What is still relevant today?

After recently reading Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, I took some time to sit down and collect my thoughts on the book. This is how I feel.

Postman makes a couple good points about the media and ways in which people perceive it. However, I found a lot of his arguments invalid and irrelevant in today’s society. The book was written in 1985; therefore, I don’t feel that his arguments, for the most part, are applicable in today’s technologically advanced world.

To say that America would no longer accept a fat or different politician, or that news cannot be considered news and is for mere entertainment, or that children will only love school if it is like Sesame Street, are all statements made by Postman reflecting his ideas on how the media had changed the world. However, if you think about it, do you really believe this? The upcoming Democratic election has an African-American as well a woman both running for president. I’d say that is different from the norm in the political world. Furthermore, how many people actually sit down to watch the news for entertainment? I believe that people watch the news to be informed of what is going on around them, not to receive a sense of enjoyment from entertainment.

While researching other people’s reviews on the book, I found that there weren’t too many who didn’t like it. Everyone seemed to be pleased or impressed by it, which threw me for a loop. Am I getting the wrong idea from this book? Maybe, just maybe, these other people are in an older generation and can see his points of the media and television as it was proposed in the 80’s. But what they may be missing is how much television is changing with the technological advances being made so often. They aren’t the ones who “grew up” with mainstream TV with more than 13 channels so that people can actually choose what they want to watch.

Nevertheless, the book makes for a good debate. Everyone has different viewpoints and feelings on the issues which Postman talks about. My recommendation would be to read the book, so that you can decide for yourself how you feel.