Amusing Ourselves to Death

"For in the end, he was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking."

These concluding lines are really what Postman has been trying to say. He says that people aren't just "laughing instead of thinking," they really have no idea why they're doing that. People have taken entertainment for granted and everything has to entertain them. Now, people don't even know what they're laughing about or why they seek entertainment. They just know that without it, life seems boring. Because of this way of thinking, Postman tries to say that people are losing their ability to think. Now they not only search for entertainment, but they also have no clue that they are slowly letting their ability to think disappear. People don't even realize it. They've stopped thinking and they don't know why. This is what Postman has been saying throughout his book. People have forgotten what thinking means and replaced thinking with forms of entertainment. Except, now this entertainment is all that people know. They no longer want to think. People only want to be entertained.

Silence Is Not So Golden...



Silence is NOT always "Golden."

     Friday was a very hard day to get through. Communicate only with actions and doodles; NO TALKING. I found myself several times wanting to say something, realizing I can't say it, and getting all frustrated trying to explain myself through terrible pictures and even worse charades skills. The whole day was hilarious trying to get people to understand me and trying to understand other people. I slipped up for such a simple thing, when someone asked me what time class got out. Eleven o' nine slips out of my mouth before I even realized what I was doing.
    Lunch was the best part. Basically our whole table was silent, except for our laughter while we tried to figure out what someone was trying to say. I was trying to ask my friends who was going to Sadie's, so I drew what I thought was a pretty good stick figure interpretation of what a dance would look like. I drew a pathetic disco ball and stick people with little lines around them, in an attempt to show that they were dancing. Then I put a big question mark over it, because I was trying to ask a question. I showed them and they gave me blank looks followed by laughter at my picture. I tried to save myself by adding musical notes around the people to get the idea that music was playing. Finally, someone next to us who could talk started guessing random things. They still were not getting the idea. I gave up with my drawings and tried to act out dancing in my seat. Everyone roared with laughter as I boogied in my seat trying to get them to understand I was DANCING! Once everyone, including myself, began to breathe again, they finally figured it out after they had some help with a lucky soul who could talk.
     Postman was very right in saying that smoke signals don't help that much. Like my drawings, unless you had a system or code worked out, it was very hard to communicate with people. I would imagine smoke signals had their flaws as well, because there are no words to help explain what the signal means. He is right in saying that words are very important. Without words, ideas and thoughts are very complicated to try and explain to people.

Technology and Society

     Postman discusses in both his book and his speech, that society is slowly changing through the years and it is changing for the worst, in his opinion. People are depending more and more on electronics and technologies than with other people. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he talks about how the human race continues to create new ideas. We continue to try and make things better, faster, or easier. Technologies keep growing, such as the smoke signals he mentions. People used to communicate in smoke signals. Anything that was left out of the smoke signal would have to be verbalized to the person, so smoke signals only communicated basic ideas. Throughout the years, people improved this greatly. They created the telephone, and now we have cell phones and social networks. People continue to depend on technology now. In his speech, he talks about people becoming more comfortable with talking to machines rather than talking with people, like the answering machine. Slowly society becomes more dependent on machines and other technology rather than on people. He says that eventually people may end up talking to things such as door nobs or toasters, but that would be ok.

     Also in his speech, Postman mentions cloning. He says that people are now trying to create life and call it something other than human so they always have a backup. If someone were to need an organ replacement, their clone would provide that for them. Today's society always wants what is the hottest new thing and everyone has to try and look perfect, according to society's standards. Plastic surgery has become a big thing. If you don't like a part of you, change it. In his book, he brings up President Taft, who was a large man. He wrote that in today's society, people are so concerned with looks and outward appearances that he could never be voted in to office today. People today would judge him just because of his appearance.