Neil Postman

Quotes

• “A definition is the start of an argument, not the end of one.”
• “The key to all fanatical beliefs is that they are self-confirming....(some beliefs are) fanatical not because they are "false", but because they are expressed in such a way that they can never be shown to be false.”
• “There is a difference between rape and seduction, technology can rape a culture or be forced to seduce it.”
• “Someone needs to mention what may be lost. Of course, one of the problems is that what I would judge to be a negative consequence, someone else might see as a positive consequence. For example, telephones in automobiles seem to me a very bad idea. So does spending a lot of hours "communicating" on the Internet when one could use that time reading Cervantes' Don Quixote.”
• “Reflect on these questions — and others that these can generate. Please do not merely react to them.”
• “What can be called "consciousness of the process of abstraction." That is, consciousness of the fact that out of a virtually infinite universe of possible things to pay attention to, we abstract only certain portions, and those portions turn out to be the ones for which we have verbal labels and categories. What we abstract, i.e., "see," and how we abstract it, or see it, or see it or think about it, is for all practical purposes inseparable from how we talk about it.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born

( 1931-03-08 ) March 8, 1931, New York City, U.S.

Died

October 5, 2003 (2003-10-05) (aged 72), New York City, U.S.

Occupation

Writer, professor

Education

State University of New York at Fredonia , Columbia University

Period

1959–2003

Subjects

Media ecology Media criticism cultural criticism education

Spouse

Shelley Ross

Children

3, including Marc

via Wikipedia infobox