Amusing ourselves to Death

Yesterday, I finished reading “Amusing ourselves to Death”, by Neil Postman.

It really is a great book, more current than ever. I'd like to do an analysis of it versus the modern world, which although in many places has gone back to being typographic (twitter, email, whatsapp, etc.), still seems invaded by the imagery of televised media. And even better, Netflix: what that means for how we construct our reasoning.

• Huxley and Orwell have opposite visions of what a dystopia would be
• Orwell's image represents a totalitarian dystopia, which happened in the soviet countries; the state takes control of information in such a way that people don't know what is true and what is not;
• Huxley's image represents a 'capitalist' dystopia (closer to a welfare state), in which people are controlled by the excess of information, and by the banality of the human species
• Neil Postman argues that the American society of the 80s is the realization of Huxley's nightmare.
• One of Postman's most interesting arguments is the transition from a society whose main means of communication is the written media, to a society that has televised media as such;
• Postman says these two types of media have two types of language - Written: ordered, leading to an end, logical. Televised: non-linear (it's made so that anyone can understand what's going on in 20 seconds), aimed at entertaining, with no necessary logic behind it: emotional
  
• A televised language is harmful to a democracy, because then politicians are chosen for their ability to stir emotions and for their image, but not for their logic and good arguments.