In Postman’s essay, “Amusing Ourselves to Death” he criticizes the American minds of the 1980s and how they have been consumed by the new developments of technology and their constant desire for entertainment. In Huxley’s dystopian novel “Brave New World”, he observes the change in the society around him in the 1930s and how they let their desires lead them instead of their brain. Postman wrote this essay novel based on the idea that Huxley predicted the future of humans letting technologies rule over us. Both fictional and essay novels have many similarities as they describe the world where entertainment and desires become a norm through the development of technology. For example, in “Amusing Ourselves to Death” Postman recalls back in multiple arguments to what he believes is the source, telegraphing which is a form of fast news or headliner information that began back in the 1830s. Leading people as Postman states, “The telegraph introduced a kind of public conversation whose form had startling characteristics: Its language was the language of headlines—sensational, fragmented, impersonal.” (Pg. 70). This demonstrates the observation that the people of America only had the shallow entertaining knowledge of worldly issues that should be discussed in greater detail. Compared to the current day this reminds me of being able to look something up on my phone as soon as I desire to know something without taking a minute to figure it out logically by myself. Another example of entertainment Postman mentions in his book is television, a new technology of the time, being a quick source of entertainment or performance from the people on screen. Postman states that within politics, religion, and worldwide issues the television needed to make the shows entertaining because if it were not, then the people watching would change the channel. The competition for the most entertaining channel was on the rise, causing the creators of these television series to make it more entertaining until entertainment was all the show needed to thrive. This explains Postman’s main point of the new technology (television) being able to give its viewers instant gratification. No need to analyze or discuss anything in detail. Postman’s criticisms of society in the 1980s line up with Aldous Huxley’s observations. One of the said observations was everyone’s desire to be gratified of their wants immediately by using a drug called soma. The drug soma instantly makes anyone’s negative emotions disappear leaving the individual with no time between the desire and the gratification. For example, Lenina begins doubting her happiness as John has rejected her offer to sleep with him. To fill this void, Lenina uses soma to stop the negative emotions and the doubt about her happiness. This connects a lot to the current where maybe I am feeling down on myself, I tend to avoid the issue and use one of the latest technologies, the internet. Scrolling on an app or playing a video takes away the stress of the moment making me ignorant to my true feelings. Overall, I believe that Huxley’s prediction of future society lies with Postman’s analysis of society and proves many of the ideas novel to be true. Because both novels highlight similar problems, it brought up a question which one did I feel more connected to and if either format, essay or fictional story, did I enjoy and understand more?
Aldous Huxley wrote a novel that uses a fictional storyline to demonstrate to the readers his ideas and the world he imagines for the future. I found Huxley’s novel a very disturbing read with many comments on society and human nature throughout. For example, Bernard constantly desires to fit into society but also hates them for outcasting him. As soon as he thinks of exploiting Linda and John to get praised by his co-workers, he does exactly that. But during his time at the reserve, he sympathizes with John as he is also cast out of society. This shows that Huxley was able to get his points across to the readers. Along with his strength came flaws as the novel did not have a super clear plot line and many parts needed editing, either to shorten or straighten out some scenes that were not as obvious. For example, at the beginning of the novel, the entire first chapter is a bunch of exposition of how Huxley’s dystopia functions through a tour of the director of the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Center with a bunch of students who we never meet again. I know the purpose of the storyline was to be able to convey his ideas but it threw me off when the plot line was unclear. On the other hand, Postman used a book-length essay using logic and specific examples to demonstrate his ideas. Because the book was a giant essay I felt that when it came to the topic it discussed the examples he gave were very persuasive. When Postman referred to how when debates or discussions are televised they are also in the form of entertainment and used the example of a discussion on ABC station where important leaders and politicians such as Elie Wiesel or Henry Kissinger would talk for about 5 minutes each not addressing each other points because of the short attention span of the audience. A lot of people I think would not have much criticism towards Postman’s essay novel. For the most part, I agree, the book was not only extremely well written every argument he made was logical and had examples as evidence. But I found it so dull to read, it could have been the amount of references to the 1980s that I did not understand. It could have been that it was my first time reading a book-length essay. But then, I realized that it was because I didn’t find the book entertaining, when I realized this I knew both Postman and Huxley were right. My young mind is consumed by the desire to be entertained. Overall, I think that both methods were equally effective at exploring their ideas and every author has their own of expressing these ideas.