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Amusing Ourselves to Death Summary & Review: Keep a Mind That Can Still Argue
Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death summary: television turned public talk into show business. A Huxley warning, plus a seven-day plan to…
Read Summary →Neil Postman
"Media ecologist · typography, television, and the Huxleyan warning"
Neil Postman (1931–2003) was a New York University professor of media ecology who asked how communication forms shape what a culture can mean. He chaired NYU’s Department of Culture and Communication and wrote more than twenty books. Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) remains his working manual for a public that must still argue.
1 book·Media Ecology & Public Discourse
Books by Neil Postman
Our in-depth summaries and reviews of his work
Key Ideas & Recurring Themes
The medium is the metaphor
A form is not a pipe. Television taught America to treat public life as a show.
Information-action ratio
News you cannot spend is a new helplessness. Keep facts that still have a next step.
The Huxleyan warning
Pleasure can undo a public mind without a ban. Protect one typographic hour.
Notable Quotes
"Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other."— Amusing Ourselves to Death
"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."— Amusing Ourselves to Death
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Book Author Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death Summary & Review: Keep a Mind That Can Still Argue
Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death summary: television turned public talk into show business. A Huxley warning, plus a seven-day plan to keep a typographic mind.