BOOK REVIEW - AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH
by Neil Postman

This is the second go around on this book for me. The first time I read it in conjunction with another book, All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes by Ken Myers. I really recommend both. Lately, I've been thinking about my media intake - again. Not the content, but the fact that it's even on. Amusing Ourselves to Death is written by Neil Postman who is a professor of communications at New York University. The thesis of the whole book is that Aldous Huxley, instead of George Orwell, was right. Everyone knows about Orwell's book, 1984, and the concept of Big Brother. Aldous Huxley's book, Brave New World, contained a very different warning. Quoting from Postman's foreword -

"Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision...people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one."

Last week I watched a Frontline episode on PBS about growing up online. They interviewed a high school senior who admitted that he, along with the majority of his classmates, did not read the books that were assigned to them. All they had to do was go online and read the summaries on one of many "Cliff notes" like websites. Is this a proof of Huxley's theory? I'm not sure, but I digress.

Postman's whipping post in the book is television and he begins the book by explaining that he is not going to argue against content but form. The form of communication a culture uses largely determines its content. He gives smoke signals as a simple example. You obviously cannot discuss philosophy with smoke signals. The form determines the content. Postman's aim is to go backwards and trace the changes of form in America's communication and what that has done to its content. He discusses the change-over from the Age of Typography to the Age of Television here -

"As the influence of print wanes, the content of politics, religion, education and anything else that comprises public business must change and be recast in terms that are most suitable to television."

One fascinating point he makes in the first chapter has to do with his interest in this subject. As he studied the Bible in his youth, he noticed that God expressly forbid Israel from depicting Him using any kind of picture or idol. He says,

"The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of converting their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit by reflecting on this Mosaic injunction."

Now, I'm pretty sure Mr. Postman is not a Christian. But this argument sounds like something I've heard R.C. Sproul say in relation to video and audio Bibles.

This first chapter is called The Medium is the Metaphor. What he means is that the forms of our media powerfully influence our conceptions of reality. They do this in subtle ways without our notice. He uses the clock as an example. Without clocks humanity had no conception of saving time or serving time. He then mentions the invention of writing. When writing became dominant, there was less of a need for lengthy memorization and intensive listening. The eye replaced the ear as the primary organ of language processing.

What Postman is getting at is how our shift from writing to electronics (television and other image centered media)has changed the way we think and communicate. And is it a good thing. I think the title of the book gives away his own opinion.

It is foolish to think that any new technology or form of communication that is invented and embraced by a culture will not influence that culture beyond its gears or pixels. Postman says near the end of the chapter -

"And yet, such digging becomes easier if we start from the assumption that in every tool we create, an idea is embedded that goes beyond the function of the thing itself."

It is very easy to coast along with whatever new technology comes along. The default gear of our minds is neutral and it's easy to never think of the unintended consequences. To think hard and fight against the tide is extremely difficult. But I can't shake off the uneasiness in my soul when I don't have something to babysit my brain. Why am I constantly flipping channels? Why do I automatically turn on the radio when I get in the car? Why am I tempted to surf over to just one more website? Where has that habit come from? I think Postman's book goes a long way in answering that question. Our culture is addicted to amusement and I am continually saddened when I see myself tempted in the same ways.

I've decided to read a different book in conjunction with Amusing Ourselves to Death. A Treatise on Earthly-Mindedness was written by Jeremiah Burroughs in the 17th century. As Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. We are all tempted to worldliness no matter the century. The enemy just continues to present it through newer and attractive means. Notice I said through and not in. The means in and of themselves are not evil. But it takes a wise man to be able to look at it and see through it to the benefit or detriment it will have on his soul.

More later. Blessings to you.