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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
EAN: 9780375701276
ISBN: 0375701273
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: October 10, 2000
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: October 10, 2000
Sales Rank: 48827
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, acclaimed cultural critic Neil Postman offers a cure for the hysteria and hazy values of the postmodern world.
Postman shows us how to reclaim that balance between mind and machine in a dazzling celebration of the accomplishments of the Enlightenment-from Jefferson's representative democracy to Locke's deductive reasoning to Rousseau's demand that the care and edification of children be considered an investment in our collective future. Here, too, is the bold assertion that Truth is invulnerable to fashion or the passing of time. Provocative and brilliantly argued, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century illuminates a navigable path through the Information Age-a byway whose signposts, it turns out, were there all along.
Amazon.com:
The problem with the world today, says Neil Postman, is that we've become so caught up in hurtling towards the future that we've lost our societal "narrative," a humane cultural tradition that creates "a sense of purpose and continuity"--in other words, something to believe in. "In order to have an agreeable encounter with the twenty-first century," he asserts, "we will have to take into it some good ideas. And in order to do that, we need to look back to take stock of the good ideas available to us." He finds rich source material in the Enlightenment, the salad days for philosophers such as Goethe, Voltaire, Diderot, Paine, and Jefferson, "the beginnings of much that is worthwhile about the modern world." Yet Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century is a call for cultural progress, not regression: "I am not suggesting that we become the eighteenth century," Postman notes, "only that we use it for what it is worth and all it is worth."
Chief among the values Postman cites is the development of the intellect; it plays a part in many of his recommendations, from the cultivation of a healthy skepticism towards overhyped technology to sweeping educational reforms that include replacing grammar instruction with logic and rhetoric and introducing courses on comparative religion and the history of science. He also lashes out at postmodernists who start with the premise that language "is a major factor in producing our perceptions, judgments, knowledge, and institutions" and conclude that language is therefore tenuously connected to reality at best. Enlightenment thinkers knew that language molded perception, he notes, but they also believed that "it is possible to use language to say things about the world that are true" and "to communicate ideas to oneself and to others." Postman is excessively curmudgeonly at times, as in his reference to philosopher Jean Baudrillard as "a Frenchman, of all things," or his remarks on the ancient Athenians: "I know they are the classic example of Dead White Males, but we should probably listen to them anyway." But for anybody with a stake in the culture wars, or who wants to apply the lessons of philosophy to the modern world, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century will make for provocative reading.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Postman makes an extremely compelling argument that our best source for assistance for moral and intellectual decision-making lies in the 18th century, not the historical aberration that was the 20th century. I won't summarize the points here, if what I said above makes sense, don't delay, read this book! You won't regret it. This is a clear, concise and accurate read that entertains along the way.
Rating: -
Neil Postman, longtime professor and eventual chair of the department of culture and communication at New York University, sadly died in 2003 at the age of 72. Bridge is his final book, and it deals with the same universal themes found in his earlier 20-odd works: language, reason, education, childhood, and the idea of progress.
Despairing over post-modernists who claim words don't stand for anything real, he makes a case for reading and writing. Indeed, he feels if we don't come up ... Read More
Rating: -
In _Building a Bridge to the 18th Century_, Postman raises a number of excellent questions about the issues and challenges of the post-modern age. In doing so, he tackles technology, education, and our sense of "progress."
Postman transparently states that he is not a fan of email, the internet and television. For this, the title of "luddite" (a perjorative for those who reject "modernization") initally seems appropriate. Postman addresses this and rejects it. I would agree with ... Read More
Rating: -
Somehow Postman has been accused of being a luddite. I'm not sure how he got theis reputation. He is certainly critical of present excesses, but as this book shows, he merely - and justly - questions current ideas that have degenerated to produce dubious advantages. he has no objections to technology or science but, he argues, there is aneed to revert to a more humanist (which also implies liberal in the good sense of the word) approaches to temper the way technology is creeping intrusively into our ... Read More
Rating: -
This is my third Postman book and I am still enthralled in the reading of his works. Mainly, I believe, because he writes with a particular verve that I find lacking in many of his contemporaries. His discourse covers a wide range of topics, some of them superficially, but all of them intended to support his thesis: children are losing their childhood; and meaning needs to be revived in language, education, narrative, and culture. He is iconoclastic.
Even though it is possible to read his ... Read More
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