Amusing Ourselves with Fear, Anger and Hate

To amuse doesn't just mean to entertain much less to do so in a pleasant way. Webster's dictionary has two obsolete definitions that we need to keep in mind when thinking about Neil Postman's critique of modern society: that we are amusing ourselves to death.

We can very easily amuse ourselves into ignoring all sorts of things by escaping into the pleasant and enjoyable. This is what most people will think when they hear the phrase 'amusing ourselves to death'. This is indeed one path, but it is the obvious one and not the one we are on.

Postman is quick to point out that the most obvious and popularly suspected path to a dystopia is usually not the one that will be followed. We are too smart and alert for that.

He points out that the Orwellian dystopia of 1984 is indeed possible but not as likely as the less known and feared dystopia of Huxley's Brave New World. Orwell talks of a totalitarian society that rules over its people with fear and pain, where information is restricted and tightly controlled. Huxley's version has people going along with the totalitarian regime because they are trained to do so and are rewarded (or distracted from anything else) with pleasure. Information does not need to be hidden or restricted because people are out of the habit of looking for it and are too busy indulging in pleasure to bother.

Postman thinks what we are actually heading for is something much more akin to Huxley's vision. We will not want to read or think or question because we will be busy entertaining ourselves (and consuming). We will be indulging in escapism and be confident that we can do so indefinitely with no real consequences. What is worse is that when we do come back from our escape, we are not capable of thinking or communicating in deep, meaningful and constructive ways because we have lost the ability to: amusement and escapism cause our thinking and communication skills to atrophy.

What is really dangerous about this is that there is no organized conspiracy that is doing this to us. The forces that are degrading us through amusement are fragmented and unorganized. They are all just out for their own profit and not colluding to control society. While that means that there is no puppet master pulling the strings and controlling us all, it also means there is no one or no force keeping society together and keeping us from slowing destroying the modern world and society that has been built up over the past two centuries or more.

In short, the main difference between Huxley's dystopia and our modern reality is that A Brave New World had puppet masters behind the scenes making sure it all runs smoothly and is sustainable, while our reality is one that tends more and more towards being unsustainable the more we amuse ourselves.

This is not a dystopia where a group of people's idea of a perfect world or society (a utopia) goes wrong and becomes more horrible and repressive than wonderful and liberating. This is a decent into chaos and disorder and has every potential to be more horrible and repressive than a dystopia.

But back to the word amuse: Are we really amusing ourselves into a downward spiral? The hate and fear that has gripped a large portion of the US and most of its media is not pleasant escapism. The news and politics are not pleasant and entertaining; they are often frightening and angry, and they inspire anger and hate.

The two obsolete definitions of amuse shed light on this: 1) to occupy the attention of, absorb

2) distract, bewilder. These do not necessarily have anything to do with pleasure. They do however have a lot to do with escapism and keeping our attention.

The media and internet distract and bewilder us with mountains of information, misinformation, trivia and data that keep us from paying attention to what is really around us (people, events, problems) and keep us from making decisions or taking action in regards to them even when we do see them. We are first distanced from everything and then paralyzed by the sheer amount of stuff coming at us.

After a while of course, we become numb to the flood that we find ourselves constantly immersed in. At that point you might think that we would find a shore, any shore, to crawl on to and dry out. If we did, we would likely be overwhelmed by the reality and problems we had been distracted from. We may choose to dive back into the flood and stay. But the media cannot allow us to even have that reprieve or the ability to make that choice. They also cannot allow us to remain numb and passive because their business model is based on keeping us actively tuned in.

As a result, they find ways to keep us engaged. After we have taken on all of the mindless pleasing entertainment we can handle and feel a need to do something, feel something, we become restless. In that restlessness we become susceptible to fear, anger and hate. 

It is no longer easy or even possible to lead us into an escape from all reality and problems, so the media leads us back into caricatures of selected realities and problems that are constructed in such a way that we cannot sit back and be passive in the face of them. (Part of the reason we fall for this is that our thinking and communication skill have atrophied.) These grotesque representations of reality are so inflammatory, divisive and seemingly urgent that we must have an opinion and a strong one at that. In this way, the media keeps us insulated from the real problems, the real world, and at the same time keeps us engaged, keeps us from feeling detached and numb.

I am not saying that this is done intentionally, far from it. I doubt that anyone laid this out as a plan and is trying to get something out of it, like political or economic control. It is merely what is happening as people and the media try to make money, keep informed and feel relevant. And, that is the biggest problem: no one is in control. Through this amusement that is more and more filled with fear, anger and hate, we are throwing ourselves down the spiral towards chaos. We are not in or heading into a dystopia where some evil elite or force is in control; we are heading into chaos, and as we go we are destroying our personal abilities and the societal structures necessary to combat that chaos.  It isn’t a path filled with pleasure, but it is a road of amusement that can lead to the death of modern society.