Paper for GF11 Class #1 by Benjamin M. Walsh

Response Paper for "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman

I must admit, I did not have particularly high hopes for Mr. Postman's book when I first started reading it. Surely, I had thought, a book by the name of "Amusing Ourselves to Death" must be about how to write effective comedy. Or how to make anything funny, regardless of context. Or even just a book that would explain the highly disturbing headless people found on the front cover.

It didn't take me long, however, to figure out that this wasn't a book about humor. The shadows behind those scary headless people are more prophetic than one might like to admit... all the more so when we consider that those shadows are created by the light emanating out of that TV screen at the front of the picture. This is Neil Postman's thesis in a nutshell: that our society has lost their heads by the light of the TV screen, that television has changed our culture in a way that is almost imperceptible but yet all-encompassing, that because of this reason and thought have fallen into the shadows even as that leather couch of entertainment and appearances supports the seats of our culture, as easily another couch might support the seats of our collective pants.

Here's a thought, I thought, and decided that I must soon get to the bottom of this. Having once heard tales of how culture had not always been so based on deceit and appearances from my esteemed father, whose own esteemed father had no doubt worn those same immaculate clothes that now lacked a head, I was intrigued. If television is the root of all evils, then was society all previous society perfect? Was there a big conspiracy behind 'Jerry Springer', 'The Adams Family', and the 'Teletubbies'? If this was true, then television was not only Adam and Eve eating the apple, this was Adam and Eve eating the apple on a made-for-TV movie. Such E-VIL must not go unstopped!

As it turns out, I was completely wrong about Mr. Postman's arguments. Evil did not come into the world through the television... the television merely changed the entire way our society thought.

Prior to the coming of the telegraph, people communicated in one of two ways: either through spoken language or through writing. Now, until the invention of the printing press, it was hard to get a hold of a copy of anything. Books were so valuable that only the rich had them. Therefore, spoken language was the lay folks' only option.

But after the printing press WAS invented, written materials became a feasible means of communication for just about everyone. Someone could write a book, and then someone else could write another book refuting the first. And then people could discuss the issues at hand, until someone else wrote ANOTHER book and they could then discuss that and how it fit into context.

But when the telegraph came, communication took a turn for the faster. Because news was now nearly instantaneous, the potential for taking it out of context - 'I wonder what the Emperor of Russia ate for breakfast today?' - became first a possibility, then a commodity. Who cares about history and context, anyway? The aim was no longer to understand... it was to know, or more specifically, to cram one's mind as full of useless and unrelated trivia as possible.

However, this method of communication created some new problems, such as the fact that there IS no emperor of Russia. Other dilemmas were such things as loss of relevant information, and the fact that most information people received were not things that they could act upon.

Or were they? Sixteen years after this book was written, the Internet is a serious and mainstream source of information & communication. People can dialogue about anything they want on online forums, say whatever they want without feeling 'inhibited', and spam thousands of people at the touch of a well-programmed button. Political, religious, and philosophical discourse can take place over long distances to large groups of people. Can we say that people cannot use their information, if they have the capacity to influence and inspire others in such a way?

Well, yes and no. Too many people, myself included, have at times used the Internet or, for brevity's sake, the I-net for purposes of idle chit-chat. This is fine on its own, but when that becomes ALL that is ever discussed and then ALL that is ever thought and then just plain ALL... we have a problem. But why is it just so? Why don't more people express their views in an intelligent, honest way instead of hiding behind the facade of meaningless gossip? Gossip is fine, and can serve a good purpose, but surely we could better employ the gazillion hours that we spend around-the-clock 'surfing that I-net'? People have high standards for what is good. Are television and the Internet restricting the minds of people the world over? Is there some sort of vast corporate conspiracy behind all this!?

There's no conspiracy. Plain and simple, television producers and news anchors produce the kind of garbage they produce because of a supposed necessity. Because everyone thinks that THIS is what television is, that it has to be instantaneous up-to-the-minute-but-yet-completely-out-of-context news-babble, that the public will only watch what is mindless and lacking real value, that no one cares about relevant political issues, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The kind I really hate. And therefore, television and the Internet and religion and everything else can become cluttered with the garbage that we grow to love until it becomes us, as truly and exactly so as if we ate it for breakfast every day of our lives.

But does it have to be this way? No. Though the bias of television lends itself well to the music and song of visual imagery, and the Internet loves those of good web-design nearly as well as those with good content, education and wisdom can protect us. For if we change our culture, if we learn what television really is, and learn how we can shape television instead of letting television shape us, as Neil Postman and his predecessors have been calling us to do all along, then we will be well prepared to turn television to a just and noble end.

And maybe even get our heads back in the process.