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Title: Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future (Vintage) by Neil Postman ISBN: 0-375-70127-3 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 10 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (12 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: A disappointing ramble
Comment: Readers looking for an introduction to the great thinkers of the Age of Reason will be disappointed by this book. Postman's explanations are cursory at best, and he seems to use the Age of Reason as a launching lad for airing some of his pet peeves about modern life. He does not use e-mail, nor a word processor, nor the Internet, and he doesn't understand why anyone else would want to, either. Postman suggests that when a new technology is proposed, we should ask, who benefits? He doesn't seem to have much faith in the free market to decide the question for us. I think useless products will not succeed, products that people find useful, will. Or, to take further issue with Mr. Postman, why can't people be silly and frivolous and spend their money on things HE would choose not to?
On the question of education, he is more solid ground, since education is the proper province of a democratic government. I agree that teaching logic and rhetoric in school would help our children cope with the Information Age.
Overall though, this book is self-indulgent, a miscellaneous collection of thoughts and arguments. I suggest the reader's time would be better spent with the original curmudgeon (as preserved by his biographer, Boswell): Dr. Samuel Johnson: a better writer, a better wit, and a better introduction to the period of history called the Age of Reason.
Rating: 5
Summary: Devil's advocate for the tech revolution
Comment: Postman clarifies the impact that technology (computers and television) has on us to such an extent that I was tempted to toss my computer and TV out the window half way through the book. And while Postman has not personally succumed to the siren of the computer, his head is also not buried too deeply in the sand. If anything, he wants us to transcend the age of technology in the 20th century to a new enlightenment in the 21st century. At stake is the loss of childhood which he says was defined in the 18th century as a result of an earlier technological advancement: movable type.
Rating: 5
Summary: Not a Luddite
Comment: Somehow Postman has been accused of being a luddite. I'm not sure how he got theis reputation. He is certainly critical of present excesses, but as this book shows, he merely - and justly - questions current ideas that have degenerated to produce dubious advantages. he has no objections to technology or science but, he argues, there is aneed to revert to a more humanist (which also implies liberal in the good sense of the word) approaches to temper the way technology is creeping intrusively into our lives. In philosophical terms he argues against cultural relativism and its older brother deconstruction - i.e. Derrida, Lacan. in this he is joined - though he does not mention it - by several leading physicists and, indeed, Fashionable Nonsense by Sokal confirms this. Like many greek classical philosophers, from Plato to Epicurus, postman excercises healthy doubt and merely questions the present. Not all change is good. I also found the book to be very well written, erudite and humorous.
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Title: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman ISBN: 0679745408 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 April, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman ISBN: 0140094385 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1986 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School by Neil Postman ISBN: 0679750312 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman ISBN: 0679751661 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Teaching As a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman, Charles Weingartner ISBN: 0385290098 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 01 September, 1971 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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