前言：人類世界似乎正朝著尼爾．波斯曼憂心的前景走去，幸好他事先做了警告，我們應及早做好準備。

美國著名的媒體評論家和作者，紐約大學文化暨傳播學系主任尼爾．波斯曼，10月5日因肺癌病逝於紐約家中，享年72歲。在加州州長補選的新聞備受各方矚目之際，尼爾．波斯曼的故去當然沒有引起多少人的注意，但這位畢生關心教育和媒體，始終質疑科技對人類生活衝擊的學者，卻寫作了數本影響後世甚深的媒體研究書籍。

其中一本書就是《童年的消逝》，書中痛陳各項傳播科技的發展，尤其是電視，已使得童年的概念逐漸消逝，兒童長期浸淫在電視提供的各項訊息中，行為舉止、思考模式已漸漸與成人無異。兒童提早成人化的觀點，及電視的涵化效果，令許多教育學者甚為震驚與重視。

尼爾．波斯曼的另外一本重要著作是《娛樂我們自己至死》，本書的副標題是「作秀時代的公共論述」，就清楚的點出其要闡述的主旨：媒體與政治的關係。尼爾．波斯曼在書中論道，20世紀下半頁，美國最重要的文化現象之一，就是印刷時代的結束，電視時代的降臨；印刷文字要求嚴謹的邏輯，電視卻強調俗麗的影像，非言之有物的辯論，及促進人們不斷的思考，這對公共論述的衝擊甚鉅。尼爾．波斯曼就觀察到，美國的電視已支配其政治文化，候選人不靠理念取勝對手，而是靠外表。就這點而言，尼爾．波斯曼已提前預知了加州州長的補選結果。

尼爾．波斯曼在《娛樂我們自己至死》中，一開始就點出了影響人類未來的兩項觀點：第一是作家喬治．歐威爾在小說《1984》中所預視的，極權政府將以鎮壓的方式，破壞人們的思考能力；第二是赫胥黎在《美麗新世界》中所描述的，人們將出於自願地停止思考。當1984年降臨時，尼爾．波斯曼發現美國並未朝向《1984》裡所描寫的那個極權社會發展，但他憂心的說，電視將繼續創造人類的「美麗新世界」，讓人類浸淫、享樂其中，而忘記思考這回事。

人類世界似乎正朝著尼爾．波斯曼憂心的前景走去，幸好尼爾．波斯曼事先做了警告，我們應及早做好準備。

With the circus that was the California recall election dominating the news this week, the death of author and media critic Neil Postman didn't get the attention it deserved. But that wouldn't have surprised Postman one bit. He wrote one of the great books of media criticism of our time,

"Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business," which even when it was published in 1985 all but predicted Arnold Schwarzenegger's Hollywood-style gubernatorial（州長） campaign and the media frenzy that would accompany it. Postman understood better than anyone that television has inextricably changed the nature of debate, and that in politics entertainment now reigns supreme.

A professor at New York University known for his sense of humor, Postman founded the Steinhardt School of Education's program in Media Ecology at NYU in 1971. He was chair of the Department of Culture and Communication until 2002. During his career, he wrote 20 books on a wide range of subjects. "The Disappearance of Childhood" examined television's harmful effects on children through the onslaught of information. 'Technopoly' explored the tyranny of technology. Over the course of his career, in fact, Postman relentlessly questioned technology's impact on our lives.

It was a pursuit that didn't end at the university walls.

Colleague and friend Terrence Moran this week recalled Postman's skepticism the day he went shopping for a new car and found that every one had electric windows.

"He said, 'Why do I need electric windows? My arm and hand work. If I were paralyzed I could use an electric window,'" Moran recalled, chuckling.

"Neil would always take what he would call an ecological perspective, a balanced view."

In Postman's words, his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is "an inquiry into and a lamentation（哀歎） about the most significant American cultural fact of the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of the Age of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television." The change didn't bode well for serious political discourse, Postman thought.

As he pointed out, the world of the printed word, by its very nature, demanded rigorous logic. Television, with its emphasis on flashy images, did not. The consequences were far-reaching, and the book explored them in detail.

"It's very difficult to discuss the impact of popular culture and television without in some way making reference to 'Amusing Ourselves to Death,'" said cultural critic Neal Gabler, author of "Life: The Movie."

"It's one of those foundation books that you have to refer to. You cannot write about American popular culture and its influence without addressing that book."

Given the timing of Postman's death on Oct. 5, just two days before the California recall election, it's tempting to think that Postman foresaw the outcome, had understood it all too well, and decided that sticking around for it would offer few surprises.

Indeed, much of what Postman feared about television and politics was being played out in the race.

Take political debates. In the book, Postman recalled the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which the two politicians spoke extemporaneously（即席的）- and eloquently（滔滔雄辯地） - for hours. Postman found it noteworthy that the audience remained engaged, even after breaking for dinner. Vigorous debates used to be central to the elective process.

Fast forward to 2003. Schwarzenegger, a candidate to govern one of the most powerful states in the union, announces that he will participate in only one debate. It is a discussion in which the participants are apprised（告知） of the questions beforehand, giving them plenty of time to prepare their responses and memorize their lines.

Or take the increasingly fine line between show business and serious business. Postman wrote that television commercials were having a major influence on modern-day politics. Commercials relied on emotion for their impact, not reason. They played to the audience's needs. Product research wasn't required to make an effective commercial, Postman noted. What was important was market research.

In other words, increasingly in politics, the facts are taking a back seat.

Postman observed that in a culture in which television dominated the conversation, a candidate's ideas were trumped（廣為宣揚） in importance by his appearance. William Howard Taft, who weighed 300 pounds when he became the country's 27th president in a print-dominated culture, would not likely be elected to office in the Television Age, Postman observed.

"Indeed," he wrote, "we may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control."

At the beginning of "Amusing Ourselves to Death," Postman pointed to two competing visions of the future. The first was George Orwell's "1984," in which a totalitarian（極權主義） government subverted a peoples' ability to think clearly through oppressive measures. The second was Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," in which the people themselves stopped thinking clearly of their own accord（出於自願）.

The year 1984 came and went in the U.S. without a great Orwellian transformation. But Postman feared that television was still creating our own "Brave New World."

"[Huxley] believed with H.G. Wells that we are in a race between education and disaster, and he wrote continuously about the necessity of our understanding the politics and epistemology（認識論） of media," Postman wrote at the conclusion of the book. "For in the end, he was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in 'Brave New World' was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking."

Postman, for his part, knew exactly why he was laughing. And he never stopped thinking.

談及尼爾．波斯曼，世新大學廣播電視電影學系助理教授管中祥表示，由於台灣坊間少見尼爾．波斯曼的著作，因而大部分的民眾對他十分陌生，然而其理論與現今台灣正推行的媒體識讀教育，卻有許多相似看法。

管中祥表示，尼爾．波斯曼研究新科技出現後人類生活的改變，不過並非全然科技決定論的觀點，而是從歷史的角度，反思科技對人的影響，其著作《童年的消逝》或是《通往未來的過去》等都充滿此人文關懷，這對頌讚科技的台灣社會而言，恰可提供另一種思考方向。不過，由於台灣傳播理論的主流傾向北美學派，不論是坊間所編輯的傳播相關書籍，或是學校教授講課，均少見其學術論述，也因此尼爾．波斯曼在台灣並不出名。

不過，管中祥指出，尼爾．波斯曼的理論，與最近台灣推行的媒體識讀教育有許多相似之處，例如在《童年的消逝》這本書中，尼爾．波斯曼指出由於兒童從小就不停吸收電視資訊，因而不知不覺或刻意模仿電視影像中大人的形象，提早社會化，導致童年的消逝，為了避免此現象發生，尼爾．波斯曼建議家長應教導兒童對電視影像採批判的態度，這便與目前媒體識讀教育的走向相似。

而對於尼爾．波斯曼認為「童年消逝是錯誤的現象」，管中祥卻認為對此下定論還太早，因為兒童的提早社會化是以世代為單位，並非侷限於少數兒童，而且吸收資訊不是壞事，不過管中祥也強調，科技會控制人性，因此家長從旁協助引導兒童思考方向便非常重要，而這也與尼爾．波斯曼所建議的批判態度相同。

Media Ecology Begun in 1970, the Media Ecology Program focuses on the study of transactions among people, their messages, and their message systems. More particularly, media ecology studies how media of communication affect human perception, feeling, understanding, and values. This program of study is concerned, therefore, with the question: what is communication?

尼爾．波斯曼1931年出生於美國紐約市，1953年畢業於紐約州立大學，1955和1958年，分別取得哥倫比亞大學師範學院教育碩士及博士學位，1959年任教於紐約大學，迄今超過40年。

1971年，尼爾．波斯曼擔任紐約大學教育學院文化暨傳播系主任（直至2002年才卸下系主任一職），並創設了「媒介生態學」（Media Eclolgy）（見名辭一點通）課程。1988至1989年，他榮膺哈佛大學甘迺迪學院媒體及公共政策勞倫斯朗巴德訪問學者。1993年，紐約大學任命他為「講座教授」（University Professor），這項榮譽是特別頒授給被認為是大學的無價資源，且有資格教授各種領域、不限於同一系所的學者，而尼爾．波斯曼是教育學院中唯一獲此殊榮的學者。

尼爾．波斯曼一生發表文章和著作無數，主題大都集中在教育、社會觀察及媒體批評上，他重要的著作包括：《童年的消逝》（1982）、《娛樂我們自己至死》（1985）、《科技壟斷》（1992）、《教育的終結：重新定義學校的價值》（1995）、《通往未來的過去》（1999）等。

尼爾．波斯曼除了教學、研究和演說外，亦在紐約時報雜誌、哈潑雜誌、週六評論、哈佛教育評論、大西洋月刊、洛杉磯時報、法國世界日報等媒體撰寫專欄，他也擔任「國族雜誌」（The Nation）特約編輯，並編輯語意學刊物「Et Cetera」長達10年。

（The Disappearance of Childhood，中譯本：遠流出版社）內容簡介：人類的童年，正像恐龍一樣，也在邁向絕跡的命運。這是多麼有趣又令人憂心的觀點！本書作者透過敏銳的觀察力，舉證說明傳播科技的發展，如何讓西方文明中的童年概念逐漸消逝，尤其是美國近代社會，不管在語言、衣著、遊戲、品味、興趣、社會活動傾向、犯罪率與殘暴程度等方面，兒童的行為表現，事實上與成人日趨一致，兒童與成人的分野日漸模糊，這些與傳播科技的發展息息相關，社會上隨處可見成人模樣的兒童，人類似乎遺忘了社會需要兒童的存在，兒童也需要童年。《通往未來的過去》

內容簡介：混亂的年代，們身陷變遷的漩渦不停打轉，我們質疑世代承襲的價值觀，我們目睹人性良善的本能反應與「務實的選擇」交戰，我們設法面對千禧新世紀帶來的不安。美國當代最傑出的社會觀察家、紐約大學文化暨傳播學系主任尼爾．波斯曼教授以其一貫的洞見，為我們指引出方向，帶領大家再訪18世紀的啟蒙運動。將我們的目光轉向歌德、伏爾泰、盧梭、狄德羅、康德、潘恩、史密斯、富蘭克林等這些為現代開路的啟蒙運動思想家，引領我們重溫他們提出的劃時代思想觀念。「往18世紀建一座橋」，讓我們的未來與過去接軌，以熱情迎接新的世紀，創造一個更人性的未來。《娛樂我們自己至死》

內容簡介：尼爾．波斯曼從寫作《教學作為一種破壞性活動》（Teaching As a Subversive Activity）一書以來，持續不斷地批判電視及電視對人類的影響，他的一貫論點是，印刷文字的式微及電視影像的來臨，後者經常呈現殺戮、混亂、政治、天氣乃至娛樂，所產生的後果便是公共論述的萎縮，因為電視已貶低我們建構何者為新聞、政治辯論、藝術及宗教思想的見解。本書的前幾章追溯美國早期的印刷出版物，從殖民時期的小冊子到林肯－道格拉斯大辯論的出版。作者對電視商業廣告尤有一針見血的分析，認為電視商業廣告被視作一種「速成藥」，可以輕易解決人類的問題。尼爾．波斯曼更進一步的批判，電視經常帶有敵意地對讀寫文化進行攻擊。