On the advice of some of my friends at A Better Country, I just finished reading Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Though it's a relatively short read (around 160 pages), I'm still trying to get my mind around it. Some of it I perhaps disagree with a little, some of it I probably didn't understand, but most of it just strikes me as about the most profound analysis of American society that I've ever read.

For those who haven't read it, Postman's main idea is that a society's primary form of communication (in other words, the medium through which a society's discourse mainly takes place) has a profound effect on the content of what is communicated. When American discourse was primarily mediated through the printed word, we had a society in which it was not unusual for people to attend debates (like the Lincoln-Douglas Debates) which sometimes lasted upwards of seven hours. In our modern society, American discourse is mediated through television, and as a result, because American television is an entertainment medium, we now demand to be entertained in all areas of life, including, news, education, religion, etc.

He makes one point that nailed it home for me: if this is not true, ask yourself: why there is a music theme at the beginning and end of the television news? What does music have to do with news? Music is something you find in movies and on the stage. Music is entertainment. Why is it in the news? Because American news is entertainment. It's not just that the news is presented in an entertaining fashion. It's that the news itself is entertainment. The music is there to set the theatrical mood and convey an image. The program itself is a collection of stories that have almost no bearing on your life whatsoever, chosen on the basis of how they play on television. People thinking does not play well on television. A seven hour discussion does not play well on television. Fires and explosions and sex play well on television. And so, when you watch the news, you see fires and explosions and sex. You see Lacy Peterson. You never met her. You never heard of her before she disappeared. You've never met anyone who met her. Whether her husband gets the death penalty or walks free will not make a real iota of difference in your daily life or anyone else's outside her immediate circle. So why is it on? Because it plays well.

Before the telegraph, most "news" was presented as commentary in print, and there was direct relationship (because it had to travel personally) between what was considered news and it's applicability in one's life. Information had always been inextricably linked with transportation. But with the advent of the telegraph, space was no longer a barrier for information, and so decontextualized, unrelated, unimportant pieces of information could be easily transmitted and spread. The television era has multiplied this phenemenon exponentially. It has been so successful that we don't even know what the news should be anymore. We don't know what church should be. We never question the premise that entertainment is our primary means of gathering information and of knowing.

Amazingly, this book was written in the mid '80's, and it is only more true today. I probably have a lot more to say about it, but I'm still ruminating on his points. I'm also trying to figure out how the Internet plays into it, since it was popularized long after the book was written.

He said something in the book that perfectly described blogging, I thought, even though blogging was still more than 15 years off when he wrote it. I'll try to dig up the quote tonight.