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Neil Postman

94 quotes

“A definition is the start of an argument, not the end of one.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk: How We Defeat Ourselves by the Way We Talk and What to Do About It (1976)
“The key to all fanatical beliefs is that they are self-confirming....(some beliefs are) fanatical not because they are "false", but because they are expressed in such a way that they can never be shown to be false.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk: How We Defeat Ourselves by the Way We Talk and What to Do About It (1976), p. 104
“There is a difference between rape and seduction, technology can rape a culture or be forced to seduce it.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Conservative Outlook", in Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education (1988)
“I don't think any of us can do much about the rapid growth of new technology. A new technology helps to fuel the economy, and any discussion of slowing its growth has to take account of economic consequences. However, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology. The "forum" that I think is best suited for this is our educational system. If students get a sound education in the history, social effects and psychological biases of technology, they may grow to be adults who use technology rather than be used by it.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Neil Postman Ponders High Tech" at Online Newshour: Online Forum (17 January 1996); also slightly paraphrased in Theology of TV: The Impact of TV (2010) by Christian Mogler, p. 24, as "While we can't do much about the r…
“Someone needs to mention what may be lost. Of course, one of the problems is that what I would judge to be a negative consequence, someone else might see as a positive consequence. For example, telephones in automobiles seem to me a very bad idea. So does spending a lot of hours "communicating" on the Internet when one could use that time reading Cervantes' Don Quixote.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Neil Postman Ponders High Tech" at Online Newshour: Online Forum (17 January 1996)
“What can be called "consciousness of the process of abstraction." That is, consciousness of the fact that out of a virtually infinite universe of possible things to pay attention to, we abstract only certain portions, and those portions turn out to be the ones for which we have verbal labels and categories. What we abstract, i.e., "see," and how we abstract it, or see it, or see it or think about it, is for all practical purposes inseparable from how we talk about it.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A variation of the "photographic" effect of language consists of how blurred the photograph is. "Blurring" occurs as a result of general class names, rendering distinctions among members of the class less visible. One of the most common manifestations of the lack of this kind of semantic awareness can be found in what is called "prejudice": a response to an individual is predetermined because the name of the class in which the person is included is prejudiced negatively. The most obvious and ordinary remark made in cases of this kind, "They are all alike," makes the point clear.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The way to be liberated from the constraining effects of any medium is to develop a perspective on it — how it works and what it does. Being illiterate in the processes of any medium (language) leaves one at the mercy of those who control it. The new media — these new languages — then are among the most important "subjects" to be studied in the interests of survival. But they must be studied in a new way if they are to be understood, they must be studied as mediators of perception. Indeed, for any "subject" or "discipline" to be understood it must be studied this way.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As technical people, we are apt to be preoccupied with scores, not competence.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We do not know nearly as much as we should about how children learn language, but if there is one thing we can say with assurance it is that knowledge of grammatical nomenclature and skill in sentence-parsing have no bearing whatsoever on the process.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of all things to be learned, in school or out, languaging, as I prefer to call the process, is least like a mechanical skill. It is, in fact, the most intimate, integrated, emotion-laden learning we do. At no point can we separate what we know and what we are from how our linguistic powers develop...”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the field of education. I refer to the meaning of the word "basic,"...the meaning given to this word by some educators is not its "real" meaning. The word "basic,"...has been assigned certain meanings in order to further an education philosophy which is thought to be both sensible and effective...neither you nor I are under any obligation to accept their definition of what is "basic."...In short, the definition of something is usually the starting point of a dispute, not the settlement.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since most subjects studied in school consist largely of theories...language education must include not only the serious study of what truth and falsehood mean in the context of a subject, but also what is meant by a fact, an inference, an assumption, a judgment, a generalization...In this way students will be learning both the language of a subject and the methods of inquiry in that subject, since inquiry consists of nothing else but the generation of questions, the invention of definitions and metaphors, the separation of facts from inferences, the forming of generalizations.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All reading, in truth, is reading in a content area. To read the phrase "the law of diminishing returns" or "the law of supply and demand" requires that you know how the word "law" is used in economics, for it does not mean what it does in the phrase "the law of inertia" (physics) or "Grimm's law" (linguistics) or "the law of the land" (political science) or "the law of survival of the fittest" (biology). To the question, "What does 'law' mean?" the answer must always be, "In what context?”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A reading test measures one's ability to read reading tests, and reading tests are in themselves...somewhat akin to the world of crossword puzzles or Scrabble or the game of twenty questions. Some people play these games well, and all praise is due them for their skill. But if we ask, What aspect of the world do they comprehend in doing these games well? the answer is, Only the world within the games themselves.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The question, "How well does one read?" is a bad question...essentially unanswerable. A more proper question is "How well does one read poetry, or history, or science, or religion?" No one I have ever known is so brilliant as to have learned the languages of all fields of knowledge equally well. Most of us do not learn some of them at all.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As one learns the language of a subject, one is also learning what the subject is...[W]hat we call a subject consists mostly, if not entirely, of its language. If you eliminate all the words of a subject, you have eliminated the subject.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are two levels of knowing a subject. There is the student who knows what the definition of a noun or a gene or a molecule is; then there is the student...who also knows how the definition was arrived at. There is the student who can answer a question; then there is the student who also knows what are the biases of the question. There is the student who can give you the facts; then there is the student who also knows what is meant by a fact. I am maintaining that, in all cases, it is the latter who has a "basic" education ; the former, a frivolous one.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since there is no such thing as complete knowledge of a subject, one is always working to improve one's reading, writing, etc., of a subject. As Thomas Henry Huxley said, "If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, is there anyone who knows so much as to be out of danger?"...The problems of learning to read or write are inexhaustible.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is precisely through one's learning about the total context in which the language of a subject is expressed that personality may be altered. If one learns how to speak history or mathematics or literary criticism, one becomes, by definition, a different person. The point to be stressed is that a subject is a situation in which and through which people conduct themselves, largely in language. You cannot learn a new form of conduct without changing yourself.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The meaning I have given here to "language education" represents it as a form of metaeducation. That is, one learns a subject and, at the same time, learns what the subject is made of...If it be said that such learning will prevent students from assimilating the facts of a subject, my reply is that this is the only way by which the facts can truly be assimilated. For it is not education to teach students to repeat sentences they do not understand so that they may pass examinations. That is the way of the computer. I prefer the student to be a programmer.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. From a biological point of view it is inconceivable that any culture will forget that it needs to reproduce itself. But it is quite possible for a culture to exist without a social idea of children. Unlike infancy, childhood is a social artifact, not a biological category.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The effects of technology are always unpredictable. But they are not always inevitable.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Childhood is analogous to language learning. It has a biological basis but cannot be realized unless a social environment triggers and nurtures it, that is, has need of it. If a culture is dominated by a medium that requires the segregation of the young in order that they learn unnatural, specialized, and complex skills and attitudes, then childhood, in one form or another, will emerge, articulate and indispensable.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What ideas are convenient to express inevitably becomes the important content of a culture.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist -- all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Eyeglasses refuted the belief that anatomy is destiny by putting forward the idea that our bodies as well as our minds are improvable.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a purely oral culture, intelligence is often associated with aphoristic ingenuity, that is, the power to invent compact sayings of wide applicability.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The principal strength of the telegraph was its capacity to move information, not collect it, explain it or analyze it.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For even the simplest act of naming a thing is an act of thinking—of comparing one thing with others, selecting certain features in common, ignoring what is different, and making an imaginary category.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no such thing in nature as “man” or “tree.” The universe offers no such categories or simplifications; only flux and infinite variety. The photograph documents and celebrates the particularities of this infinite variety. Language makes them comprehensible.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What I am claiming here is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us...But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter?”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Benedictine monks who invented the mechanical clock in the 12th and 13th centuries believed that such a clock would provide a precise regularity to the seven periods of devotion...[H]ere is a great paradox: the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God; and it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulation of money. Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gutenberg thought his invention would advance the cause of the Holy Roman See, whereas in fact, it turned out to bring a revolution which destroyed the monopoly of the Church.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact — whether actual or imagined — that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the Middle Ages, there was a scarcity of information but its very scarcity made it both important and usable. This began to change, as everyone knows, in the late 15th century when a goldsmith named Gutenberg, from Mainz, converted an old wine press into a printing machine, and in so doing, created what we now call an information explosion...Nothing could be more misleading than the idea that computer technology introduced the age of information. The printing press began that age, and we have not been free of it since.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But what started out as a liberating stream has turned into a deluge of chaos...Everything from telegraphy and photography in the 19th century to the silicon chip in the twentieth has amplified the din of information, until matters have reached such proportions today that for the average person, information no longer has any relation to the solution of problems.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one's status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don't know what to do with it.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We no longer have a coherent conception of ourselves, and our universe, and our relation to one another and our world. We no longer know, as the Middle Ages did, where we come from, and where we are going, or why. That is, we don't know what information is relevant, and what information is irrelevant to our lives.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did Iraq invade Kuwait because of a lack of information? If a hideous war should ensue between Iraq and the U.S., will it happen because of a lack of information? If children die of starvation in Ethiopia, does it occur because of a lack of information?...If you and your spouse are unhappy together, and end your marriage in divorce, will it happen because of a lack of information? If your children misbehave and bring shame to your family, does it happen because of a lack of information? If someone in your family has a mental breakdown, will it happen because of a lack of information?”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Through the computer, the heralds say, we will make education better, religion better, politics better, our minds better — best of all, ourselves better. This is, of course, nonsense, and only the young or the ignorant or the foolish could believe it.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a world populated by people who believe that through more and more information, paradise is attainable, the computer scientist is king. But I maintain that all of this is a monumental and dangerous waste of human talent and energy. Imagine what might be accomplished if this talent and energy were turned to philosophy, to theology, to the arts, to imaginative literature or to education? Who knows what we could learn from such people — perhaps why there are wars, and hunger, and homelessness and mental illness and anger.”
Neil Postman (1931–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source