Neil Postman Quotes - Page 4

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• Make no mistake about it: the labeling of someone's language as 'sexist' involves a political judgment and implies the desirability of a particular sociological doctrine. One may be in favor of that doctrine (as I believe I am) but it is quite another matter to force writers by edicts and censorship into accepting it.

  Neil Postman

  Mistake, Believe, Political

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• Our priests and presidents, our surgeons and lawyers, our educators and newscasters need worry less about satisfying the demands of their discipline than the demands of good showmanship.

  Neil Postman

  Worry Less, Discipline, President

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.98, Penguin

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• Reading is the scourge of childhood because, in a sense, it creates adulthood.

  Neil Postman

  Reading, Childhood, Scourge

  Neil Postman (2011). “The Disappearance of Childhood”, p.13, Vintage

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• I don't think any of us can do much about the rapid growth of new technology. A new technology helps to fuel the economy, and any discussion of slowing its growth has to take account of economic consequences. However, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology.

  Neil Postman

  Technology, Thinking, Growth

  "Neil Postman Ponders High Tech". Online Newshour: Online Forum, www.faculty.rsu.edu. January 17, 1996.

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• The effects of technology are always unpredictable. But they are not always inevitable.

  Neil Postman

  Technology, Inevitable, Unpredictable

  Neil Postman (2011). “The Disappearance of Childhood”, p.24, Vintage

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• Voting is the next-to-last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge, of course, is giving your opinion to a pollster.

  Neil Postman

  Giving, Voting, Lasts

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.66, Penguin

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• America was founded by intellectuals, a rare occurrence in the history of modern nations We might even say that America was founded by intellectuals, from which it has taken us two centuries and a communications revolution to recover.

  Neil Postman

  Communication, Taken, Two

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.41, Penguin

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• ...there must be a sequence to learning, that perseverance and a certain measure of perspiration are indispensable, that individual pleasures must frequently be submerged in the interests of group cohesion, and that learning to be critical and to think conceptually and rigorously do not come easily to the young but are hard-fought victories.

  Neil Postman

  Perseverance, Thinking, Victory

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.146, Penguin

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• Printing links the present with forever. It carries personal identity into realms unknown.

  Neil Postman

  Forever, Identity, Links

  Neil Postman (2011). “Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future”, p.161, Vintage

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• Textbooks, it seems to me, are enemies of education, instruments for promoting dogmatism and trivial learning. They may save the teacher some trouble, but the trouble they inflict on the minds of students is a blight and a curse.

  Neil Postman

  Teacher, Mind, Enemy

  Neil Postman (2011). “The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School”, p.116, Vintage

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• It is not entirely true that a TV producer or reporter has complete control over the contents of programs. The interests and inclinations of the audience have as much to do with the what is on television as do the ideas of the producer and reporter.

  Neil Postman

  Ideas, Television, Tvs

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• The way in which the photograph records experience is also different from the way of language. Language makes sense only when it is presented as a sequence of propositions. Meaning is distorted when a word or sentence is, as we say, taken out of context; when a reader or listener is deprived of what was said before, and after. But there is no such thing as a photograph taken out of context, for a photograph does not require one. In fact, the point of photography is to isolate images from context, so as to make them visible in a different way.

  Neil Postman

  Photography, Taken, Way

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.73, Penguin

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• Childhood is analogous to language learning. It has a biological basis but cannot be realized unless a social environment triggers and nurtures it, that is, has need of it. If a culture is dominated by a medium that requires the segregation of the young in order that they learn unnatural, specialized, and complex skills and attitudes, then childhood, in one form or another, will emerge, articulate and indispensable.

  Neil Postman

  Attitude, Order, Skills

  "The Disappearance of Childhood" by Neil Postman, (Ch. 9 : Six Questions), 1982.

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• By itself photography cannot deal with the unseen, the remote, the internal, the abstract, it does not speak of Man, only of a man ; not of Tree, only a tree.

  Neil Postman

  Photography, Men, Tree

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.72, Penguin

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• If we may say that the Age of Andrew Jackson took political life out of the hands of aristocrats and turned it over to the masses, then we may say, with equal justification, that the Age of Television has taken politics away from the adult mind altogether.

  Neil Postman

  Taken, Hands, Political

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• People of a television culture need “plain language” both aurally and visually, and will even go so far as to require it in some circumstances by law. The Gettysburg Address would probably have been largely incomprehensible to a 1985 audience.

  Neil Postman

  Law, Plain Language, People

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.46, Penguin

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• Cyberspace' is a metaphorical idea which is supposed to be the space where your consciousness is located when you're using computer technology on the Internet, for example, and I'm not entirely sure it's such a useful term, but I think that's what most people mean by it.

  Neil Postman

  Mean, Technology, Thinking

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• The spectacle we find in true religions has as its purpose enchantment, not entertainment. The distinction is critical. By endowing things with magic, enchantment is a means through which we may gain access to sacredness. Entertainment is the means through which we distance ourselves from it.

  Neil Postman

  Distance, Mean, Magic

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.122, Penguin

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• The television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed. It is about the character of the consumers of products. (128)

  Neil Postman

  Character, Television Commercials, Consumers

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• 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.

  Neil Postman

  Time, Book, Simple

  "Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education".

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• The problem in the 19th century with information was that we lived in a culture of information scarcity, and so humanity addressed that problem beginning with photography and telegraphy and the - in the 1840s. We tried to solve the problem of overcoming the limitations of space, time, and form.

  Neil Postman

  Photography, Space, Humanity

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• Build an "inclusive narrative" that goes beyond race, class, religion, etc., so that all may participate in the "the great debates".

  Neil Postman

  Race, Class, May

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• The idea of taking what people call the 'entertainment culture' as a focus of study, including historical perspective, is not a bad idea.

  Neil Postman

  Ideas, People, Perspective

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• 'The scientific method,' Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, 'is nothing but the normal working of the human mind.' That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in correcting its mistakes.

  Neil Postman

  Mistake, Mind, Scientific Method

  Neil Postman (2011). “The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School”, p.68, Vintage

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• For the message of television as metaphor is not only that all the world is a stage but that the stage is located in Las Vegas, Nevada.

  Neil Postman

  Vegas, Messages, Television

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