Quote

The spectacle we find in true religions has as its purpose enchantment, not entertainment. The distinction is critical. By endowing things with magic, enchantment is a means through which we may gain access to sacredness. Entertainment is the means through which we distance ourselves from it.

Neil Postman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Neil Postman
Age: 72 †
Born: 1931
Born: March 8
Died: 2003
Died: October 5
Author
Communication Scholar
Essayist
Journalist
Media Critic
Pedagogue
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Magic
Religions
Purpose
Distinction
Means
Gain
True
Entertainment
May
Gains
Endowing
Find
Access
Sacredness
Mean
Critical
Enchantment
Things
Distance
Spectacle

More quotes by Neil Postman

Image
The problem in the 19th century with information was that we lived in a culture of information scarcity, and so humanity addressed that problem beginning with photography and telegraphy and the - in the 1840s. We tried to solve the problem of overcoming the limitations of space, time, and form.
Neil Postman
Image
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 comercials.
Neil Postman
Image
A metaphor is not an ornament. It is an organ of perception. Through metaphors, we see the world as one thing or another.
Neil Postman
Image
The written word endures, the spoken word disappears
Neil Postman
Image
Computers are merely ingenious devices to fulfill unimportant functions. The computer revolution is an explosion of nonsense.
Neil Postman
Image
Remember: in order for a perception to change one must be frustrated in one's actions or change one's purpose.
Neil Postman
Image
If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.
Neil Postman
Image
...there must be a sequence to learning, that perseverance and a certain measure of perspiration are indispensable, that individual pleasures must frequently be submerged in the interests of group cohesion, and that learning to be critical and to think conceptually and rigorously do not come easily to the young but are hard-fought victories.
Neil Postman
Image
Watching television requires no skills and develops no skills. That is why there is no such thing as remedial television-watching.
Neil Postman
Image
There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.
Neil Postman
Image
The making of adaptable, curious, open, questioning people has nothing to do with vocational training and everything to do with humanistic and scientific studies.
Neil Postman
Image
[It] is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. […] The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining. (87)
Neil Postman
Image
At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.
Neil Postman
Image
. . . Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world.
Neil Postman
Image
Education Research: This is a process whereby serious educators discover knowledge that is well known to everybody, and has been for several centuries. Its principal characteristic is that no one pays any attention to it.
Neil Postman
Image
People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.
Neil Postman
Image
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
Image
When media make war against each other, it is a case of world-views in collision.
Neil Postman
Image
A definition is the start of an argument, not the end of one.
Neil Postman
Image
It is not entirely true that a TV producer or reporter has complete control over the contents of programs. The interests and inclinations of the audience have as much to do with the what is on television as do the ideas of the producer and reporter.
Neil Postman