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
When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.
Television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing.
If parents wish to preserve childhood for their own children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.