Tom & Alissa

I’ve been reading Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death for a class (oh yes, and I get to move onto McLuhan later tonight). Postman, for those who aren’t aware, is writing in 1985 and is not a big fan of the television. To put it mildly. He spends most of the book explaining how television is completely destroying religion, education, and politics, and though he has some excellent points and I’m sure it seemed at the time that the world was coming to an end, in hindsight it seems a little overblown (though I am no fan of televised “news” unless it emanates from the mouth of Jon Stewart).

So anyhow, I’m near the end of the book, and in chapter eleven, there’s this statement:

To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple.

And next to it, in old handwriting, is this handwritten gem:

The TV is not a Cylon, people. Seriously.