Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

The Foreword and final chapter of Amusing Ourselves to Death create a framework for interpreting Neil Postman’s overall argument. Some knowledge of two novels is needed to fully understand this: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). Both are dystopian novels with warnings about the future. Orwell’s 1984 has perhaps had the stronger impact on the imagination of Americans because of its similarities to actual societies in the 20th century, and because of the length and intensity of the Cold War. The 1930s and 1940s brought two authoritarian regimes, Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. Though different in ideology, they shared totalitarian control over their respective societies. 1984 critiqued such regimes by presenting a fictional future society grounded in the same methods through which Hitler and Stalin ruled. In such a society, the government crushes individual freedoms and controls people through mass surveillance and fear. In the book, there is a single political party, referred to as “The Party,” ruled by a dictator called “Big Brother.” People are expected to love The Party and are subjected to constant propaganda and distortion of history for the sake of mind control.

By contrast, Huxley’s Brave New World presents a society that appears less oppressive, even pleasant.