General overview of Chapter 11 entitled- The Huxleyan Warning.
At the beginning of Chapter 11 in Neil Postman’s book, he reminds us that there are two representations of how a culture maybe withered. He writes that a culture either becomes almost like a high security prison or a culture can become just like a mockery.
Postman then goes on to acknowledges that there are several different places that exist in the world where the totalitarianism of thought control exists. Another well-known author named George Orwell describes this in his fantastically written book ‘1984’. Postman does not see America that way…in the way that Orwell viewed America. As an alternative, Postman believes that America is actually threatened by “an enemy with a smiling face,” where “Big Brother(George Orwell’s ‘1984’) does not watch us…We watch him” (155).
In Postman’s perspective, America has moved along with an incredible way of communication to accommodate itself with the several different interferences that are brought on by television. This ends up killing the printed language (156).
The many evils that exist within television’s culture were not foreseen back when televisions were first put onto the market. Yet, Postman discovers this very unforgiveable that the world did not prepare itself to deal with the ways that television inherently changes our ways of communication. For example, people who lived during the year 1905, could not really predict that the invention of a car would not make it seem like only a luxurious invention, but also that the invention of the car would strongly affect the way we make decisions.
However, by the time that the television was invented, we as people should have known that any form of technology usually comes ...
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...d that television holds on us, Postman give two ideas. The first idea that he gives, he describes it as ridiculous to create programming that demonstrates how “television should be viewed by the people” (161).
The second idea that Postman gives, he does admit that it is desperate, is to address the problem that exists throughout schools. Postman does acknowledge that all of this exposes a type of typical American faith in the possibilities of the American education system. He writes that we have not yet investigated the way printed text affects the way our minds work. Postman stays somewhat optimistic, that teachers are actually becoming more “media conscious” in a world that demands a person to know about new forms of technology (162).
Overall, Postman strongly believes that awareness is the actually key to the many problems that are brought on by television.
To conclude, Postman's analysis that Huxley's vision of the future has become more of a reality than that of Orwell's. Although the present day is not exactly how Huxley had envisioned it, our society will soon reflect the one created in Brave New World if it continues to progress as it had in the past few decades. Orwell's prediction does not hold much relevance in today's society. Our government is not constantly watching over us, they have more important difficulties to overcome. Government is not concerned with the actions of individuals; they base their decisions on the opinions of the masses. Huxley's travesty holds far more relevance than the prestigious social theory of Orwell.
In the first chapter of Amusing Ourselves To Death , Neil Postman's major premise is how the rise of television media and the decline of print media is shaping the quality of information we receive.Postman describes how the medium controls the message, he uses examples which include the use of clocks, smoke signals, the alphabet, and glasses.Postman says a society that generally uses smoke signals is not likely to talk about philosophy because it would take to long and be too difficult. Postman also describes the way television changes peoples way of thinking; a fat person will not look good on TV and would less likely be elected President. On the other hand someones body is not important as their ideas when they are expressing them through the radio or print. On TV, visual imagery reigns. Therefore the form of TV works against the content of philosophy. Postman shows how the clock has changed. Postman describes how time was a product of nature measured by the sun and seasons. Now, time is measured by a machine using minutes and seconds. The clock changed us into time-watchers, then time-savers, and finally time-servers. Thus, changing the metaphor for time changed how we view time itself.
Even with these weaknesses, Postman makes a significant contribution to enlarging our understanding of television and the epistemology it establishes. He may be too fond of typographic America, but he has some very important things to say about how television works, and we should be paying attention.
In his novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman describes to the reader, in detail, the immediate and future dangers of television. The argument starts out in a logical manner, explaining first the differences between today's media-driven society, and yesterday's "typographic America". Postman goes on to discuss in the second half of his book the effects of today's media, politics on television, religion on television, and finally televised educational programs. He explains that the media consists of "fragments of news" (Postman, 1985, p.97), and politics are merely a fashion show. Although Postman's arguments regarding the brevity of the American attention span and the importance of today's mass media are logical, I do not agree with his opinion of television's inability to educate.
Postman’s first notable point of comparison is when he describes how Huxley and Orwell believed the world would be controlled. According to Postman, Orwell predicted that the world would be controlled by an actual person, while Huxley predicted that the world will be controlled by technology. He [Postman] writes, “Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression… As he [Huxley] saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think” (Postman 1). While the world may not be controlled by a powerful dictator, many people are controlled by electronic pastimes such as cellphones and social media. Several times a day, people from around the globe constantly pull out their phones to check Facebook,
Neil Postman’s thoughts toward television and education would sadly not change after thirty years, but more technologies such as laptops, tablets, cell phones, and even social media would be added to the curriculum. Neil Postman would most likely be appalled at the amount of information I learn through the internet, and the formats that I learn the information in. For example, BuzzFeed News is an application on my cellphone that give information through videos, music, and images. All the formats that television used, but quicker.
Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman is written based on Postman’s opinion that television has impacted the level of public discourse in America in a negative way. Postman begins the story by talking about two significant books: 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In this book, Postman plans to talk about how things in the world, inspired by television, have proved that our world is turning into the one he’s read about in the stories stated above.
In “Wires and Lights in a Box,” the author, Edward R. Murrow, is delivering a speech on October 15, 1958, to attendees of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. In his speech, Murrow addresses how it is his desire and duty to tell his audience what is happening to radio and television. Murrow talks about how television insulates people from the realities in the world, how the television industry is focused on profits rather than delivering the news to the public, and how television and radio can teach, illuminate, and inspire.
Throughout history, the primary focus in life has been to supply oneself with necessities to survive and pass on your legacy through offspring. Now modern life in America has transformed into overloading our brains with advertisements, flashing lights, and constant entertainment regardless if we want it or not. Through considering the history of typography and the transition into the age of entertainment, the switch from typography to television will adversely affect public discourse and through the development of media metaphors, and along with the rise of the internet and its convince has shaped contemporary American thought, sending a wave of ignorance from one generation to the next. This new way of mechanized life is the way of the future,
In the book by Neil Postman, “Amusing Ourselves To Death, “ Postman states that how the Age of Typography has been replaced into the Age of Television. More specifically, Postman believes that all these kinds of communications: writing, typography, oral and television have resonance. In the first four chapters, Neil Postman shows how typography changes from television, which is now the dominant in media, and he demonstrates the differences of typography and oral that influence people’s mind and communication.
He analyzes the real nature of the popular TV Show Sesame Street. At the time of its inception the program was accepted positively and expectations for an educational complement were high. The fact that program was met with positive feedback even from educators themselves is confirmation or its exceptionalism: “As for educators, they generally approved of Sesame Street, too” (Postman, 422). The idea that entertainment can be educational is tempting, but most likely is deceptive. Vast majority of TV shows do not even pretend to consider the responsibility regarding kids education. Postman very well points out that in effect the show is luring the young audience into the world of television: “We know that Sesame Street encourages children to love school only if school is like Sesame Street” (Postman, 422). Unfortunately, there are more than one side effect of the show. On one hand the perception about schooling becomes twisted, because it implies to the kids false notion that school will be entertaining, Beside that false premise, keeping kids longer in front of the TV screen, prepares them to become a
Presently 98% of the households in the United States have one or more televisions in them. What once was regarded as a luxury item has become a staple appliance of the American household. Gone are the days of the three channel black and white programming of the early years; that has been replaced by digital flat screen televisions connected to satellite programming capable of receiving thousands of channels from around the world. Although televisions and television programming today differ from those of the telescreens in Orwell’s 1984, we are beginning to realize that the effects of television viewing may be the same as those of the telescreens.
Throughout the book, McKibben compares the two experiences, contrasting the amount of useful information he received from nature, as opposed to the amount of useless, hollow information the television provided. He goes on in the book to make several very important observations about how the television has fundamentally changed our culture and lifestyle, from the local to the global level. Locally, McKibben argues, television has a detrimental effect on communities.
In "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business" the author Neil, Postman elaborates his ideas of television and other types of media being related culture and society. The book was written in 1985 in the 20th century when many of the technologies we have today did not exist. At the time Postman suggests that American culture, which was symbolized by Las Vegas, was "entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment (Postman, 268)." Specifically the biggest concern about entertainment was a person's appearance. Which still remains true in today's 21st century. In today's television we are still very concerned with appearance even when it comes to doing more important television like the news. In the Introduction Neil Postman's son ask's the question "Can such a book possibly have relevance to you and The World of 2006 and beyond? (Postman 72)" because he feels that now we live in a world with so many other technologies than the primary focus in the book, which is television. However, I feel that many concepts in this book can be applied to the new era of television today. A very big statement that Neil Postman makes in his book is that "The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter, but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether (Postman 1551). The point of the book is not to attack television itself, but to evaluate what is coming out of it because it has become a method of communication. I am going to discuss how the content on television is being presented, the problem with televisions main concern with entertainment, and the reflection mass media has on politics, society, and culture.
Television is an invention that has revolutionized the way people think, comprehend and receive information. Although television in today’s world is not the leading media source, however it still remains to be a prime example of media influenced outlet of information. Television over the course of the past few decades has intertwined its way into society’s day to day operation and will remain to influence people’s decisions.