Book Review // Amusing Ourselves to Death, N. Postman [1985]
Amusing Ourselves to Death1 is an influential and prescient reflection on society in the age of mass media by sociologist Neil Postman. His critique is often advanced by way of television, but this is incidental - what he is getting at, as explained in the opening pages, is nothing less than a critical assessment of the positive utopian trappings of mass consumer culture, and his conclusions are far more subtle than the reactionary techno-pessimism that often accompanies such musings. If TV happens to be the device, the paradigm is as boundless as the loose constellation of screen-applications that crowd the contemporary horizon, and while not explicitly stated, the medium isn’t the point after the metaphor sinks its hooks in.
This is a phenomenal book. It offers a critique of technology, rich in philosophical import while ever grounded and relatable, even from a distance of nearly half a century. Make no mistake: the seeds planted in this text speak to 2025. Its references are often dated yet somehow timeless, rendering a charming narrative that even evokes an obscure nostalgia for the present.2
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin Books, 1986.
This doubtless has much to do with these references evoking the earliest memories of my childhood, but his thesis is vindicated a hundred-fold today for anyone old enough to babble at the screen.