Neil Postman, Though Dead Still Speaks

Here I am, watching rain outside my window, hearing "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn in my head, and grieving the passing of Neil Postman almost 22 years ago. I had read "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business" several years ago, and it was so life changing, or, perhaps you could say life affirming, and now I am experiencing somewhat of a reawakening of the truths he presented in that book. Postman taught about communication and media at NYU for 39 years and created a program called media ecology in 1971. His doctorate was in Education, and his areas of study were child development, mass media and television. I was thrilled to discover that I had acquired his book "The Disappearance of Childhood" possibly at the local library sale. I am looking forward with much anticipation to reading it and I just ordered two more of his books, "The End of Education" and "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology." He wrote 20 books in all. What I remember most from reading "Amusing Ourselves to Death" was that print technology has been overtaken by imagery which has greatly reduced our ability to think, to reason and to have effective public discourse, and I could not agree more. He is most critical of television and how this has affected politics, education, religion and journalism, turning them all into entertainment. Again, I could not agree more. I thoroughly enjoyed two video presentations on Youtube of him presenting, and I will probably listen to them again. I could listen to him nonstop. So sorry that he is no longer with us but thankful for the gift of his writing. One thing he said in his interview on C-Span about "Amusing Ourselves to Death" was that television was invented to "gather an audience" to enrich corporations through advertising," and he described how while reporting disturbing events in the news the commentator will suddenly cut to a bluejeans commercial. That gave me pause. What an assault on our emotions and intellect. No wonder we have grown hardened to the harsh realities in our world. I have always realized that television "debates" were not truly debates, but mostly just back and forth insults or verbal punching matches, but when he spoke about how the Lincoln-Douglas devates went on for seven hours, some being as short as three hours, I was again impressed with how language has declined since the middle of the 19th century. He said there are portions of the Lincoln-Douglas debates that most of us probably wouldn't even understand because of the changes in syntax since then. If you want a taste of that difference, go look up the Sullivan Ballou letter online and read it. You can hear the Ken Burns version, somewhat cut but still beautiful, from his Civil War documentary. The Union Major wrote the letter to his wife a week before he was killed on the battle field. The decline of language in the past 160 years is to me a convincing rebuttal to anybody's idea that we are evolving into a more intelligent species. If you have any qualms at all about online education, or if you have any discomfort at all with the effects of technological advancements on our speaking, deep thinking or intellectual discourse, you will find a friend in Neil Postman. He makes so clear what I have been thinking but could not adequately articulate. If you have any doubts at all about the benefits of all of today's technological advancements on education or in public life, but have just felt like a misfit or a dufus, be my guest and go study Dr. Postman for a while. I have not watched television for about two weeks now, and it's been great. I am so glad I am giving myself time to read, to think, to not be disturbed by what the talking heads have been yammering on and on about for most of my life but has really become toxic in recent years. One more thing, as a tutor for the past 10 years I have become painfully aware of how children struggle in reading, writing and speaking, and I wholeheartedly agree with Postman how television and other media have hurt students in these areas. I saw it when I taught at the university in the late 90s and early 2000s, and I'm seeing it now in younger children. I do so hope that some changes are in the works or our younger generations will not be equipped to be informed citizens of a democratic republic. It is a relief to realize that the purpose of television is to "gather an audience" in order to enrich corporations through advertising and that every serious consideration in life has been converted into entertainment. That completely explains why programming is so awful, and that, therefore, I am not missing anything by not watching it. I haven’t watched television for about two weeks now, and I don’t miss it at all. I am actually getting a little reading done. That is my goal. I don't care if I ever watch anything on television ever again, and I literally shudder to think what Dr. Postman would have to say about Artificial Intelligence.