Amusing Ourselves to Death

Explore 2 quotes from Amusing Ourselves to Death

People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death

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More information about this quote

Topic

Downsides of technology

Author

Neil Postman

Source

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Language

English

Time

1984 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Viking Penguin/Methuen Publishing, 1985, foreword.

Introduce the alphabet to a culture and you change its cognitive habits, its social relations, its notions of community, history and religion. Introduce the printing press with movable type, and you do the same. Introduce speed-of-light transmission of images and you make a cultural revolution. Without a vote. Without polemics. Without guerrilla resistance. Here is ideology, pure if not serene. Here is ideology without words, and all the more powerful for their absence. All that is required to make it stick is a population that devoutly believes in the inevitability of progress.

Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death

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More information about this quote

Topic

Power of technology Technological progress Technology

Author

Neil Postman

Source

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Language

English

Time

1985 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Viking Penguin/Methuen Publishing, 1985, ch. 11.