Neil Postman & Amusing Ourselves to Death

 

This year marks the 40th anniversary of a book by the late, great Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. I purchased and read it at the time and was deeply impressed by his arguments about the degradation of conversation in the public square. While looking for another book I found this one (this happens far too often!) 

As I leafed through it I was surprised by how many observations there are about religion, its importance, and the ways in which the "show business" ethos undermined the contributions religion can make to society. Postman, a non-observant Jew offered:“I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.”

During my years in ministry, beginning in 1980, I felt the growing pressure toward that entertainment model and a lighter approach to preaching and worship as a whole. There were people who intimated this to me, even though I was always a story-teller and included humour and visual images in sermons.  For some it was "the lighter the better." I always felt that there needed to be depth.

Forty years ago none of us could have anticipated the internet and the relentless flow of information that distracts us but certainly doesn't make us wiser, intellectually or spiritually.And yet Postman did.

 I saw recently that half of Americans don't read a single book in a year, and I imagine that Canadian stats would be simillar. Postman suggested in 1985 that books would never need to be banned as they were in Orwell's 1984 because we would follow the lead of Huxley's Brave New World where no one wanted to read one.  Why engage in the full meal of reading a long-form article or book when we can snack on bits and bites of info all day long? And why actually read scriptures and hear the message of God and Jesus when we can attend a worship spectacle? 

Curiously, I never noticed the artwork for the edition I had until unearthing it recently. A headless family is gathered around the glow of a television. Now its individuals bowing before the hand-held screen. 

I found an interview with Postman in an issue of Modern Reformation with the title  Has Evangelicalism Lost Its Voice. There is an important exchange about the importance of the word and Word in culture and religion: 

Much of the Judeo-Christian religion, as well as the Judeo-Christian culture that comes to us is based on the idea that through the word we can understand ourselves and our culture. That we the great genius of Greek culture, and Christianity inherited that idea. Sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and psychology, and everything else are somehow within the domain and can be put under control of the word. As culture moves away from the word toward pictures and moving pictures, it would be a new Reformation alright, but that could be a Reformation in reverse that seriously harms our traditional understanding of religion.