What has happened is not amusing

One of the transformative books I've read and frequently recommended to others is Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death." It is an indictment of television programming and the American public's complicit debasing of American culture and politics through mass media.

Writing in the early 1980s, Postman was disturbed with what was passing as entertainment on the pervasive, ubiquitous television set, which was replacing cogent conversation, reading, and personal relationships. Postman warned of this in an age before cable services offered hundreds of "entertainment" options that had Americans hypnotized by such choices as "Survivor," "The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette," "Naked and Afraid," "The Apprentice," and so forth.

I was wondering what Postman might think of the 2016 presidential election and television's impact on the most important office in the nation. The selection of a television "reality show" star to run this nation of 300 million is in line with Postman's apocalyptic view of the future for an American populace entranced by the ridiculousness of watching people savagely compete for a job, a romantic date, a cash prize, or a chance to survive. When more Americans know the names of the "Friends" stars than know the names of their senators, governors and congressmen, society has gone wrong.

I recently found that my concern about Postman's view of 21st century American politics has already been noted by Postman's son. A 2017 article in The Guardian reveals that Postman's son had the same concerns I did about television culture's influence in the 2016 election.

It didn't have to be this way. A utopian novel of the 19th century, "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy, predicted a much more favorable (and even less realistic?) view of the future. In Bellamy's 19th century view of the future, automation would give Americans nearly unlimited leisure time, which the public would use to read, study, learn and uplift themselves and their communities. Although Bellamy could not predict the advent of cable television or the internet, he did foresee a means of connecting American homes to quality programming via a kind of audio tube that would pipe concerts and great lectures into every home.

That's a far cry from what free enterprise, democratic government and public choices actually gave us. I read "Looking Backward" as background for an editorial writer's conference in the early 1980s. I read "Amusing Ourselves to Death" at the suggestion of a newspaper contact a few years later. Their views of the future could not have been more different. We are living with a world that is amusing itself to death.

If you care about ideas, read this

Before you skip quickly to another blog or back to Facebook or Tweet your latest update, please read this. This column published in Sunday's News & Observer analyzes the impact of today's digital communications, which are increasingly demanding shorter, more frequent and more "seamless" contacts. Unfortunately, as author Neal Gabler observes, quick is not conducive to serious, and he worries that "ideas" — the thing that distinguishes civilization, knowledge and intellect — are being left in the dust of the digital world. I addressed this same issue last month.

Gabler cites Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," one of my favorite books, which warns of the impact of a television-centric society. Television, Postman says, endangers conversation and turns people into zombies, or at least couch potatoes. The medium is particularly hazardous for young children, he warns. Written language is the catalyst to learning and the glue that holds together society. Postman worried that as written communication loses ground to spoken or visual communication, hard-fought civilizing advances will be endangered.

Now, after Postman's death, Gabler sees a new threat to human intelligence — the character-limited and ubiquitous text message in whatever form. Texting or its successors have replaced television in jeopardizing serious conversation, intelligent communication and, yes, ideas. Says Gabler: "To the extent that ideas matter, we are no longer amusing ourselves to death. We are texting ourselves to death."

It's a long column, but it's well worth reading.