Amusing Ourselves to Death (Penguin, 2006 edition of the 1985 book)

Neil Postman · c. 1985

Neil Postman did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Huxley, not Orwell, may have been right about what threatens us

Their wordsThis book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
Our reading
Television is the main way a culture now knows itself

Their wordsTelevision is our culture's principal mode of knowing about itself.
Our reading
Americans no longer talk to each other; they entertain each other

Their wordsAmericans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other.
Our reading
Television, not print, now shapes our information, ideas and ways of knowing

Their wordsWe are now a culture whose information, ideas and epistemology are given form by television, not by the printed word.
Our reading
Each medium makes possible its own mode of discourse

Their wordsEach medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.