Entertainment is our demise!

One of the books I've read lately which I'm sure has the greatest amount of implications for an assessment of our culture is Niel Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Although originally copyrighted in 1985, its assessment reads like a prophecy of today's culture's peril. His main contention is that television's way of knowing is directly opposed to that of typography (the methodology used inn reading books). Mediums of information are not neutral but inform what counts as knowledge. While reading books forces analysis with content complete with facts that can be discussed, television's mental analysis consists of the imagery of entertainment. The presentation of a Tsunami which killed millions of people cutting to a smiling news anchor who says and now this, cutting away to a Burger King commercial effects our attitude towards the world turning our critical thinking skills off. What is dangerous is not that we are entertained by television, but that we see television as a source of serious engagement with the world around us. As an example he cites research that shows that a newscaster's credibility is directly linked by the public to their appearance and entertainment capabilities.

He warns that while a culture can survive false opinion and misinformation, but it may not be able to survive if we think that we can understand the world in twenty-two second segments and if our value of the news is determined by the number of laughs it evokes. He constantly compares the doomsday pictures of Orwell and Huxley, siding with Huxley who did not fear government control, but that people wouldn't need controlling because they were wrapped up in laughing rather than thinking.