Amusing Ourselves to Death

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

By: Neil Postman

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think.

As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television. And because television is a visual medium, whose images are most pleasurably apprehended when they are fast-moving and dynamic, discourse on television has little tolerance for argument, hypothesis, or explanation. Postman argues that public discourse, the advancing of arguments in logical order for the public good, once a hallmark of American culture, is being converted from exposition and explanation to entertainment.

©1985 Neil Postman (P)1994 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"A brilliant, powerful and important book.... This is a brutal indictment Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one." ( Washington Post Book World)

"[Postman] starts where Marshall McLuhan left off, constructing his arguments with the resources of a scholar and the wit of a raconteur." ( Christian Science Monitor)

"A sustained, withering and thought-provoking attack on television and what it is doing to us.... Postman goes further than other critics in demonstrating that television represents a hostile attack on literate culture." ( Publishers Weekly)

JUST SLOW DOWN THE READING SPEED

What made the experience of listening to Amusing Ourselves to Death the most enjoyable?

Seriously negative reviewers, this book is so important for ANYONE and EVERYONE to be exposed to. Use the feature of Audible to slow down the reading speed of the book.

This book, along with books like The Influencing Machine and Republic Lost, are what are going to make difference in how hard or soft the USA falls from it's place as the super power in the world.

Reviewing based on the speed of the reading...you've GOT to be KIDDING ME.

A warning to the TV generation

It must be remembered that this book is almost 30 years old, so it's inevitable that some of its arguments no longer quite work. But in most ways they do. Moreover, they often apply to our current internet generation as well.

A mandatory read

Unbelievably, though written in 1984 about television this book did more to help me understand how modern society has been impacted by the internet than anything else I have read. If you like Sapiens or The Righteous Mind and are interested in understanding who we are as a society, you will love it.

Dated But, Forward thinking from a unique voice.

Postman would have a freaking cow over what people do nowadays. can ya believe it?

Should be mandatory reading in this era.

Absolutely brilliant book. If anything, it was far too short for this subject, even though it was written in the early days of cable television.

I can't wait to read more recent works by Neil Postman.

Food for thought

Really interesting look at how entertainment shapes discourse, education, and cultire. Even though it was written a while ago, it is still very relevant to connect to social media today.

Good

Before I started the book, I assumed it would be about how people in the West watch TV, play video games, and etc because they have nothing better to do.
The book was actually about how TVs effect on society changes everything into entertainment.
He talks about a lot of problems with changing everything into entertainment.
Like how it corrodes politics, public discourse, journalism, and education.

For some reason I had trouble giving a good summary on what this book is about.
(I can't tell if thats due to unclear main points from the writer, or just me having gaps in my memory)

That being said, I think he's right.
Even more so in the age of Social Media, Netflix, and video games. (All of these are VERY lucrative businesses right now. I think in 2019 the entertainment industry got $100 billion in investment, that's as much as the oil industry)
It's really interesting how something that happened to TV in the past is also happening on social media right now.
This book revealed to me that TV and social media often suffer from the same problems.
Both of which are causing serious damage to society in all these ways mentioned in the book.

I guess TV and social media are more similar than we realize.

Wish I had read/listened to this years ago

This book explained so much about our culture that I’ve been struggling to comprehend. It’s themes are just as applicable now in our social media dominated age as they were in the 80s when the book was written.

insightful and worth the time listening

I think that the author makes a lot of great points about how television has changed our culture. The book definitely changed my perspective and attitude towards all media and that to me makes it a worthwhile listen.

Love me some Neil Postman

This is watchman on the wall stuff right here. Postman gives a devastating critique of television, and by analogy to our day, all image media. He argues that the image media's subversion of text as the dominant form of reflected thinking has contributed to the death of rational society. I think he may overstate his case a little, but he speaks with a prophetic voice and I have to give credence to that fact. He may well be seeing something I'm not. As it is, the last chapter of the book really clinches the case, and the pen-ultimate chapter, on media in education, is super insightful.
This book is 5 star reading.