What We Love Can Ruin Us?

I began reading Amusing Ourselves to Death recently and immediately in the foreword a common theme was bridged between this novel and Huxley's Brave New World. Neil Postman himself wrote, "Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us," believing that Huxley's prediction was true. Right away in the first chapter, he tries to make the point across that television, show business, and electronic media influences the way we look at the world and sway our point of views on important issues, such as political debates. This influence can allow us to make decisions that are unwise based on what we see on television. Postman explains that television relays information largely through visual imagery. As materialistic as it sounds, we as humans like to look at nice-looking things or people. Thus, an outcome of a political debate can be settled by what "looks nice." Postman explains that an image of an overweight man can cloud our sensibility by instead focusing on what the political candidate looks on the outside, rather than the ideas on the inside.

This disturbing news allows us to realize what television and electronic media is doing to our logical ability to make decisions. Most Americans spend a great amount of time in front of the TV using it as one of their many favorite past times. Who doesn't like to sit down on the couch with a bag of chips and watch a few shows here and there? We condemn Huxley and his thinking that the world would be better off without any sort of love or attachment, but there is a possibility that what we love can help destroy us. Though it is not a deep love, it is a materialistic attachment that underlines the same theme that Huxley had predicted. In a disturbing way, could Huxley be right?