Neil Postman foresaw our trivial dystopia
Of the very few activities in my life that I count as being unambiguously improving, reading books and visiting authoritarian states probably score highest. Both are generally engaging, educational in some form or other, and force me to confront alternative visions of life. I feel much the same way, whenever I dip into Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), which explores how and why populations might realistically become oppressed or compliant.
