“Someone needs to mention what may be lost.”
"Neil Postman Ponders High Tech" at Online Newshour : Online Forum (17 January 1996)
Context: Someone needs to mention what may be lost. Of course, one of the problems is that what I would judge to be a negative consequence, someone else might see as a positive consequence. For example, telephones in automobiles seem to me a very bad idea. So does spending a lot of hours "communicating" on the Internet when one could use that time reading Cervantes' Don Quixote.
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Neil Postman 106
American writer and academic 1931–2003Related quotes
“What about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms?”
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“What can be imagined—
—need never be lost.”
Part Nine “Into the Gyre”, Chapter iii “The Miracle of the Loom” (p. 429; catchphrase frequently repeated)
(1987), BOOK TWO: THE FUGUE
Source: Weaveworld
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, p. 102
“What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.”
“What occultism needs is someone to open the window, it’s too stuffy and it smells.”
De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: I understand that the word ‘occult’ means hidden, but surely that is not meant to be the final state of all this information, hidden forever. I don’t see why there is any need to further obscure things that are actually lucid and bright. Language and strange terminology – to keep them as some private mystery. I think there is too much darkness in magic. I can understand that it is part of the theatre. I can understand Aleister Crowley – who I think was a great intellect that was sometimes let down by his own flair for showmanship — but he did a lot to generate the scary aura of the magician that you find these sad, Crowleyite fucks making a fetish of. The ones who say ‘oh we’re into Aleister Crowley because he was the wickedest man in the world, and we’re also into Charles Manson because we’re bad. And we are middle-class as well, but we’re bad’. There are some people who seek evil – I don’t think there is such a thing as evil – but there are people who seek it as a kind of Goth thing. That just adds to the murk to what to me is a very lucid and flourescent subject. What occultism needs is someone to open the window, it’s too stuffy and it smells. Let’s get some fresh air, throw open the curtains – I can’t go for that posturing, spooky guy stuff. When they wanted me to do Fortean TV it became apparent that they wanted me to be Spooky Bloke. But I’m not actually trying to look spooky. I dress in black because it makes me look less fat, it’s as simple as that. It’s not a gothic flourish. I don’t want to be thought of as a figure of mystery or a master of the occult, surely this is about illumination, casting light on things. I’m an illuminist, that’d do for me.
101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)