Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education [Paperback]

Neil Postman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 1992

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Postman is that rare social critic whose commentary on the current state of American culture and education is a funny as it is throughout and well argued...a provocative collection." -- The New York Times Book Review



"Postman uses cogent arguments, sharp needles and gentle humor to challenge readers to change their ways of thinking ... delightful." -- St. Louis Post Dispatch

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (March 3, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067973421X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679734215
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Neil Postman was chairman of the department of communication arts at New York University. He passed away in 2003.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Introduction to Neil Postman, April 12, 1999

By 

Jeffrey S. Bennion "Professional dilettante" (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education (Paperback)

This book contains essays and chapter excerpts from most of his other works (though not the later ones like Technopoly and The End of Education). Neil Postman is one of the keenest and most articulate of that species I call the "cultural hand-wringers". I'm very sympathetic to the arguments he makes, though sometimes I think he may be a bit too dire. I've read everything he's written that I can get my hands on, and all of it has been a total delight. (I'd steer any Postman fans to Robert Hughes _The Culture of Complaint_ for similarly keen, delightful, and refreshing take-no-prisoners denunciations) Since so much of his work is a complaint about how form (e.g. TV) has coopted function, I hardly think Postman himself would approve of this kind of recommendation, but he's so much fun to read even if you *don't* agree with him that it's worth the effort anyway. But watch out: he's so persuasive and passionate with his arguments, you'll probably end up doing so no matter how well-armed you are against it.

Two essays that have stuck in my mind: "The German Question" where he ponders what the Holocaust consciousness will mean to postwar Germany, and "The Small Screen" where Postman is invited to write something nice about television for once.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but only if you're new to Postman., August 19, 1999

By 

Gary J. Malone ([e-mail]) (Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education (Paperback)

The book probably is a good summary of Neil Postman's ideas if you're new to him, but if you've already read his major works there's not much here to recommend. In fact, some of the ideas and even the prose can be pretty slack at times. Should pique the interest of newcomers, however.

27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed, April 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education (Paperback)

I have admired Neil Postman ever since the days of Teaching As a Subversive Activity. It's thus with regret that I can't recommend this collection of essays. I found little insight, much condescension, and even more of what in his opening essay he sneered at social scientists for doing: stating the obvious as if it was profound discovery.

That opening essay, "Social Science as Moral Theology," in which he attempts - and fails - to show that sociologists, psychologists, and the like are "storytellers" rather than scientists, is a prime example. (Since my background is in physics, I should have been expected to be sympathetic to Postman's view. That I still found it so unconvincing should be an indication of how weak his argument is.) Just a few examples:

- He defines "science" in a way that excludes social sciences - an utterly invalid method by which anyone can "prove" literally anything.

- He derides as meaningless non-science studies linking TV viewing with aggressive behavior because they haven't come to any clear conclusion. (Astronomers still can't agree on how galaxies form. Are they not doing science?)

- He misstates scientific process and misdefines "empirical" as requiring "natural life situations," by which standard all of quantum physics and much of relativity physics are likewise non-scientific "storytelling."

- And frankly, anyone who gleefully writes about how he sprang a well-considered line of argument on a professor and brags that "it did not take me long ... to reduce her to saying" such-and so is not engaging in rational argument but ego-tripping.

What makes this all the more frustrating is that in subsequent chapters he does not hesitate to use some of the same methods he denounces as "storytelling" - demographic surveys, intergroup comparisons, etc. - when they will advance his argument.

Teaching as a Subversive Activity remains one of the most important books ever published about education. If you haven't read it, do. And do read Postman's works on the dangers of over-reliance on technology. But skip this volume in favor of another.