The essays and their titles provide a good overview of Neil Postman's interest and research (perhaps a chapter called media or TV is missing): progress, technology, language, information, narratives,children, democracy, education. A pleasant and light read about the value of education and thinking and the dangers of technology.

Neil Postman lived in an era of change where the print media were losing their primacy while the internet media were only emerging. His critique of technology is marred by his unwillingness to engage and use new technologies. He was already an elderly gentleman when he wrote this in 1999 but fax should not have been the last technology he actively used. How can he write about technology and refuse to use email, a computer or the internet? The result is a predictable pessimism and an unwarranted faith into past solutions (especially newspapers). I think he would be horrified in the decline of US print journalism.

His views on education are welcome but suffer from the US blindness towards inequality and class. While every child deserves the care Postman advocates, the enormous differences in school funding and parental resources and wealth lead to a stratefied society where the success of the few (Barrack Obama although both his parents were already university graduates) serves as a cover for the failure of the many. The same problem hampers his discussion of democracy where the real question is not elite vs. mob rule but the (structural and self-inflicted) disenfrachisement of a large part of the population from democratic decisions.

Overall a good introduction into the thinking of an American optimistic pessimist. While I think he arrives at wrong answers, his style and erudition are always enlightening and entertaining. Perhaps the medium is the message. ( )

This book has had strong reviews, and also some strong criticisms aimed at it. I was intrigued and picked it up in London when we were down visiting Kristan; I read about half of it in the shopping mall waiting for them to finish their shopping tour, and completed it the next morning. I had not heard of Postman before, but discover that he is well-known as a thought-provoking observer of the modern scene, and in particular, what is wrong with it. He has written books on the dismal state of education, about the "disappearance of childhood", and an interesting-sounding one on "Amusing Ourselves to Death". In fact, Building a Bridge feels a bit like a pastiche of various bits and pieces of his writings of thinking, with chapters on progress, technology, language, information, narratives, children, democracy, and education. He has been criticized for his pride in being a techno-nerd (he certainly doesn't use a computer and won't even use the crusie control on his car), and for ignoring the dark side of the 18th century with its class-ridden society and the harsh, brutal lives of those on the bottom of the ladder in terms of poverty, filth and disease; I think the first has merit; the second seems to me to miss the point: Postman is not extolling the 18th century in all its aspects as a model for the modern world, but he does have some good points.

For instance, and I think this is his central argument:

The gift of the eighteenth century is to be found in the intelligence and vigor of the questions it raised about progress, a fact that was well understood by the best minds of the century that followed.

Postman is correct when he argues that we have now embraced the idea that progress is synonymous with moral, social, and psychic progress, whereas, according to him, the 19th century carried forward the 18th century skepticism on whether technological progress goes hand-in-hand with moral progress.

I also like Postman's definition of the relationships among information, knowledge, and wisdom: information "consists of statements about the facts of the world"; knowledge is "organized information–information that is embedded in some context; information that has a purpose, that leads one to seek further information in order to understand something about the world"; and wisdom is, "the capacity to know what body of knowledge is relevant to the solution of significant problems". According to Postman, "knowledge cannot judge itself. Knowledge must be judged by other knowledge, and therein lies the essence of wisdom".

I sympathize with many of Postman's other ideas as well, but feel that I need to re-read the book, in a quieter environment, to give it proper consideration, and a proper summary/critique here.
(Nov/99)