered how this could possibly happen in two out of three elections, Amusing Ourselves to Death came to mind. I wondered if this was precisely the scenario Postman had warned us about. Had I been too dismissive, or perhaps failed to understand his point entirely? This led me to revisit the book early this year.
Certainly, there was a lot I didn’t remember. For instance, when the book was written in 1985, George Orwell’s totalitarian hellscape, 1984, was fixed in the Western collective consciousness. Postman points out an older novel, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (written in the 1930s), which envisioned a different sort of nightmare: one that rules its subjects not through brutality, but by inflicting pleasure. This prompted me to read Postman, Orwell, and Huxley in tandem (three is the magic number). I have more to say on that, but that’s for another time.
Despite my fuzzy memory of the text, I was surprised to find that many of my current convictions may have originated in AOSTD. For instance, I cringe whenever I hear someone criticize a news anchor’s appearance. As if sex appeal is important when reporting on a local murder. Similarly, in the evangelical subculture, "Christian celebrities" are often spotlighted even if they aren't qualified to be the face of the faith. This fails to communicate the message of Christ—that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. It’s clear that many of my beliefs were shaped by this book, even if I’d forgotten the source.
Rereading the book as a "middlish-aged, feral man-child" has been a healthy exercise. I was once easily threatened by opposing ideas, (still am but less so). I didn’t read to understand. I was willing to learn, but I first needed to know the author could be trusted and that my belief system wouldn't be challenged. That mindset goes against the academic rigor of reading primary sources. To critique a book, one must undergo the pain of actually reading it, rather than relying on the opinions of others who may or may not have read the original work themselves. Selah.
Postman provides a historical overview of how technology changes society and the ways communication is broadcasted. Keeping that in mind, I was less preoccupied with the notion that this book seemed dated. My goal now is to understand Postman’s argument: that typography (the written word) as a source of dialogue is superior to the methods employed by television.
Postman highlights major milestones in communication, beginning with the spoken word and followed by the alphabet. We generally view written language as a great accomplishment, but we fail to realize there was a tradeoff. The oral tradition preserved myths and knowledge through word of mouth, using styles developed to help listeners retain and share information across generations and it was largely successful. The alphabet was a disruptor, shifting the burden from memory to capturing ideas in writing. However, paper is fragile. Ideas that survived did so because scribes duplicated and distributed them. Imagine the amount of knowledge lost when the Library of Alexandria burned, or what could have survived if Christian scribes had been willing to preserve opposing viewpoints.
If the written language captured ideas, the printing press made them accessible to the masses. One could argue the printing press was the primary tool of the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the American and French Revolutions. Where people once assembled in churches to hear sacred texts read to them, they could now purchase a copy of the Holy Scriptures and read them in the comfort of their homes without a theologian’s assistance. The Catholic Church argued that if everyone had a copy, interpretations would fracture the church—a prophecy proven true. I offer the "alphabet soup" of Presbyterian denominations alone as evidence.
The discovery of electricity was the next major disruptor. Electricity conquered the night, allowing reading to become a leisure activity. Reading by candlelight was difficult and required planning. It’s been said that as a young man, Abraham Lincoln would hold a book in one hand while guiding a plow with the other. Families often used Sunday as a time for the mother to read aloud to everyone. With electric light, humans overcame the limitations of the sun, carving out nighttime for reading.
We also have electricity to thank for the telegraph. Long before NASA sent astronauts into orbit, space was conquered by the telegraph. It ensured that information was no longer constrained by time or distance; it could be sent anywhere with the right wiring. Newspapers were early adopters of this technology, and information became a daily commodity. Media moguls could sell not just the news, but advertisements for an even larger profit.
However, gathering information from all over the world daily meant that information now had essentially an experiation date. The news constantly arrives with a sense of urgency, only to be buried by the next tide of information. And then, along came television.
To Be Continued.