Anyone actually read that book? Would you recommend it?
As an interesting piece of fiction? Yes. As moral philosophy? No.
Amusing ourselves to death
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Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#12Anyone actually read that book? Would you recommend it?
I read the book (Amusing Ourselves to Death), and I would recommend it for these reasons:
- It explores a contemporary topic of significance. Relevance will depend on your interests. I do think it's an essential perspective for analysing the impact of media on society, and since the impact has been huge and is still increasing, it's relevant to all kinds of public and policy decisions.
- I haven't read any other works that discusses the topic in a similar perspective and in comparable or greater detail. I've come across few works on this topic. * Postman's later books and essays aren't anywhere close to this either.
- It is dated, and talks about last century's media - however, it is even more applicable to this century's computers, games, and internet, which are much more "addictive".
Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#13If you are interested in a rather in-depth examination of this line of thinking, I highly recommend Adam Curtis's 2002 documentary "The Century of the Self" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
Here is the entire series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAD989035A4E8883D Edit: It's there alright, but it's blocked by the BBC. Sorry guys. It's on the interwebs but you'll have to do a quick look. I highly recommend it.
Full copies of all four episodes are downloadable from archive.org at https://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis-TheCenturyOfTheSelf
Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#14Anyone actually read that book? Would you recommend it?
Alan Kay recommended it. He kept bringing it up. I finally read it last week. It's awesome. I think you can apply what people did with the TV to how people use social media: a series of interruptions.
Someone posted the pdf of the 20th anniv. edition. Google: Amusing Ourselves to Death pdf
Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#15Anyone actually read that book? Would you recommend it?
I only read a summary / excerpt / essay (don't which it was exactly and if it was from the book or another text by Postman on the same subject) quite some time ago.
His premise basically is that humans are increasingly becoming incapable of doing meaningful stuff or having meaningful conversations while gladly frittering away time for meaningless bullshit provided by the media.
While the dominant theme in his book naturally is TV the connection to today's social media usage and news consumption is quite obvious.
However, while the subject is important I'm not sure you need to read the entire book for the message to sink in.
Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#16Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#17I never finished 1984 but both seem to ignore the ultimate driving force behind both authoritarianism and consumerism that continues to rule the world, money and capitalism. In 1984, or at least this comic, power and violence seems to happen for their own sake, "power corrupting power", and similarly for Huxley's hedonism. The comic claims "Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to pas…
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#18What's sad is that the original author of the comic was forced to take it down due to request from Estate of Neil Postman's. You'd think their estate would want his ideas spread.
Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#19I never finished 1984 but both seem to ignore the ultimate driving force behind both authoritarianism and consumerism that continues to rule the world, money and capitalism. In 1984, or at least this comic, power and violence seems to happen for their own sake, "power corrupting power", and similarly for Huxley's hedonism. The comic claims "Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to pas…
> ultimate driving force behind both authoritarianism and consumerism that continues to rule the world, money and capitalism
I would say the problem is any social structure that allows money to buy power, i.e. that allows the translation of economic power into political power (and vice versa). Either we should prevent that, or consider placing a cap on maximum per-capita economic power (preferably as a factor of the average, not unlike the Swiss proposal for CEO salaries).
A person should be able to buy as many yachts, castles or private jets as he wants, but using his money to lobby, campaign or otherwise influence political process -- perhaps that should be severely limited?
Civilization and technology today allows individual human beings to wield far higher concentrations of power than our psychology evolved to deal with. A good social system should cap it below the threshold where people go crazy (i.e. where our brains malfunction).
Re: Amusing ourselves to death
#20If you like your depressing stories in musical form, try listening to 'Amused to Death' by Roger Waters, inspired by the book. Great album.
If you want to amuse yourself while listening, make sure you have your speakers set up so the stereo effect on the barking dog at the start sounds like it's coming from outside. Also make sure your system can cope with the sound of the bomb dropping.