post-literate society

Algorithm-driven echo chambers ensure that we only ever hear from people we already agree with. It’s not that people don’t argue anymore—we argue constantly —but the nature of the debate has changed. The goal is no longer to explore or challenge ideas, but to perform intelligence and “win” whatever discourse is currently relevant. The effect is an... See more

We no longer look to those who challenge us intellectually, we look to those who offer us a perfectly packaged lifestyle.

Ideas are no longer for discussion, they’re for consumption.

Public intellectuals aren’t becoming difficult to find because we’re in any kind of deficit of brilliant thinkers, but because the space for these figures has nearly disappeared. Intellectual influencer’s today—though brilliant in their own right—have to contend with branding themselves for social media. They have to publish articles and make... See more

In Amusing Ourselves to Death 1, Neil Postman wrote that “each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.” Television speaks to us in a particular dialect, Postman argued. When everything turns into television, every form of communication... See more

It seems distant now, but once upon a time the Internet was going to save us from the menace of TV. Since the late fifties, TV has had a special role, both as the country’s dominant medium, in audience and influence, and as a bête noire for a certain strain of American intellectuals, who view it as the root of all evil. In “Amusing Ourselves to... See more