Amusing Ourselves To Death

After finally receiving a copy of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death in the mail from Amazon, I ripped it open furiously and started reading. It was already the 7th of August, way past the due date. Time had its iron grip on me, and I was being governed by it. Instead of being a "time keeper, or a time saver" I was now a "time server." But instead of speeding through it as I had been planning on doing, something caught my attention, and slowed me down a bit. This wasn't any ordinary book, this wasn't any typical novel. Neil Postman argues such an important cause, I physically had to slow down and try to better comprehend what I was reading. To some, Postman might seem a little psychic. Finishing the book in 1985 he accurately summarized what was happening in his generation but also accurately predicted what would happen in the following generations.

Concerning rhetorical devices, I believe that that Postman's primary device is Logos, which is the appeal to reason. He uses facts and quotes to persuade and reason with the reader. Quoting famous people such as Plato, Bruner, Franklin, Solomon, Aristotle, and even Jesus his various points are hard to argue with. Who would dare to argue with Jesus's paraboles or with Plato's ideas? Pathos is also used, but more sparingly. In Greek, Pathos is literally the appeal to emotion, and Postman uses this device when describing his emotions to what is happening, as well as ours and how they are both evolving.

I think that is is very obvious that the main thing that Postman is trying to do in writing this book, is to try to educate us on how we are being negatively impacted by the media, and other various devices we are setting up (time). His arguments are very valid. As I mentioned before, Postman wrote this book more than twenty years ago, and his predictions are very accurate. He talks about how our society already was starting to fall out of the Age of Typography and ascend into the Age of Television. Our current generation is totally run by the media, and it would be a scary thought to imagine what our culture would be like if suddenly our TVs, radios, and clocks stopped functioning. Surely chaos would be inevitable.

Postman's audience is everyone. From the young children who watch Jimmy Neutron, to the teenagers who watch MTV, to the adults who watch CNN this book applies to all of us. I for one have been affected and persuaded by this book, and will try to follow Postman's ideas on how to correctly and safely watch television. (If at all) So in conclusion, I understand that the media is a major part of all of our lifes and that is is unlikely that it will ever change. But hopefully, there will be more people like Postman who will try to persuade us of the dangers of our modern media culture, and hopefully there will be more AP English groups that will read, analyze, and learn from Postman's ideas before it is too late.