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Quote by Neil Postman

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Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

This book delves into the transformation of public discourse from a focus on serious political and social issues to a preoccupation with entertainment and spectacle. It explores the consequences of this shift on democracy and the role of media in shaping public opinion. more

Author

Neil Postman
Neil Postman

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003) was an American cultural critic, educator, and author. Known for his profound insights into the relationship between media, technology, and culture, Postman's work has had a significant impact on modern society. more

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“There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the totalitarian East with its rigorously unified press: One discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole (the spirit of the time), generally accepted patterns of judgment, and maybe common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification.”

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“Simply put, we have more people talking about news and less original reporting. Whether on television or online, there is no shortage of analysis. But analysis is only as good as the information that supports it. The deep cuts to newsrooms in print and electronic media have resulted in far fewer reporters waking up each morning deciding what story they will chase. There is less investigative reporting ....”

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“The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they are printed as rare and curious, as ever. It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.”

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Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“Kierkegaard disparages the irresponsibility afforded by the modern press which allows people to address the crowd in an arena where public opinion has become the hallmark of truth, but in which the opinion-formers remain hidden. Everyone seeks anonymity--in the press, in the crowd, to the point where everyone is no one! ,”

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“Real arms races are run by highly intelligent, bespectacled engineers in glass offices thoughtfully designing shiny weapons on modern computers. But there's no thinking in the mud and cold of nature's trenches. At best, weapons thrown together amidst the explosions and confusion of smoky battlefields are tiny variations on old ones, held together by chewing gum. If they don't work, then something else is thrown at the enemy, including the kitchen sink - there's nothing "progressive" about that. At its usual worst, trench warfare is fought by attrition. If the enemy can be stopped or slowed by burning your own bridges and bombing your own radio towers and oil refineries, then away they go. Darwinian trench warfare does not lead to progress - it leads back to the Stone Age.”

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Book:The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism
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