My book club decided to read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) this month. I confess that I knew very little about it, but the person who chose it described it as apt for the current moment and, now having read it, not only agree, but am surprised that it hasn’t come up more in the wake of Trump’s 2016 election. (That said, a quick Google search shows that I’m far from the only person to see its relevance today). The book is not only prescient, but in some ways works better today than it might have done when it was first published. At the same time, I think it overstates some of the transformations that have occurred in the television era and creates a flawed (if not wholly false) dichotomy between print and other kinds of media.
I’ve decided to jot down some thoughts on the book. In this post, I’ll focus on Postman’s central claim and why the book so struck me reading it in 2025. Next, I’ll lay out some of the things that the book, for all its brilliance, misses and how we might nonetheless use it to think about our present predicament.
Continue reading “Reading “Amusing Ourselves To Death” in 2025 Part 1″