Neil Postman

Daily quotes from the writing of media theorist Neil Postman, author of Teaching as Subversive Activity, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and many other books.

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Language isn't only a vehicle of thought; it is, as Wittgenstein said, also the driver. We go where it leads, see the world as it permits.

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Each of us is, to borrow a phrase from Wendell Johnson, "our own most enchanted listener."

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Our genius lies in our capacity to make meaning through the creation of narratives that give point to our labors.

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Science isn't a "subject" but a moral imperative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, & humility to learning.

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Technology enacts social change. To maintain that technology is neutral is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple.”

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Being confronted by the cold abstractions of printed sentences looks upon language bare, w/o help of either beauty or community.

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Learning to be critical and to think conceptually and rigorously do not come easily to the young but are hard-fought victories.

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When people are distracted by trivia & cultural life is redefined as perpetual entertainments, then culture-death is a clear possibility.

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To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles?

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Orwell feared we'd be deprived of information. Huxley feared we'd get so much information we'd be reduced to passivity and egoism.

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As Huxley saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

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Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least-well informed people in the Western world.

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There is considerable merit in McLuhan’s advice to avoid questions of good & bad regarding media. But that view has never been mine.

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David Riesman once said of print, it is the gunpowder of the mind.

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How did they get so smart? Their intellectual powers were developed by a medium that fostered abstract thought.

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All those who created the electric world—from telegraphy to the Internet—were educated exclusively by the written & printed word:

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And, is there any connection between our obsession w/ technology & our capacity for moral growth? Are we even asking this question?

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It is part of human nature to hate & kill, it is part of human nature to love & protect. What part will be nurtured? What part suppressed?

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Media ecology exists to further our insights into how we are doing morally in the
journey we are taking. If you disagree, you are wrong.

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Students educated in the history, social effects and psych biases of tech may grow into adults who use tech rather than used by it.