Summary Of Amusing Ourselves To Death By Neil Postman

The 19th century or typographic America was a time where modern media sources, such as television and radio did not exist. Therefore everything was either presented in written word or spoken word, by a source which could either be a book or a person. In Amusing Ourselves To Death, Neil Postman communicates that the people of the 19th century would endure very long hours of debates and speeches. These events were very long, but these people seemed genuinely interested in these events due to the fact that it would inform them on current political events. However many people began wondering how these people were able to maintain such interests in these events. Neil Postman proves in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that the qualities that the people

Postman explains “ What kind of audience was this? Who were these people who would so cheerfully accommodate themselves to seven hours of oratory?...These were people who regarded such events as essential to their political education..”(44) Postman shows his level of astonishment in regards to the people of the 19th century being able to endure seven hours of speech. This shows that the people of the 19th century had great attention spans due to the fact they were at these debates for so long, but they weren't just here to be there, these people wanted to be there to learn and to inform themselves on the events of their

This meant that the people of the 19th century were educated enough to know about the issues that were being discussed. The people needed to have some sort of knowledge on the issues that were being discussed in order for them to understand them fully. Neil Postman articulates the third quality in Amusing Ourselves to Death, he explains “Audiences may have been moved emotionally by Edwards’ language, but they were, first and foremost, required to understand it.” (54) Postman is explaining that in order for these people to feel emotional towards the information being conveyed to them by Edwards’, that they first must have some sort of understanding of the information. This explains that the third quality of knowledge was present. Since you have to have the knowledge of the events to feel the message.

The fourth and final quality that Postman claims that the people of the 19th century have is the ability to understand literary language. What Postman means by this is that these people were able to understand complex structures of language. The literary language is able to convey messages with more detail, today a person might be confused by the use of literary language since we are used to simpler language, but the people of the 19th century had a deeper understanding of