Amusing Ourselves To Death.

In Neil Postman's 1985 book Amusing Ourselves To Death it becomes clear that he considered television not only the bane of his existence, but also one of the most culturally destructive elements of the world in which he lived. The book is framed by the prophecies of George Orwell in 1984 and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right" (pp. xix-xx).

As one who often goes days, if not weeks, without watching television, it is easy for me to sympathize with Postman as he laments the decline of the age of "print" and decries the rise in "show business" as the sole forum for public discourse, but I'll leave you to make your own conclusions about his arguments.

Obviously, when reading a more-than-two-decade-old book about what was then the current condition of our culture, it becomes clear that things have changed. I am not sure that television has the same control on society that it did in 1985, and I'd attribute that mostly to the Internet.

In some ways, the Internet is a return to print, but in other ways, it has taken television further than ever before. So I am left wondering what Postman would have to say about the Internet and its hold on us all: should the World Wide Web be considered synonymous with soma?