Anat Balint
Neil Postman
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/fostman.html
Neil Postman, one of the world's leading theorists in the field of communication and education, died yesterday at his home in New York, at the age of 73, after battling lung cancer for two years. Postman headed the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University, and became known worldwide for his critical books on the worship of technology and the negative influence of television on culture and public discourse.
Postman has published 18 books, four of which have been translated into Hebrew: "Loss of Childhood", "The End of Education", "Entertainment to Death" and "Technopoli", which was recently published in Israel (all published by Poalim Library).
Postman was born in New York, to a Jewish family that immigrated from Poland, and lived in the city all his life. He studied at City College in New York and in the XNUMXs moved to New York University, where he initially established a department of communication and the environment. Later he headed the Department of Culture and Communication.
Postman claimed that technology is the dominant force that shapes culture, and every time a new technology emerges, culture is shaped in its image. In his book "Technopoly" he claimed that towards the 21st century, human society has undergone a change from a society that uses technology to a society controlled by it. He called the society convinced that technological achievements are the highest fulfillment of humanity "technopoly".
As part of this worldview, Postman was a sharp critic of the effects of television on culture. In his book "The Loss of Childhood" he claimed that television exposes children to the world of adults without diagnosis and thus turns them into adults already at the age of 7-6, as was the case in the Middle Ages.
In his book "Entertainment to Death" he presented television as a device that encourages viewers to voluntarily enslave them, similar to Aldous Huxley's vision in the book "Wonderful New World". Postman wrote: "Those who scared Orwell (in his book "1984", PB) were the book confiscations. What scared Huxley was the day when there would no longer be any reason to confiscate a book, since there would no longer be anyone who would want to read it." According to him, the replacement The written word, which used to be the dominant technology on television, led to the shallowing of public discourse and the superficiality of thought. Several media researchers in Israel were Postman's students, including Dr. Ava Berger and Dr. Yariv Ben-Eliezer.
Ben-Eliezer says that Postman was liberal and open to all technology, but his favorite medium was that of conversation and exchanging opinions with people. "Everyone who studied with him loved him dearly. He was a leader, a guide, a colleague and a man of great spirit." Postman visited Israel many times and participated in conferences and lectures here for free.
Postman left behind a wife, two sons and a daughter.
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