Neil Postman
Neil Postman
Neil Postmanwas an American author, educator, media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known for his seventeen books, including Amusing Ourselves to Death, Conscientious Objections, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, The Disappearance of Childhoodand The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 March 1931
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
technology trying attention
I am not a Luddite. I am suspicious of technology. I am perfectly aware of its benefits, but I also try to pay attention to some of the negative effects.
children objectivity ideas
We had learned how to invent things, and the question of why we invent things receded in importance. The idea that if something could be done it should be done was born in the nineteenth century. And along with it, there developed a profound belief in all the principles through which invention succeeds: objectivity, efficiency, expertise, standardization, measurement, and progress. It also came to be believed that the engine of technological progress worked most efficiently when people are conceived of not as children of God or even as citizens but as consumers-that is to say, as markets.
honesty ideas excellence
If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.
escaping fundamentals glory
There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.
responsibility two people
When two human beings get together, they're co-present, there is built into it a certain responsibility we have for each other, and when people are co-present in family relationships and other relationships, that responsibility is there. You can't just turn off a person. On the Internet, you can.
love life family
At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.
time children views
Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. From a biological point of view it is inconceivable that any culture will forget that it needs to reproduce itself. But it is quite possible for a culture to exist without a social idea of children. Unlike infancy, childhood is a social artifact, not a biological category.
culture significant triviality
We do not measure a culture by its output of undisguised trivialities but by what it claims as significant.
time book simple
Because he did not have time to read every new book in his field, the great Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski used a simple and efficient method of deciding which ones were worth his attention: Upon receiving a new book, he immediately checked the index to see if his name was cited, and how often. The more Malinowski the more compelling the book. No Malinowski, and he doubted the subject of the book was anthropology at all.
revolution computer nonsense
Computers are merely ingenious devices to fulfill unimportant functions. The computer revolution is an explosion of nonsense.
people training study
The making of adaptable, curious, open, questioning people has nothing to do with vocational training and everything to do with humanistic and scientific studies.
god giving people
But in the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, "How did it all begin?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." To the question, "How will it all end?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living. Moreover, the science-god has no answer to the question, "Why are we here?" and, to the question, "What moral instructions do you give us?", the science-god maintains silence.
thinking judging judgement
You cannot avoid making judgements but you can become more conscious of the way in which you make them. This is critically important because once we judge someone or something we tend to stop thinking about them or it.
ideas looks arguing
Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and comercials.