Standing On The Shoulders of Giants | Neil Postman

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In our endeavor to understand where we are, how we got here, and what we can do about it, we will be well served by the reading of older books. C. S. Lewis once famously wrote, “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between” (from, “Introduction” to St. Athanasius, On The Incarnation). Lewis was, of course, referring to very old books and, while we will eventually look at older books, the ones that we will find the most helpful initially will be those written in the last hundred years-or-so by great minds and souls who understood that seismic shifts were taking place under their feet, and thus have a great deal to offer us in our endeavor. These thinkers are particularly valuable as they are bridges between a world that has largely disappeared and our own world. Their critique is valuable, as they were more acutely aware than we are of the changes that were taking place, and the things that were being lost.

So we will stand on the shoulders of giants such as Ivan Illich, Jane Jacobs, Neil Postman, Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan, C. S. Lewis, Hannah Arendt, Wendell Berry, Christopher Alexander, as well as the others included in The How Did We Get Here? Reading List.

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Who were these important figures, and what do they have to teach us? In the coming weeks and months, I will be introducing you to these thinkers and some of their seminal ideas. Eventually, we will take deep dives into their works to mine as much gold from them as we can.

Today, we begin this journey by introducing the great academic and cultural critic, Neil Postman. Postman was born in 1931 in New York City and was a professor at New York University where he founded the Media Ecology program. “Media Ecology” is a term coined by Postman in 1968 to describe the study of media, technology, and communication, and how these things affect humans and human environments.  Postman was greatly influenced by other writers such as Marshall McLuhan, but he was a pivotal figure in the creation of this field of study, so it’s only appropriate that we begin our journey with him.

In perhaps his most famous book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse In The Age of Show Business, Postman examines how television transforms public discourse into entertainment, which in turn degrades the quality of information as well as the public discourse around important topics.

While Postman died in 2003, his critique of television in this book remains relevant: social media, while different from television, shares many of the same problems, the chief among them being that it turns everything, including news, politics, and education, into entertainment, which dulls critical faculties as well as civic engagement.

At the heart of Postman’s book is his comparison of two dystopian visions, that of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Postman persuasively argues that Huxley’s vision is more reflective of our reality in the modern West.

Perhaps Postman’s second most famous book, (and probably my favorite) is Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. In this book, Postman argues that we have moved from a tool-using culture to a technopoly, where technology is worshiped and considered a solution to all problems. It used to be that humans made and used tools to our own benefit. In a technopoly, we have, as Henry David Thoreau put it, “become tools of our tools.” We are increasingly affected and shaped by the tools that we create, and we don’t realize the serious consequences of this for humans and human society.

Postman emphasizes the need to understand that technology has its own biases and that in order to maintain a healthy, informed, and democratic society, we need to retain a certain skepticism towards new technologies. His skepticism leads him to question the idea of “technological progress.” He is not a Luddite, however, as he advocates for a balanced approach to technology, that both recognizes its benefits as well as remains vigilant about its drawbacks and unintended consequences.

Finally, Postman was very interested in, and concerned about education, a topic that we will discuss in great length later on. Postman’s prophetic insights remain pertinent in the age of social media and digital communication and his warnings about entertainment-saturated media and unchecked technological power in particular remain more relevant than ever.

In my next post, I will look closely at a quote from Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death. If you haven’t already, please sign up for the newsletter and download The How Did We Get Here? Reading List.

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