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Tom Quinn's Reviews > Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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I read this book in preparation for my third reading of DFW's Infinite Jest because I am a crazy rabid fan of that book and Amusing Ourselves to Death is often referenced by critics as parallel to DFW's big points w/r/t media/entertainment/culture. Here are Mr. Postman's own words:
"To say it, then, as plainly as I can, this book is an inquiry into and a lamentation about the most significant American cultural fact of the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of the Age of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television." (8)
"...I believe the epistemology created by television not only is inferior to a print-based epistemology but is dangerous and absurdist." (27)
Big thumbs up to Postman for his tone--I love to read a good screed, and Postman's good at rallying the bookish crowd in favor of things they already believe to be true. But I wonder at the consistency of his argument; he goes to great lengths to explain that the media available for relaying information directly shapes the form of communication and indirectly shapes the understanding thereof (i.e. a completely oral culture by necessity preserves and shares information by spoken word and memorization is therefore a highly prized skill, while cultures that write don't value the ability to memorize nearly as much, plus they have the bonus of returning to a primary text for later discourse available in a way strictly oral cultures do not). But he stresses that this doesn't mean a person from an oral culture is any less intelligent than a person from a writing culture; merely that their intelligence is used in different channels. So, by extension, why exactly does he declare a televisual culture to be inferior to a written culture? He does some hand-waving about not needing to engage in symbolic understanding like you do with words on a page and not needing to exercise the discipline to hold your focus for as long a period of time. He beats the dead horse of "TV is passive and reading is active" but overall it seems to be more a gut feeling than an evidence-backed conclusion. Postman doesn't provide us any double-blind test findings, any PET scans of brain activity, any references to direct evidence that TV is inferior to reading and directly contributing to a corrosion of society and discourse as a result.
3 stars out of 5. Thought-provoking and energetically written, but there's something of an "echo chamber" feel to it. I mean, I believe it, but if I didn't already I feel like I wouldn't be fully convinced by this book alone. Also, some of the topics he spends time on are a little dated, like televangelism (which gets a full chapter-length exploration).
"To say it, then, as plainly as I can, this book is an inquiry into and a lamentation about the most significant American cultural fact of the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of the Age of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television." (8)
"...I believe the epistemology created by television not only is inferior to a print-based epistemology but is dangerous and absurdist." (27)
Big thumbs up to Postman for his tone--I love to read a good screed, and Postman's good at rallying the bookish crowd in favor of things they already believe to be true. But I wonder at the consistency of his argument; he goes to great lengths to explain that the media available for relaying information directly shapes the form of communication and indirectly shapes the understanding thereof (i.e. a completely oral culture by necessity preserves and shares information by spoken word and memorization is therefore a highly prized skill, while cultures that write don't value the ability to memorize nearly as much, plus they have the bonus of returning to a primary text for later discourse available in a way strictly oral cultures do not). But he stresses that this doesn't mean a person from an oral culture is any less intelligent than a person from a writing culture; merely that their intelligence is used in different channels. So, by extension, why exactly does he declare a televisual culture to be inferior to a written culture? He does some hand-waving about not needing to engage in symbolic understanding like you do with words on a page and not needing to exercise the discipline to hold your focus for as long a period of time. He beats the dead horse of "TV is passive and reading is active" but overall it seems to be more a gut feeling than an evidence-backed conclusion. Postman doesn't provide us any double-blind test findings, any PET scans of brain activity, any references to direct evidence that TV is inferior to reading and directly contributing to a corrosion of society and discourse as a result.
3 stars out of 5. Thought-provoking and energetically written, but there's something of an "echo chamber" feel to it. I mean, I believe it, but if I didn't already I feel like I wouldn't be fully convinced by this book alone. Also, some of the topics he spends time on are a little dated, like televangelism (which gets a full chapter-length exploration).
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November 6, 2017
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Heck yeah, I'm interested in conversation! If nobody engages I still write these reviews up, if only to document my thoughts at the time. But cross-talk is always appreciated.Zachary wrote: "Sometimes persuasion by pathos rules over doctrinal persuasion."
I think that sums things up well and your points illustrate why this book is still relevant, broadly. At the time it was written, Postman couldn't have seen precisely what social media would bring but now that we are living with it I feel this text is valuable to understanding our culture's present in the context of our recent past. So much of life is now designed to be recorded and played on tiny screens, and digital literacy is necessary to know what's worth looking into and what to dismiss. If you can't think critically you could be swept away by a slick presentation, perhaps even easier now that targeted ads and content seem to be delivered directly to and for YOU personally rather than for a mass audience like TV when it was just "The Big 3" channels. But Postman gives off a kind of holier-than-thou vibe which held the book back, in my opinion.
These authors and thinkers were prescient about the addictive properties of TV, including Ray Bradbury whose FAHRENHEIT 451 was misinterpreted.....https://www.laweekly.com/ray-bradbury...
Amazingly, I recognize that article from around the time of my undergrad days - I wrote a thesis about who has more claim to a work's "meaning," the author or the audience. Very much a Reader Response Criticism kind of guy, myself.
I don't do star reviews, but if I did, I might agree with a 3/5.
I don't know how much this essay is a persuasive argument more than expressing a bit of a longing for pre-television discourse. I guess where the argument comes in is that in post-television discourse, rhetoric can be destructively more important than using a mixture of logic and rhetoric (as I'm sure the Lincoln and Douglass debates employed).
The examples that he gives of education, televangelism, etc. reveal to me that a post-television culture is more focused on the visual and rhetorical likability of an individual or discourse from whom/which one receives information.
I respectfully disagree that the topic of televangelism is dated. It's still very relevant. I've lived in Texas where there are mega-churches, where the likability of a preacher or how charismatic that individual is persuasive bears a great deal of relevance.
I don't mean to generalize too much on that but I know at least some people are concerned with that.
(I happen to be a person interested in spirituality/Christianity/religion, as I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.)
I find it interesting that, at times, there's a lot of focus on the speaker in churches. Sometimes persuasion by pathos rules over doctrinal persuasion.
In some people's lives televangelism plays a very large role (it is crazy that this stuff is still on TV but it is because people actually watch it), and sometimes it leads to probably immoral consequences -- the indigent giving money to support mega churches and wealthy lifestyles of charismatic preachers.
This could be extended to social media/internet culture and the resurgence of, for example, astrology (a pseudo-science), because it presents itself in a pleasing way but has no basis in science or logic.
All this is to say that, although this essay is more focused on lamenting television culture, I do think that it has present relevance, and gives cause for reflection in our current day.
I also think that it's actually an important read to convince yourself that you should be reading more instead of browsing video streaming services or social media. It was inspirational to me in that way. I think there can never be too much of that.
As far as the connection between this book and Infinite Jest, I kind of don't get it. I think this book relates more heavily to David Wallace's ideas expressed in other writing and interviews than in Infinite Jest. But as someone who has read Infinite Jest multiple times, you may disagree.
Thanks for the friending. I appreciate seeing people make thoughtful reviews and starting conversations (even if they are mostly with myself).