![]() What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer.” (And this was before DTC pharmaceutical ads.) But they tell everything about the fears, fancies and dreams of those who might buy them. 128: “ tell nothing about the products being sold. P.11: “…beginning in the fourteenth century, the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers…with the invention of the clock, Eternity ceased to serve as the measure and focus of human events.” None of these quotes would make a pithy meme, but here are the quotes that represent ideas that really spoke to me: Actually, I guess it’s the ideas behind the quotes that are my favorites.That’s one of the tough things about substantive books: complex arguments are difficult to sound-bite-ify. Postman’s observations are even more relevant today than they were in the mid-1980’s when he wrote the book, and I found his curmudgeonly tone endearing, even when he was attacking “Sesame Street.” (I have no difficulty agreeing with everything he says about “Sesame Street” while still retaining my love for Grover.) ![]() Our minds aren’t being controlled by force by a totalitarian regime but by our own insatiable desire to be entertained. Postman’s hypothesis is that, in predicting how the population would be controlled, Huxley, not Orwell, had it right. The short version is: I love Amusing Ourselves to Death. I intended to-and still might-write a really meaty post about this book, but I’m finding I need to mull over the ideas in this book a bit more.
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