Timeless Wisdom: The Age of Postman

In “Amusing Ourselves to Death, author Neil Postman asserted that people were more oppressed by their addiction to amusement, as reflected in “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley (R), rather than by the state, as portrayed in “1984” by George Orwell (L). Hulton Archive/Getty Images

When I was 19, I read a book that would forever change my life. It was Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Though published in 1985, with each passing year, its insights have become more and more relevant and ominous.

Postman contends the following: electronic media is dumbing us down, transforming our dialogue into mere forms of entertainment driven by profit rather than substance, which in turn prevents us from not only speaking like adults, but even thinking like one. He traces this phenomenon in the realm of politics, religion, and education.