The Disappearance of Childhood

This is one of Neil Postman's best books. It is also one of his shortest, and it makes a great introduction to the world of his thinking. Postman had a knack for downloading the difficult ideas of media philosophers like Marshall McLuhan and stating them plainly, directly and with very little artifice. So, for those who have attempted to approach McLuhan, but find his hyperbolic way of speaking off-putting, Postman makes a good introduction. In fact, Postman's books are probably the best introduction for the beginner to the entire field of Media Studies, which began in 1950 with the publication of Harold Innis's Empire and Communications. Postman gets right to the point, and his point is that childhood--though a biological phenomenon--is largely a cultural construct. It is not a given. If a society regards its children as miniature adults, as they were so regarded in the Middle Ages,then it will not treat them like children, but like adults. When they are treated like adults, they act with all the knowing concupiscence and violent irascibility of adults. When they are treated as a separate category from the concept of "adult," their behavior patterns evidence a very different psychology. Thus, "childhood" in this sense is indeed a culutral construct, and it is a construct, according to Postman, that is now in full disinetegration. In many ways, Postman's book can be regarded as a footnote to McLuhan's Gutenberg Galaxy, for in that book, McLuhan discussed how the advent of the printing press brought with it a whole series of new social and cultural structures and ideas that did not exist prior to its invention, such as the nation state, the idea of intellectual property, the idea of individuality itself, linear, organized thinking, etc. It made possible the invention of new literary genres such as the essay and the novel, and changed the social conditions that had once made it possible for the epic to flourish. Thus, the printing press put the epic out of business and favored the rise of the novel. Postman's book adds to this list of new Renaissance cultural modalities made possible by typography, the idea of the child as a distinct entity from an adult based on the fact of the adult's literacy and the child's lack thereof. With print, the adult came into possession of a new hoard of secret knowledge that only those who could learn how to read could have access to. Thus, knowledge regarding such matters as shame and sexuality, sin, the structure of the cosmos, morality, etc. became things which a child did not properly know about until he was of an age to be able to read. Thus, literacy and its gradually increasing mastery became identical with the idea of a responsible adult. Postman says that this idea is now disappearing as a result of the flourishing of electronic culture, and in particular, the television. Television as a mass medium lays all the secrets of adult life bare and open and accessible for any child who wants to hear about them

This book offers an unusual and rewarding historical perspective on childhood. I had never imagined that there would be a connection between the invention of the printing press and childhood, but Postman shows there is one.This book from a communications professor changed the way I think about communications technology and how these techologies impact children and adults: from the printing press to television. For example, from now on, I will observe more closely the relationships between children and adults as portrayed on television and in movies. Even though the book was written during the 1970s and refers to shows of that era, I believe that were Dr. Postman able, he would make the same points concerning many of today's television shows, especially news, commercials, and sitcoms. I wish that he had been able to update the book with his thoughts about childhood and the Internet.The book has an excellent bibliography.

When browsing for other items I saw by happy accident that this book is still available. It's a pleasure to recommend this brilliant piece of argument - that the postmodern world of hyper-communication has erased the passage of development we have hitherto called childhood and replaced the child with the little adult, with access to all the "secrets" of sexuality, risk and pleasurethat once were revealed in a series of steps over time as the young grew to maturity. Postman's message, that technology has not liberated but infantalized society, puts a frame around modern problems of education, child-raising, and loss of meaning. Whatever you make of this book you will not be neutral. It's a superb polemic, and one of my favourite books. Unreservedly recommended to everyone contemplating the raging "culture wars" with confusion.

Like virtually everything else I've read by Postman, this is a thoroughly original thesis, a well-laid out argument, and an extremely thoughtful critique. Plus, as important as all of the above, he writes well -- so what might seem turgid and polemic in another author's hands seems effortless and fun when Postman is at work -- and he doesn't carry on endlessly. He makes his point and moves on. Postman is that rare contemporary commentator who you can read start to finish in only a couple of sittings. "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is still my favorite Postman work, but this is a close second. Well worth your while.