AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH (Postman, 1985)

in

(read: 20220817->22; my complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here)

"Television is the command center in subtler ways as well. Our use of other media... is largely orchestrated by television. Through it we learn what telephone system to use, what movies to see, what books, records and magazines to buy, what radio programs to listn to. Television arranges our communications environment for us in ways that no other medium has the power to do... the world as given to us through television seems natural, not bizarre. For the loss of the sense of the strange is a sign of adjustment, and the extent to which we have adjusted is a measure of the extent to which we have been changed." 

While these are only two examples, replace "television" with "the internet" in both and the proof that Postman is just as relevant today as he was in 1985 is unavoidable. Better, I think, to let Postman speak for himself, given that, a.) I agree with 99% of what he says – we are, indeed, far more in Huxley’s future than in Orwell’s – and that, b.) compiling these fractured thoughts into a coherent “review” for want of better phrase is, for me, the end of processing: what Postman offers and requires is a continual processing.

"The problem, in any case, does not reside in *what* people watch. The problem is in *that* we watch. The solution must be found in *how* we watch. For I believe it may fairly be said that we have yet to learn what television is."

And we’re still trying to figure it – and the internet – out.