Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology, and Education - Hardcover

Postman, Neil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039457270X ISBN 13: 9780394572703

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1988

Synopsis

In a series of feisty and ultimately hopeful essays, one of America's sharpest social critics casts a shrewd eye over contemporary culture to reveal the worst -- and the best -- of our habits of discourse, tendencies in education, and obsessions with technological novelty. Readers will find themselves rethinking many of their bedrock assumptions: Should education transmit culture or defend us against it? Is technological innovation progress or a peculiarly American addiction? When everyone watches the same television programs -- and television producers don't discriminate between the audiences for Sesame Street and Dynasty -- is childhood anything more than a sentimental concept? Writing in the traditions of Orwell and H.L. Mencken, Neil Postman sends shock waves of wit and critical intelligence through the cultural wasteland.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

of feisty and ultimately hopeful essays, one of America's sharpest social critics casts a shrewd eye over contemporary culture to reveal the worst -- and the best -- of our habits of discourse, tendencies in education, and obsessions with technological novelty. Readers will find themselves rethinking many of their bedrock assumptions: Should education transmit culture or defend us against it? Is technological innovation progress or a peculiarly American addiction? When everyone watches the same television programs -- and television producers don't discriminate between the audiences for Sesame Street and Dynasty -- is childhood anything more than a sentimental concept? Writing in the traditions of Orwell and H.L. Mencken, Neil Postman sends shock waves of wit and critical intelligence through the cultural wasteland.<br><br><br><i>From the Trade Paperback edition.</i>

Reviews

In a delightful series of pungent essays (some originating as talks), Postman takes on a variety of contemporary cultural phenomena including television (and its deleterious effects), language, the crisis in education, politics, and social "science," to list a few. The concluding piece, "My Graduation Speech" (offered freely for use), is alone worth the price of the book, but Postman's keen observations and thoughful concerns are equally apparent throughout. Readers of his earlier works ( Teaching as a Subversive Activity , Amusing Ourselves to Death , and The Disappearance of Childhood ) will also applaud this. Highly recommended to academics and the general public. Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 039457270X
• ISBN 13: 9780394572703
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 201