“We are becoming sillier by the minute.”
Such was Neil Postman’s judgment in 1985. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, he warned against the consequences of the decline of a print-based culture in favor of “a television-based epistemology.” That meant a retreat from the mental effort of traditional literacy in favor of a mind-altering technology. “As culture moves from printing to televising, its ideas of truth move with it.” The truth of things is easily missed in the screen’s succession of images and spectacles with the lifespan of a mayfly.
By now, silly is too mild a word. Cell phones and social media have done more than accelerate the transformation of reading into viewing. They displaced it. The swap stunts culture at its source. The word “influencer” is no longer an ordinary noun; it has become a career goal. To some 26 percent of today’s young people, it eclipses occupational choices that require training and formal qualifications like a college degree. The thrill of online affirmation, measured in followers, crowds out time-honored pride in useful work.
One gauge of American cultural decline is the vanishing tally of public intellectuals beside a swelling number of wired celebrities. Influencers are social media performers, pitchmen for an infinity of purposes from brands to lifestyles. They capitalize on the investment of young audiences in their own self-image as knowing consumers of attitudes and gear trending in their social scene.
By contrast, public intellectuals were reflective writers, editors, and trained and tested scholars who addressed an
