Amusing Ourselves (Literally) to Death

Between COVID and our devices, we’ve been lulled into a deadly sleep.

I recently finished reading the classic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. I had mentioned it in two other essays (here and here), but it’s one of those books where you read the title and the Wiki entry and you think that should suffice — especially as it was written almost 40 years ago, before the Internet and all our modern forms of electronic entertainment. But I was wrong. It is by far more profound than I could have imagined.

While I won’t explore the whole book, perhaps the best part is Postman’s exploration of American history before telegraphy. The world was local then — there was no “News of the Day,” where you learned about hurricanes in New Orleans or fires in California, droughts in Madagascar or floods in Europe. At least not instantaneously. Instead, you read books and news pamphlets and the world unfolded more slowly. Sure, one could argue that we’re now in a global world, and we need to know about global events. But do we? Immediately? Or is it, as Postman suggests, ultimately useless trivia, or perhaps worse, tragedies and distractions (e.g. anything about celebrities) to keep you glued to your TV and the Internet (and the commercials that drive this whole system).* As Thoreau presciently noted, as quoted by Postman, “We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance…