Entertainment is all that matters

In the closing lines of the book, Postman makes the distinction between a concerned society and an unconcerned society. He certainly believes that laughing instead of thinking is fine, but the problem arises when we no longer care about what we are laughing at so long as we are being amused. And when we stop concerning ourselves with that fact, we stop caring about why we have stopped thinking. Our form of entertainment today is so simplistic and as soon as the television turns on, it’s like our minds shut off as we prepare ourselves for the gumbo it will feed us. We don’t care about what we are watching, what we are thinking, or even think about thinking for that matter, when that glowing box is before us.

Philosophy or gray blobs?

The most difficult part of communicating through illustrations and charades was actually trying to make the other person see what you wanted to convey to them. While it was hilarious looking at the drawings and people flailing their arms around, you weren’t able to get the full impact of their message. Really bad drawings and acting just didn’t allow you to explain any really deep or long thoughts, like when Postman writes about trying to do philosophy with smoke signals. Yes, that puff of smoke symbolizes the great philosophies of Aristotle. Umm no? It’s a gray blob! There was also the problem that you could think they were trying to say one thing when really, they meant something completely different. Truth is limited to the forms of communication we use, and when our communication means are poor, our message can be greatly affected.

Amusing Myself to Death with this Book

In his speech, Postman makes the comment that the new human dilemma is the “delusion to believe that technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages.” He then proceeds to talk about a technology that had been recently improved: cloning. I think his quote and discussion of cloning go very well with where he wrote about Las Vegas becoming our “national character and aspiration.” The other ages Postman mentions – the Age of Boston and the Age of New York – reveal the great accomplishments of our nation and are something we should be proud of. On the other hand, Las Vegas symbolizes this Age of Entertainment and Technology and the deterioration of our values as a society, as we are becoming increasingly concerned with all aspects of our life revolving them instead of what is right. We are making previous values our society held dear useless and irrelevant with all our new technology. This is proven true with cloning. The whole idea of cloning was to replicate a person when he or she was born and then store the clone away in some warehouse until the “original/real” person needed a spare limb or something. Cloning has completely shattered our belief in the value of the human life by saying that we are defining the standards of a human being and a clone, although very much alive and a human no doubt, is not a human but merely a tool at the disposal of the person who is in need of them. We are using technology to twist our world and make what we’re doing appear acceptable. We want progress, progress, progress and more and more technology, no matter what it takes or what it costs us. If our values don’t fit with what needs to be done, we’ll bend them to align with what we want. And like smoke signals and fat men running for president, all our values no longer matter when we keep creating newer and more advanced technology.