Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Huxleyan Warning

In the concluding paragraph of "Amusing Ourselves To Death" Postman suggests that education and disaster have unfortunately become a packaged deal for modern society. We are trying to educate and inform the younger generation but with all the wrong resources. Television is meant for entertainment, not for teaching children, however, most people fail to realize this and it is taking a very serious tole on the intelligence of our society. We become lazy because watching television requires nothing of us. There is no extensive thinking necessary or even any previous knowledge on the subject being televised. Just as Postman recognized, even though a person may be laughing at something on television they "they do not know what they are laughing about". Why would they care? The information they are being given is contextless and discontinuous.
Today's society believes that most everything is telivisible, even education. That's exactly what Postman attempts to contradict. Education and entertainment are two completely separate commodities and should never coexist. Unfortunately, society seems to be unaware and have shown no signs of realizing this problem any time soon.

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