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Amen, brother.

Jessica wrote: "Amen, brother."

I agree. I think The image A guide to pseudo-events in America is a much more important book. I've never been that impressed with Postman.

Hi David, I kind of want to read it anyway, I am anti-tv for my own reasons (you should try watching tv in mexico sometime, you'd be against it too!), and curious about this book. I've had it for years though, and haven't read it yet..

Julieta: I don't think it's a waste of time to read it - much of what he says is entirely true. It's just that I don't think developments are quite as alarming as he seemed to suggest.
I have tried watching TV in Mexico. Five minutes seems to be my limit.

:-)

jeje good to know you tried it!!

David: you must send this review to Manny for the letter-review collection that he's posting...

A bit obnoxious, and that bothers me. I wouldn't know how far the effects of T.V(is it just that?) were exaggerated in this book, so what can I say.

I read this when it was fresh and was impressed, and, as you say, many of his arguments are pretty cogent and well-supported by evidence. But the sky stubbornly refuses to fall. Or it falls in chunks, not all at once; most people, most of the time, manage to adapt, though there's always a case to be made that the adaptation is worse than what came before. The end of the world as we know it is trivially foreseeable, though it's worthwhile to document just how it's turning into something else.

Empires rarely collapse over such short time periods as the twenty five or so years which have elapsed since this book was published, but was has happened, the continuing erosion of the middle class, the transfer of private debt into public debt, the astonishingly ignorance and inertia in dealing with the issue of climate change, not to mention the general decilne in America and the destruction of the manufacturing base by GATT, what exactly do you think a collapsing republic would look like? Besides he was speaking of a more metaphorical death rather than a literal one (he was after all a cultural commentator and philosopher), a death in culture and in the ability to think and engage critically, politicians as brands rather than actual leaders, and most important of all, an utter inability of people power being able to influence governmental policy on all but the most trivial of issues.

Precisely. When decay is gradual one doesn't really notice. My friends who have emigrated and visit South Africa once every few years notice the erosion of our new democracy and the the increasing lawlessnes of our society much more easily than those of us living here. Much like old-age, decay creeps up on us.

The republic hasn't fallen? That's Postman's whole point! His warning is that it isn't going to a totalitarian regime that sweeps over and engulfs us but our own complacency and obsession with distracting entertainment and increasing inability to think critically. We're further down these fearful roads than most people realize. Because most people are living right in the thick of the very society he warned us we would become.

The point about our obliviousness to the signs of gradual decay is a good one. That said, I still remain sceptical. The conviction that X is rapidly going to the dogs, where X = quality of instruction in public schools, level of civility in public discourse, ability of the coming generation to read and write at a functional level, our ability to engage in complex argumentation in the era of the internet, insert your own favorite hobby-horse here ..... is one that seems to infect each generation when they think of their offspring. But the very durability of this kind of hysteria makes it suspect.

Postman's point of the book is that as a culture we are losing our ability to think rationally, preferring to be entertained over being challenged.
Your conclusion of "so what" sums up the problem exactly.

I think the point I was attempting to make in my review is that Postman's case was overstated; each generation has its armchair critics who rejoice in proclaiming the end of civilization as we know it. But perhaps what they really represent is a deep-seated resistance to change, in particular the challenge to the old ways that technological advances can present.
I am choosing not to read the last sentence of Chris's comment as a thinly veiled insult, because I expect a higher level of discourse here on goodreads. Though I admit to having trouble with the phrase "as a culture we are losing our ability to think rationally" - it sounds impressive in an abstract, sweeping-generalization kind of way, but if I try to assign a more concrete meaning, it becomes much slipperier. It's a bit like the popular "the internet is making us all stupid" meme, superficially alarming, but not actually convincing.

I guess I am sympathizing with Postman's view that as a culture "we are getting sillier by the minute" (p.24 media as epistemology). And his conclusion that we are "in a race between education and disaster" (p.163). I personally don't think that is an overstatement, so that is why I felt a "so what" response would be part of the problem.
I think we should be able to express our disagreements without it being considered an insult. I'm sorry if you took it that way. Ironically, this forum may be an illustration of a media that limits our ability to communicate on a meaningful level. I'm a newbie to goodreads, so I'm still learning the ropes.

as an 'oldie' on goodreads, I would say it's a very good forum for meaningful communication. However, as with all written communication, it sometimes takes longer (than face to face). On the other hand, given the various viewpoints, diversity of experience and backgrounds of readers here, the discussions can be really very rich and rewarding.

sorry I didn't weigh in on Postman's book. (I haven't read it).

Thanks for the clarification, Chris. I agree with Jessica that discussions here on goodreads are often very rewarding. Sorry that I took your comment more personally than it was meant. One of the hazards of internet discussions at times.

Thanks David and Jessica. Hopefully I will find some time to actually post something myself(I don't want to stop reading to take the time to post). :-)

I read all the reviews with three stars or less, and this one was my favorite. I also read everyone's comments about this review. When I signed up, GoodReads told me several of my FB friends were already on here. Yay!

So this is the hangout for people about whom Postman's prediction are just plain wrong. I like it! There are many such places, but most of them are not on TV. (I guess a few are, though, eh?)

I am an example of Postman's concern, but fail miserably as an example he could use to answer David's "So What?" I read books, but I don't bother reading arguments much any more - usually because I can agree without the argument, or I know well and reject the premises from which the author is arguing. In fact, I'm doing that to Postman's work - not reading it, that is. It sounds like I already agree with most of what he has to say.

Sometimes I do read arguments because I can't figure out whether I agree or not. That stuff teaches me how to write. What I'm really after is new and entertaining ways to present good arguments to others. Hmm... Maybe Postman can help with that.

I'm a voluntaryist (see voluntaryist.com), and I think that makes David's "So What?" a little more important to me than to most. I could care less about "public discourse affecting (and effecting) government policy" because government just means that criminal organization that enjoys public tolerance (encouragement even!) of its violence against otherwise peaceful people (when they ignore the laws it makes up). I'm pretty sure that the entertaining aspect of TV (and everything entertaining) will further erode the power of those who would rule us when more people recognize and work on more fully realizing their inner-voluntaryist.

I'm working on using the human tendency to value entertainment more than learning (about which I suppose Postman and Huxley want to warn us) to the advantage of all of my peers. My peers are people who honor their conscience, who enjoy seeing joy in others, who avoid using punishment to get what they want, who pay attention because their choices have effects, or who recognize the difference between legal and moral. Any one of these things leads to all the others.

What a rich discussion! Thank you, all who contributed! This has me now interested in this book as well as even more interested in GoodReads.

This subject matter fascinates me, having worked as an entertainer and yet being an avid reader and education advocate.

I hope to add more later, as I am more informed on this topic. This book promptly goes to the top of my To Read list.

Working through Postman's book for the second time. I'm curious, to those who have read it, what do you think of Postman's argument about show business replacing careful thought in light of Trump's presidential run and election? Has everything become trivialized and meaningless about public discourse?

sounds exactly like what's taking place--

I wonder now, in 2017, would you care to same. Where the Europe civilization is near to its destruction.

Fast forward to 2017 and it is easier to see why his book mattered. We now have Twitter wars by the President of the U.S. where history, context, and facts do not matter. It's all pure entertainment and no one is laughing.

Love to hear from the future how all this turns out...whether there is a saving grace to technology and public discourse as we know it.

... and 10 years later I think we have an answer to this review's closing comment "So what?"

This explained how Trump happened and why half of America lack basic reasoning skills. I don’t think we’ve seen the worst yet..... The book had an in-depth discussion of how in the reading world context and logical construction of thoughts and idea mattered, the way television rewired the epistemology of transmitted content, making them disembodied nonsense is responsible for exactly the thought pattern we are seeing now - how people lack critical thinking, how fake news is taken as truth. All of that is only possible when you’ve lost the ability to understand information in context with a web of other information and ideas.

1. Mr.Postman passed away. 2. Do you have the courage to argue against the trending culture like this these days? 3. Scholars ARE exceptionally literal but the majority are almost always busy going through useless contents on phones... in case you haven’t noticed that. 5. Never take your exceptional / personal situation and apply to the general situation, shouldn’t a ph.D know that????

Stricken by the death of George Clooney's pot-bellied pig? .

I haven't finished the book yet and I get your point, but I strongly believe that as long as our society operates in a democratic regime, people's lack of taste for complex thinking is a definite problem. It's not just about reading books. I know a lot of people who read books, but what kind of books ? And how thoroughly do they read them ? Do they think about what they read and try and draw their own conclusions ? My point is, how can a democratic society function correctly if most of its members aren't able to fully understand the importance of the issues it has to face ? How can people avoid being manipulated if they don't have the intellectual tools and the will to fully understand the ins and outs of a given situation. Today it feels like "thinking" about society at large has become the prerogative of just a few and I think that was one of N. Postman's concern.

You are the indifferent Huxleyan character the author bemoans in this book. Do you not see the irony?

This review and it's conclusion didn't age particularly well...

god it sure must be fun revisiting this review in august 2020, I too wonder what changed.

How about now? 😂😂😂😂😂

Unlike the book, this comment didn't age well.

You sir are an outlier and I salute your accomplishments. It's been several years. What's the trend?

Lol. Hello from 2021.

This is actually painful to read. Thanks.

You are a lemming.

woof, aged like milk

Oops.

You've missed the forest for the tree my good sir.

Thank you for the review. I am pre-disposed to agree with Postman, but I think Postman really does have some serious flaws. His main idea is that turning everything into entertainment is bad and that the medium of television does this. However, he never really gives me an idea of what entertainment is or should be. The book starts out strong but quickly becomes a collection of Postman's assumptions about the way things should be that he does very little to provide a grounding for. You are left with a book that seems to legitimately mourn the creation of the telegrath.
In the end, I disagree with the severity of his thesis. I don't think the preferred medium of a culture is the greatest decider of its health. Rather, virtues and evils of humanity (including stupidity) are far more timeless than television as are the reasons for those virtues and evils. You and your friends read books despite the existence of tv. You have also seen things on tv before and found it to be harmless enough. that seems fair. Postman's flaw is that he puts himself into a place where those simple facts about your life serve as a real critique of his work. Its silly how far he goes against the medium while blinding himslef to countless other deciders in a culture.