Notes On Amusing Ourselves To Death
notion.moontowermeta.com
Notes On Amusing Ourselves To Death
a rate of con-sumption which tends to level everything out into an undifferentiated mass of high-quality description and trenchant reflection that be-comes both numbing and euphoric, a kind of Total Noise that’s also the sound of our U.S. culture right now, a culture and volume of info 1
David Foster Wallace • Deciderization 2007—a Special Report
Every new medium of communication changes communication, whether that’s painting or hieroglyphs or the alphabet or television. Each medium creates a new orientation for thought, expression, and sensibility.
Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia are used either to bolster illusion and give it credibility, or discarded if they interfere with the message.
Chris Hedges • Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
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.