Foreword ‘We were keeping our eye on 1988, When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang soy in praise ‘of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had hel. Wher fever else the teor had happened, we, atleast, had not been sted by Orwellian nightmares. ‘But we had forgtien that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another—slighty older, sighly less well known, ‘equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Contrary ‘common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell «id not prophesy the same thing. Orwell wams that we willbe ‘overcome by an extemally imposed oppression. But in Husey’s sion, no Big Brothers required to deprive people oftheir au ‘onomy, maturity and history. As he sai, peope will ome to love tei oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacies to think "What Orwell feared were thse who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reasoa toban a book, for thee would be no one who wanted 10 read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell eared that the truth would be concealed from us, Huxley feared the tuth would be drowned in a sea of irelevance. Orwell feared we Would be- ‘ome a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become atrv- lal culture preoccupied with some equivalent of the fecis, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley reForeword 7 ‘marked in Brave New World Revcted, the cv iberaians and rationalists who are ever onthe ale to oppose tyranny “fled {0 tak into account man’s almos infinite appetite for dstrac. tons.” In 1964, Huxley added. people ae controlled by inf. ‘ng pain. In Brave New Word. they ate controlled by inicting pleasure In shor, Orwell eared that wiat we hate wil ruin us uxdey feared that what we lve wil ruin ws ‘This book is about the possibilty that Hunley. not Orwell, as rightlL The Medium Is the Metaphor ‘At diferent times in our history diferent cites have been the focal point of a radiating Americanspirit. In the late eighteenth ‘century, for example, Boston was the center of politcal rad calism that ignited a shot heard round the woeld—a shot that could not have been Bred any other place but the suburbs of Boston, At its report all Americans, incuding Virginians, be- ‘came Bostonians at heart. Inthe mid-nineteenth century, New York became the symbol ofthe ida of meking pot America— ‘or at least a non-English one—as the wretched refuse from all ‘over the world disembarked at Els Island and spread over the land their strange languages and even stranger ways. In the carly twentieth century, Chicago, the city of big shoulders and heavy winds, came to symbolize the indusal energy and y- amis of Ameria. If there sa satue of «hog butcher some- were in Chicago, then it stands as a reminder ofthe time when America was ralloads, cate, stel mils and entrepreneurial ‘adventures. If there sno such statue, there ought tobe jus a8 there sa statue of a Minute Man to recal the Age of Boston, a= the Statue of Liberty recalls the Age of New York ‘Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a ‘metaphor of our national character an aspeation. its symbol a ‘hiny-foothigh cardboard picture of slot machine anda cho- rus gil. For Las Vegas isa city emtrely devoted to the idea of, entertainment, and as such prodaims the spirit of a culture in ‘hich all public discourse increasingly takes the form of enter- ‘ainment. Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and 2“Amusing Ourieves to Death : ‘commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, lagely without protet or even much popular notice: The result is that we are a people on the verge of amu Ing ourselves o death. ‘As I wrt, the President of the United States sa former Hol- |ywood movie acor. One of his principal challengers in 1984 was once a featured player on television's most glamorous show of the 1960s, that Ist say an astronaut. Naturally, _move has been made about his extraterrestrial adventure, For mer nominee George McGovern as hosted the popula telev- sion show “Saturday Night Live.” So has a candidate of more tecent vintage, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. ‘Meanwhile, former President Richard Nixon, who once ‘aimed he lost an election because he was sabotaged by make- ‘upmen, has offered Senator Edward Kennedy advice an how to ‘make a serious run forthe presidency: lose twenty pounds. Al- ‘hough the Constitution makes no mention of it would ap ear that fat people are now effectively excladed from running {or high politcal ofce. Probably bald people at well, Almost ‘certainly those whose looks are not significantly enhanced by the cosmedcan’s ar. Indeed, we may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology asthe fed of expertise ‘over which a politician must have competent contol “America’s journals, Le. elevsion newscasts, have not ‘mised the point. Most spend more time with thet hair dryers ‘than with thei Scrips, withthe result that they comprise the ‘most glamorous group of people this side of Las Vegas. A ‘hough the Federal Communications Act makes no mention of 1 those without camera appeal are excluded from addressing the public about what is called “the news ofthe day.” Those with camera appeal can command slates exceeding one mall lion dollars a yea, ‘American businessmen discovered, long before the rest of us, that the quality and usefulness of ther goods are subordinate to the arifce oftheir display: that, infact half the principles of ‘he Medium I he Metaphor 5 capitalism as praised by Adam Smith or condemned by Karl ‘Mars are ielevan, Even the Japanese, who are sald to make beter cas than the Americans, know that economics is les a Ssence than a performing at, as Toyota's yearly adverising ‘budget confirms. ‘Not long ago, I saw Billy Graham joln with shecky Green, Red Buttons, Bonne Warwick, Milton Bede and other theoo- ‘ans in atribute to George Burs, who was celebrating himself for surviving eighty years in show busines. The Reverend Graham exchanged one-liners with Bums about making prepa rations for Etemit. Although the Bile makes no mention of, the Reverend Graham astred the audience that God loves those who make people laugh. It was an honest mistake. He ‘merely mistook NBC for God Dr. Ruth Westheimer i a psychologist who has a popular r dio program and a nightclub actin which she informs her aud- fences about sein all ofits infinite variety and in language once teserved forthe bedroom and steet comers. She is almost as entertaining as the Reverend Billy Graham, and has been ‘quoted a saying, "I don’t stat out tobe funny. But if comes ‘ut that way, use RI they call mean enteralner sy thats {reat When a professor teaches with a sense of humor, people walk away remembering." She did not say what they remem- beror of what use thelr remembering But se has a pont: t's {reat to be an entertainer. Indeed, in America God favors all those who possess both talent and a format to amuse, whether they be preachers, athletes, entrepreneur, policans, teachers torjouralss, tn America the last amusing peopl are is pro- fessional enteainers. ‘Colture watchers and worrers—those of the type who read books lke this one—will know thatthe examples above are not aberrations but, Infact, clichés. Thee is no shortage of eres who have observed and recorded the dissolution of public ds ‘course in America and its conversion into the art of show bus- ‘ess. But most of them, I believe, have barely begun to tel theAmusing urate to Death : sor othe orn and mening descent iy Tho who bun wen vigor ate mats fo example hat wat happening ihe ede fa ex. Insted cairn he conta tha es fra he mating fone ath eae sate ha hee ot aang "eh ott a comes tom tho sas and ambition. ee Thaw tended cra tthe explanation, an ont sy thee nt len fort, Mae, Peds, {ev tau ren Ceton Scns ae tobe light nay eve chou be ve sue sey have tol any near he we wah Wee a Mey ays someplace, eat tetany means anne tus usthe wit know he wht eine te i we televed we ta uence 0 ule ace Bar you mil nd aspen ee that presumes Sere fe ofc mater han ay tt hve come ber ae fechas recs te dec ao ppt wh hosis grin obenatos mde 2300 ye ops ae hs Ian argument hat ese senonon emo Maas Comenuon and potas that how we eg teas duct uch oavenatons wl hve the songs poste tice on what at we can convene pesado See omen ena Smee Te the word “eomenaon”metporcay 16 reer not nly spect bol cuss hopes ps rite parc we exchange messes as ten aleatteiaconvenalon os tere pec ream ton femvenaons conaced ne vary eal es Oar atenton here on how fos pb dour pa fd even dae wha kde cot ne och To ke «snpe example of what ths meas, oner he ‘he Medium ts he Metaphor 7 primitive technology of smoke signals. While Ido not know ‘xacly What content was once cared in the smoke signals of ‘American Indian, I can safely guess that it did not include pllloropbical argument. Pufs of smoke are insufficiently com- plex to expres leas on the nature of existence, and even hey were not, a Cherokee philosopher would run short of ether ‘rood or blankets lng before he reached his second arom. You “Cannot use smoke to do philosophy. is form excludes the ~~ “ToTaKE an example closer to home: As I sugested eave, tis implausible to imagine that anyone lke our twentyseventh President, the mult-chinned, three-hundred-pound Wiliam Howard Tat could be put forward asa presidental candidate in today’s world. The shape ofa man’s body is largely relevant to the shape of his ideas when he is addressing pubic in wet- ing or onthe radio or, for that matter, in smoke signal. But itis ‘ulte relevant on television. The gossnes of hree-hundked- pound image, even a aking one, would easy overwhelm any logical o situa subdeties conveyed by speech. For on televi sion, discourse is conducted largely through visual imagery, ‘which isto say that television gives us a conversation in images, ‘ot words, The emergence ofthe image manager in the politcal rena and te concomitant decline of ea ne ab caw See Soe os canta sae shlnghy oO. s form works against the content. ee a ee rere Pens gases areal excel een cree rience eee oe Ser nee cena fen ee oer reiare rene Se aa ino ‘her dally Dusiness. Sach information simply could not exist asAmusing Ourseive ts Death 7 art ofthe content of culture. This ides—that there f content ‘alle the news ofthe day’—was entirely created by the tele. raph (and since amplited by newer media), which made ie Possible to move decontexuaized information ver vast spaces at incredible speed. The news of the day i a figment of our technological imaginaon. Wis. quite precaey EERE TO agents of events fom all over the Ward be. ‘cause we have multiple media whose forms are well suited to fragmented conversation, Cultures without speed oF light me- ia—et us say, cultures in which smoke signals re the most efficent space-conquering tool avallable—do not have news af the day. Without a medium to creat ts form, the news ofthe day does natenis, “Tos then, as plainly as can, this book i an inquiry nto and a lamentation about the most significant American cultural {act ofthe second haf ofthe twentieth century the decline of {he Age of Typography and the ascendancy ofthe Age of Teles sion. This change-over has dramatically and imeversibly shied ‘the content and meaning of public discourse, since two media $0 vanly diferent cannot accommodate the same ideas As the Influence of print wan cs. religion. ion, and anything else that comprises public business mus and eC in eins that aFe moe wuabIe To ee If all ofthis sounds suspiciously Uke Marshall McLuhan’s aphorism, the medium isthe message, I wil not disavow the ‘sociation (although itis fshionabe o do so among respect, able scholars who, were t not for McLuhan, would today be ‘mute). met McLuhan thy years ago when Twas a graduate ‘Student and he an unknown English professor {believed then, 251 believe now, that he spoke in the tradition of Orwell and uley—tha is, a a prophese, and I have remained stealas to his teaching thatthe clearest way to see though cul to atend tlt tools for conversation might ad that my iter. ‘tin Tis point of view was fist red by a prophet far more The Medium I he Metaphor ° formidable than MeLuhan, more ancient than Plato. In study: {ng the Bible a5 a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and there fore are capable of taking command ofa culture. refer specif cally tothe Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites rom making concrete images of any- thing. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image, any likeness of anything that isin heaven above o that i fn the ‘arth beneath, or that sin the water beneath the earth." Lwon- ‘dered then, asso many others hav, 88 1 why the God ofthese people would have included instructions on how they were symbolize, or not symbole, thei expeence. It is a suange Injunction to include as part of an ethical system une its author rumed «commen beoween forms of uma communion ad ‘qualita a eae: We may hazard a guess that a people who ate belng asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity Would be rendered unto os bythe abit of daving pte or making satus or depicting ther ideas in any concrete, cono- raphe forms. The God ofthe Jews was to exist in the Word ‘and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring ‘the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconopraphy thus became blasphemy s0 that a new kind of God could enter a culture. People like ourselves win ae in the proces of converting theit culture from word-centered wo image-centered might profit by reflecting on this Mosal injunction. But even if Lam wrong in ‘hese conjectures, 1s, elev, a wise and particulary relevant supposition thatthe mea of communication available oa cul- ture area dominant influence on the fommaion of the culture's Imllectal and soil preoccupations. Speech, of couse, isthe primal and indispensable medium. It ‘made us human keeps us human, and in fot defines what hu- ‘man means. This isnot say that if there were no other means of communication all humans would find i equally convenient to speak about the same things in the same way. We know ‘enough about language to understand that variations intheAmasing Ourselves to Death wo structures of languages will result in vations in what may be called “word view." How people think about time and space, and about things ad process, willbe greatly influenced by the grammatical features oftheir language, We dare not sup- ose therefore that all human minds are unanimous in unde Standing how the word i pu together. But how much mote vergence there iin word view among diferent cultures can be mained when ne oer th ret umber and ant of tool for conversation that go Beyond speech. For although ul ‘urelsa.eaon of speech ceed tor ty eye dium of communicaion—fom panting to hieroglyphs to dian tev ak eto ee usapeer ae possible a unique mode of dicoure by providing anew oren- ‘alo Or thought for expression, for sensibly Which, of ‘courses what MLuban meant in saying dhe medium isthe message Hs aphorism, however, iin need of amendment be: ‘cause as itstands,itmay lead one to confuse a mesage with a metaphor. A message denote a specific, concrete statement about the word. But the forms of our med including the Symbols through which they permit conversation, de not make such statements. They ae rather like metaphors, working by unobtrusive but powerful implication to enforce ther spedal definitions of reality. Whether we ae experiencing the world through the lens of speech othe pined word othe television camera, our medi-metaphors cas the word for ws, se tence amet enlarge rede color argue case for ‘hat the world is ike. As EmstCassier remarked: Physi esty seems to secede in proportion a man's yb cv advances. Instead of dealing th the things theres ‘man ina sense constany conversing with hie, He hs 50 veloped hime in ings fos, im aril images, smh ‘al symbol o relious res that he cannor seo know anything except by he interpeston of an ail medium? ‘The Medium i he Metaphor n What is peculiar about such interpostons of media is that their tole in directing what we will ce or know is so rarely noticed. person Who reads & book or who watches television for who glances at his watch i not usualy interested in how his ‘mind i organized and controlled by these events tl less in ‘what idea of the world is suggested by a book, television, or a ‘watch, But there are men and women who have noticed these things especially in our own times. Lewis Mumford, fr exam: ple, has been one of our great notcers. He isnot the sort of & ‘man who looks at a clock merely to se what ime itis. Not that he lacks interest in the content of clocks, which sof concern to ‘everyone from moment to moment, but he is far more inte ‘sted in how a clock creates the dea of moment to moment.” He atends to he philosophy of clocks, to clocks as metaphor bout which our education has had litle to say and clock ‘makers nothing at al. “The clock.” Mumford has concluded, "isa plec of power machinery whose ‘produc is seconds and minutes.” In manufacturing such a product, the clock has the effet of disassocatng time from human events and ths nour ‘shes the belie in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences. Moment 10 moment, It tums ou, snot ‘God's conception, or nature's. tis man conversing with himself bout and trough aplece of machinery he created In Mumford’ great book Teck end Cvlization, he shows how, beginning in the fourteenth century, the clack made Us {uo time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers. Inthe process, we have leamed ireverence toward the un and the seasons for ina world made up of seconds and minutes, the authority of nature ts superseded. Indeed, as Mumford points ‘out, with the invention ofthe clock, Etemity ceased to serve 3 ‘the measure and focus of human events. And thus, though few ‘would have imagined the connection the inexorable ticking of the clock may have had mote 19 do with the weakening of God's supremacy than all the treatises produced by the phi &Amaing Ourselves to Death Iosophers of the Enlightenment thai to sy, the clock into- ced anew form of conversation between man and God, in hich God appears to have been the loser. Pethaps Moses Should have included another Commandment: Thou salt not ‘make mechanical representations of time “That the alphabet introduced a new form of conversation be ‘oven man and man s by now a commonplace among schol ars To beable to see one's uterances rather than onl to hear them no small mater, hough our dation, once agai. has had lite to say about this: Nonetheless, itis car that phonetic wating created a new conception of knowledge, aswell os 2 ew sense ofintellgence of audience and of posterity ll of which Plato recognized tan early sage in the development of tex. “No man of imeligence.” he wrote in bis Seventh Ltr, “wal venture to expres his philosophical views in language «specially not in language that unchangeable, which src of that which is set down in writen characters" This nocwih- standing. he vote voluminously and undesood bee than anyone ese thatthe seing down of ews in writen characte would be the begining of philosophy not its end. Philosophy ‘annot exist without eticsm. and wring makes T-posile SIXT CORVERTERE To subject thought to a continuous and concen- Tad ray. Wats tecas pesd s birth othe grammaan Toga the eon. he sto. fan, the sclemtt—all those who must hold language before ‘em so That The ea Fe Wha W ens Where casa Whereis Tending —— ato koe allo this, which means that he knew that wring ‘would bring abou a perceptual revolution: ashi fom the eat tothe eyeas an organ oflanguage processing. Indeed there ba legend that o encourage sucha shit Pato insisted that hiss dens stady geometry before entering Bis Acdemy. Ite, i was a sound idea, for asthe great terry exe Nomhrop rye ‘has remarked, “the writen word is far more powerful than si PY @ reminder: e-eaes the post in the preset, and gives 2 ‘The Medium isthe Metaphor B us not the familar remembered thing bu the lites inten Si ofthe summoned hallucination” "Al that Pato sumed about the consequences of wring som wel underacedby sbroplogis xeiay Use fave mie cars in whch speech isthe only source of Complex conensaton iss tno thatthe ten sores Nordop Pye met OSegET TOT aves Staspeang a oka ‘Somers WA ofthe Bi dr scaly have ap ‘peared that way t0 those who invented it, and that is why we Should not be sured thatthe Epyptan god Thoth, who Alleged to have boupht wring tothe King Tham, was abso theo ef maple Pople Hee ousces mys noting wor tows in ritng. bur out andvopologts Know ow Scange tea maghalMeppens 4p oo people acca Sth noone and ye wh eveyone What cold Be gS ‘Bane slence one ensuite when addresng a quston wo 2 tex? What could be more mepbysealypusng tan af Greing an unscenadience, every ter of books mst thd conecing one bere one Knows that an unkown ‘earl dsayprove oe miundersand? Thing alo sup bectae what my bok I abut show cur own undergoing avs and embig sf re the inal of wring tothe magi of eearoni, What {mean pots out here that he inroducion no a cleo tec figue such as wring ora clock mat merely an extension of Inas power to ind tine but tanormaton of is may of ‘hnkig-ad, ofcourse ofthe content otis cae, Ad tat is what mean say by cling a mediom a ataphor We ae fold in school quite corey thats metaphor sugges what 8 thing ste by comparing it something che. And by the omer of sggeton hs fines «conception in our ns {iat weinmot ipn he ne igo te oe: ght itaveavengugea se Goda and veneae arth find dat caver humid by Knowle, And i theAmusing Ourselves to Death “ metaphors no longer serve Ws, we must nthe nature of the ‘matter, find others that will. Light is 2 particle: language, 2 river: God (as Bertrand Russell proclaimed), a diferent equ ‘ion: the mind, 2 garden that years tobe culvated, ‘But our medis-metaphors are not so explicit of $0 vivid, these, and they ae far more complex. In understanding thelr metaphorical function, we must take ino account the symbolic i forms of their information, the source of thei information, the ‘quantity and speed of their information, the context in which thelr information i experienced, Thus, it takes some digging to fet at them, to grasp, fr example that a clock recreates ime a8 tn independent, mathematically precise sequence; that writing fecreates the mind asa tablet on which experience is waten; that the telegraph recreates news as a commodity. And yet such digging becomes easier if we star from the assumption that tool we create an idea is embedded that goes be- ‘yond de function of the hing ill has ben pointed ot. for “example, thatthe invention of eyeglasses inthe tel century ‘ot only made it possible to Improve defective vision but sug- gested the idea that human beings need not acept ar final either the endowments of nature or the ravages of time. Bye lasses refuted the bellef that anatomy is destiny by puting forward the idea that ur bodies as well as our minds are in provable. Ido not think it goes too far to say that there i ink ‘berween the invention of eyeglasses inthe twelfth century and ‘ene-spliting research in the twentieth ‘Even such an insrument as the microscope, hardly a tool of everyday use, had embedded within it quite astonishing idea, ‘ot about biology but about psychology. By revealing a world hitherto hidden from vew, the microscope suggested a porsbl: ity about the structure ofthe ming, ‘things are not what they seem, microbes luk, unseen, on and under our skin ithe invisible controls the ible, den sit ‘ot posible that is and egos and superegos also lurk some- where unseen? What elk x prychoanalyis but a microscope of "The Medium I the Metaphor 1s ‘he mind? Where do our notions of mind come from trom ‘metaphors generated By Oo ool? What doe rea 10 Say ‘hat someone hasan TQ of 126? There are no numbers in peo ples heads. nteligence does not have quanty or magnitude, except a we believe that it does. And wity do we believe that does? Because we have tool that imply that dhs fs what the ‘ind i ike Indeed, ur tools for thought sugges to us what Cur bodes ae lk, as when someone refers ther “biological lock” or when we tal of our “gene codes,” of when we read someone's face like book, of when our fail exprestons telegraph ou intentions. ‘When Galileo remarked tha the language of nature waten {in mathematics, he meant it only asa metaphor. Nature Iselt doesnot speak. Neither do our minds or our bodies or, more to the poit of this book, our bodes polite. Our conversations bout nature and about ourselves ate conducted in whatever anguages” we fin i possible and convenient o employ. We do not ee nature or intligence or human motivation of eo ‘oy 35 isbut only 2 our languages ae. And our languages {ye our mela. Our media are out metaphors. Qur metaphors ‘create the content of ae