Author

Neil Postman

16 key ideas across 2 books, each explained in our own words.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

IDEA 1
Entertainment can weaken a society
Postman argues that the greater danger to modern societies may not be censorship, as in Orwell's 1984, but endless entertainment, as in Huxley's Brave New World. People may lose interest in serious thought.
IDEA 2
Media shape how we think
Postman argues that each medium, such as print or television, shapes the kind of ideas a culture can express. The form of communication changes its content. In his view, a medium is more than a neutral container for messages.
IDEA 3
Print encouraged serious argument
Postman describes how early America was a print culture, where people read long, reasoned arguments. Public debates were detailed and demanding. Readers were expected to follow long chains of reasoning and to judge them carefully.

IDEA 1
Technology can rule culture
Postman argues that America has become a technopoly, a society in which technology shapes values, institutions and thought. Instead of serving people, technology begins to define what counts as truth and progress.
IDEA 2
An old story warns us
Postman retells a story from Plato in which King Thamus questions the god Theuth about writing. Thamus warns that every invention brings losses as well as gains. The story shows that new tools always change what a society values.
IDEA 3
Cultures have used tools differently
Postman describes tool-using cultures, where tools served traditions, and technocracies, where tools challenged them. Technopoly goes further still. In technopoly, he says, tools are no longer simply used by the culture, as the culture bends to the tools.

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