Matawah Deberry
Ms. Chris Dove
HUM 110
Nov.3.2015
“Amusing Ourselves to Death” - Neil Postman
The first book I chose was “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman. The book begins with Postman setting up his main purpose for writing the book, which is certain aspects of our lives has transformed into some form of entertainment. He first states that some American cities were metaphors for what the U.S stood for at that time in history. For example, Boston was the center for a political radicalism, New York City for being a melting pot, and Chicago for its industrial energy. Postman feels that the current major city that reflects the United States now is Las Vegas, Nevada. Vegas is a city devoted to bright lights and entertainment.
In …show more content…
This chapter relies heavily on philosophy, In this chapter his language stresses the importance of his aim. He calls television "dangerous nonsense," and says that it leads people towards silliness, limiting our understanding of the truth. Television is leading people to the whole “seeing is believing” approach. Which is causing society to take everything that is being broadcasted seriously. According to Postman we’ve turned into a culture that takes imagery as the ultimate truth, and it’s to the point where we’re no longer skeptical on how it could possibly be manipulated. Towards the ending of chapter two, Postman does stress that at no point is he trying to claim that changes in media are bringing about changes in a person 's mind or in their cognitive capacities …show more content…
With "no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theology, and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence" (117). Everything that has made religion significant to society over time was erased from these programs. He suggest that everything is not “televisible".
The next two chapters, Postman applies his theory that the media-metaphor of television defined our discourse throughout society. The two areas were politics and education. In these two areas the primary goal is to show that important issues have all been reduced to entertainment.
In the final chapter Postman admits that he cannot offer solutions to the discourse our nation has taken due to TV. The two reasons he gave was for one most people do not believe the problem needs a solution, also there probably is no solution in this case. Postman states the problem isn’t "what people watch…but that we watch, then the solution must be found in how we watch" (160). His opinion is that our world has not discovered yet what television actual medium is, about we should have more conversations about it. Mainly to determine the future of
Ms. Chris Dove
HUM 110
Nov.3.2015
“Amusing Ourselves to Death” - Neil Postman
The first book I chose was “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman. The book begins with Postman setting up his main purpose for writing the book, which is certain aspects of our lives has transformed into some form of entertainment. He first states that some American cities were metaphors for what the U.S stood for at that time in history. For example, Boston was the center for a political radicalism, New York City for being a melting pot, and Chicago for its industrial energy. Postman feels that the current major city that reflects the United States now is Las Vegas, Nevada. Vegas is a city devoted to bright lights and entertainment.
In …show more content…
This chapter relies heavily on philosophy, In this chapter his language stresses the importance of his aim. He calls television "dangerous nonsense," and says that it leads people towards silliness, limiting our understanding of the truth. Television is leading people to the whole “seeing is believing” approach. Which is causing society to take everything that is being broadcasted seriously. According to Postman we’ve turned into a culture that takes imagery as the ultimate truth, and it’s to the point where we’re no longer skeptical on how it could possibly be manipulated. Towards the ending of chapter two, Postman does stress that at no point is he trying to claim that changes in media are bringing about changes in a person 's mind or in their cognitive capacities …show more content…
With "no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theology, and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence" (117). Everything that has made religion significant to society over time was erased from these programs. He suggest that everything is not “televisible".
The next two chapters, Postman applies his theory that the media-metaphor of television defined our discourse throughout society. The two areas were politics and education. In these two areas the primary goal is to show that important issues have all been reduced to entertainment.
In the final chapter Postman admits that he cannot offer solutions to the discourse our nation has taken due to TV. The two reasons he gave was for one most people do not believe the problem needs a solution, also there probably is no solution in this case. Postman states the problem isn’t "what people watch…but that we watch, then the solution must be found in how we watch" (160). His opinion is that our world has not discovered yet what television actual medium is, about we should have more conversations about it. Mainly to determine the future of