Le livre de Neil Postman est un classique de l'étude de l'impact des médias sur la société. Refusant les thèses de la manipulation, il montre que les médias, et en particulier la télévision, agissent moins en fonction des contenus qu'ils transmettent qu'à travers la forme de cette transmission : celle de programmes dont le rôle essentiel est le divertissement. « Quand un peuple devient un auditoire et les affaires publiques un vaudeville, la nation court un grand risque : la mort de la culture menace. » Dans le même temps où l'enfance se voit dénier son insouciance et la liberté de s'amuser, les adultes sont traités comme des enfants et priés de se divertir sans rien prendre au sérieux.
Ces analyses invitent à réfléchir sur la responsabilité qui est la nôtre dans ce que Michel Rocard appelle un « combat de civilisation ». Comparant les deux sinistres prophéties de 1984 d'Orwell et du Meilleur des mondes d'Huxley, Postman expose avec brio comment nous en venons à adorer les technologies qui détruisent notre capacité de penser.
Neil Postman (1931-2003), critique et théoricien de la communication, dirigeait le département culture et communication de l'université de New York.
Le grand penseur critique américain de la communication Neil Postman montre que la soumission de la culture à la technologie menace de détruire les sources vitales de notre humanité.
Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman's groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media-from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs-it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.
In Building a Bridge to the 18th Century , acclaimed cultural critic Neil Postman offers a cure for the hysteria and hazy values of the postmodern world. Postman shows us how to reclaim that balance between mind and machine in a dazzling celebration of the accomplishments of the Enlightenment-from Jefferson's representative democracy to Locke's deductive reasoning to Rousseau's demand that the care and edification of children be considered an investment in our collective future. Here, too, is the bold assertion that Truth is invulnerable to fashion or the passing of time. Provocative and brilliantly argued, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century illuminates a navigable path through the Information Age-a byway whose signposts, it turns out, were there all along.
Postman suggests that the current crisis in our educational system derives from its failure to supply students with a translucent, unifying "narrative" like those that inspired earlier generations. Instead, today's schools promote the false "gods" of economic utility, consumerism, or ethnic separatism and resentment. What alternative strategies can we use to instill our children with a sense of global citizenship, healthy intellectual skepticism, respect of America's traditions, and appreciation of its diversity? In answering this question, The End of Education restores meaning and common sense to the arena in which they are most urgently needed. "Informal and clear...Postman's ideas about education are appealingly fresh."--New York Times Book Review
