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Amusing Ourselves to Death

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

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Amusing Ourselves to Death

By: Neil Postman
Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
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Summary

In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think.

As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television. And because television is a visual medium, whose images are most pleasurably apprehended when they are fast-moving and dynamic, discourse on television has little tolerance for argument, hypothesis, or explanation. Postman argues that public discourse, the advancing of arguments in logical order for the public good, once a hallmark of American culture, is being converted from exposition and explanation to entertainment.

©1985 Neil Postman (P)1994 Blackstone Audio Inc. Elections & Political Process Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV History & Criticism Media Studies Politics & Government Social Sciences Thought-Provoking Funny
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Critic reviews

"A brilliant, powerful and important book.... This is a brutal indictment Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one." ( Washington Post Book World)
"[Postman] starts where Marshall McLuhan left off, constructing his arguments with the resources of a scholar and the wit of a raconteur." ( Christian Science Monitor)
"A sustained, withering and thought-provoking attack on television and what it is doing to us.... Postman goes further than other critics in demonstrating that television represents a hostile attack on literate culture." ( Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant
I slowed the recording down to 0.85, which made it easier to hear and disgest the many ideas in this excellent book

You'll probably need to slow the narrator down

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A fantastic critique on the modern visual platform of social discourse. I won't bash the narrator because the recording is very old and the narrator is not a professional narrator but an eminent journalist and outhor. And, by the way, focusing on the performance of the narrator is precisely the point Neil Postman makes against TV and, in effect, the internet.

A rare book that can actually change a view

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Great book that doesn't just reflect thoughts already hold but makes you question others you hold by. Read way to fast but easily resolved by cranking the speed down a touch but not to a level it becomes slurred.

Read to fast

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Much food for thought! It was hard to believe this was written in 1985 and relates to the impact of TV rather than being a recent commentary about social media.

Relevant today

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Applicable thinking today. The danger of entertainment similar to overeating. It will go wrong for us. And we think it’s just a bit of down time. Whoever puts it on our screens does it for a reason, which will have consequences for us.

Still relevant

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