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

The language of this book is quite dense in parts, and the arguments are complex, so it took me a while to get to grips with it, which, I suppose, makes me a living proof that Postman is right about what tlelvision has done to my generation. Having got over this hurdle, I found the book thought provoking and even, dare I say it, entertaining. Many of us have our suspicions about the adverse effects that television has on our society and culture. No-one articulates them better than Postman. For 'show business' read 'television', as Postman's main beef is with TV. No doubt had he been writing this book today he would have included the internet and various other electronic means of communication. The 'public discourse' of the subtitle covers religion, advertising, news and education as well as politics. Postman's contention is that none of these are suited to being disseminated on TV, which is essentially an entertainment medium. So whereas watching 'The A Team' does us no harm at all, watching the TV news or 'Sesame Street' does. The book has as a running theme the contrasting future dystopias presented in Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World'. Postman argues that it is the Huxleyan rather than the Orwellian future that we should fear the most. TV is now our soma. In the last chapter, he writes, 'In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours.' What a pity that Postman is no longer around to give us his thoughts on a certain Channel 4 programme.

This book is great in terms of the train of thoughts and reasoning that is able to trigger and it's very valuable in its long term and historical point of view on media and content diffusion in the modern age. The book is massively interesting on 2 fronts 1) Raising awareness on the impact of new media (television being the new media at the time Postman was writing) on communication, content and cognition 2) Analyzing the long term, major impact of new medias effects on political, social and cultural trends. Even if the book was written before the entire internet revolution happened it's still very current and the trends and consequences identified by Postman are still in full force and effect in 2014.

This book is not as dated as one could imagine and I would recommend reading the forward last or at least re-reading it once the book is finished. I would have liked to have seen a chapter on how religion has a similar 'diversionary' function. Well worth a read.

This is an excellent book. It may have originally been written in 1985, but if anything, is more relevant then ever before. This should absolutely be required reading for everyone. Read and marvel at a very presient man.

Brilliant prophetic book. A must read work.

Bothered me a bit he didn't mention all the darkness going on during the halcyon years of public discourse but the depth of analysis of just how far we've fallen took my breath away

A worthwhile read

An analysis that whilst written pre the age of the widespread social media that plagues discourse today is wholly relevant to the current absurdities of the 140+ character inanity and 'likes' of 'friends' we have never met, if indeed they actually exist. It would be good to have an equivalent analysis of the present day, but this is remarkablein that it says mych about has subsequently happened in the post TV and hard media world of the dumbing down of politics and social interactions.

Even though it was written many years ago, this book is a must read for anyone qho want to understand our society today. The same goes for Aldous Huxley "A brave New World". Two masterpieces.

The rise of the printing press and the high quality education society got from all the great books written has now been replaced by photos, images, pictures and video. We now live today in a society of potato heads that don't read and stare at their TV screens all day long...how do they do it? They do it via the cellphone by watching hundreds of hours of time wasting dystopia which was created by people that we don't even know and we'll probably never meet. We turn on the TV and amuse ourselves to death. I haven't had a TV or cellphone for 20+ years and I have read more books, gone on more walks and more important, I'm happier for it. This book is a grand slam home run. One of the greatest authors of our era. Sensational and common sense based book about the dangers and hazards of TV on society. I'm going to see what else Mr Neil Postman has written for sure. I'm going to get all of his great works...one amazing book at a time. Sometimes I was on the Toronto subway and would read small pieces to complete strangers and they would smile, get out their cell phones, snap a photo of the book and say "yeah, I'm getting this on Amazon Canada". The most shocking information I've ever been exposed to in my life. I had great joy and laughter as I read about the surreal nature of what is transpiring. I love books so much.

Highly recommended

Essays that are a few decades old can sometime fall into irrelevance, this is not the case here. A lot of the issues raised in this book from the golden age of television are still valid today in the age of social networks.

Was really looking forward to reading this book but the paper is such poor quality and the font so small that I’m finding it difficult to actually read.