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This argument isn't entirely original, nor is it completely
incorrect. The real issue isn't just the fact that literacy is stagnating,
attention spans are fragmenting, or cultural life is deteriorating—it's the
explanation behind these trends. Marriott presents a technologically
deterministic story in which print pioneered modernity and smartphones are now
destroying it. He omits the important social, economic, and class questions.
Essentially, his book laments "slop" without considering who produces
it, who benefits, or why the institutions that once supported literacy have
been systematically dismantled. In short, it's a diagnosis that reassures its
audience by avoiding the root causes of the problem.
Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death
Neil Postman’s 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' (1985) remains a
highly insightful analysis of how public life has transformed under late
capitalism. Written at the peak of the television era, Postman contended that
the key change in modern culture was not ideological but epistemological: a
shift from a print-based public sphere to one ruled by entertainment media. He
cautioned that this shift led to a society where the spectacle's logic replaces
political debate, historical memory, and civic seriousness.
Postman’s key insight was straightforward yet powerful: each
medium has a bias toward particular ways of thinking. Print fosters linear
reasoning, focus, and gradual argument development. Conversely, television
breaks discourse into images, emotional signals, and quick edits. A culture
shifting between these mediums not only changes its habits but also its ability
to think. As Postman observed, “We become what we behold,” and a society
fixated on entertainment risks losing the capacity for meaningful democratic
debate.
Postman’s book remains powerful because he saw this change
as rooted in institutions, not just psychology. Television didn't undermine
politics because viewers lacked willpower; it did so because commercial media
found trivial content profitable. The way the medium processes knowledge is
linked to its economic system. Postman’s critique isn't just about missing
reading but about cautioning against reshaping public communication for profit.
From a Marxist perspective, Postman’s limitation is also
evident. He pointed out the symptoms—the breakdown of rational discourse, the
ascendancy of spectacle, and the infantilization of politics—but failed to
explore the root causes. He didn't ask why entertainment became the primary
cultural form, who owned the media institutions driving this change, or how the
commodification of attention altered the work environment, the educational
system, and public life. His concept of 'technopoly' described a cultural state
rather than a social relationship.
However, this oversight does not lessen the book’s
importance. In fact, the smartphone era has validated Postman’s insights more
than he might have envisioned. The pattern he observed—entertainment
functioning as a form of knowledge and distraction serving as an ideology—has
grown stronger through platforms designed to profit from every moment of human
attention. The dynamics Postman described in television now underpin digital
capitalism.
Today's goal isn't just to echo Postman’s warnings but to
act on them. The crisis in public discourse isn't driven by technology itself;
rather, it's rooted in the economic system that uses technology to fragment our
awareness and maximise profit. *Amusing Ourselves to Death* stays vital because
it illustrates how culture deteriorates when communication is treated as a
commodity. However, it doesn't fully clarify why this commodification happened
or why undoing it demands social change rather than moral preaching.
The Whig Interpretation of Print Culture
Marriott’s traditional approach is well-known. He traces a
direct line from Gutenberg to Locke, linking pamphlets to parliaments, and
literacy to liberty. “With rising literacy came the world we recognise today,”
he states, implying literacy is an independent force—like a harmless
contagion—that spreads reason and democracy wherever it goes. This reflects the
Whig interpretation of print culture in its most straightforward form. It views
technology as the driving force of history and considers culture a natural
outcome, presenting history as free of conflict, opposition, or social classes.
The truth was different. The rise of print in the 17th and
18th centuries was not the cause of revolutionary change, but rather a tool.
The pamphlet wars during the English Civil War, the Enlightenment thinkers, the
radical newspapers of the 1790s, and the Chartist press didn't emerge simply
because printing was available. These movements developed because new social
classes were forming, fighting, organising, and needed literacy to express
their goals. The bourgeoisie used print to overthrow feudalism, while the
working class needed it to understand and challenge the new system that
replaced it.
Marriott reverses cause and effect to craft a history where
the bourgeoisie is merely a reading audience, not a revolutionary force; the
proletariat is absent; and literacy exists independently of its material
prerequisites. This portrayal aligns with the Times' favoured narrative:
refined, devoid of bloodshed, and boosting the self-image of the educated
middle class.
The Smartphone as Scapegoat
Marriott’s depiction of the current situation mirrors the
same evasion. He describes the smartphone as “an invasive species” within the
cultural ecosystem. This metaphor is telling: invasive species come from
outside, uninvited and unplanned, seen as natural disasters rather than social
constructs. However, the smartphone did not simply emerge by chance.
Corporations intentionally designed, manufactured, marketed, and distributed
it, and their core business relies on capturing and destroying sustained attention.
Companies like Meta, Google, ByteDance, and others have developed systems that
profit from addiction, fragmenting consciousness and turning every idle moment
into a source of revenue. In this view, the smartphone isn’t the villain; it’s
capital itself that bears responsibility.
Marriott’s choice not to specify this is intentional and
forms the book's central theme. It lacks chapters on the advertising-revenue
model that makes engagement-focused design profitable. No sections discuss
austerity measures that have decimated public libraries, adult education, and
humanities programs. The book also omits topics like the casualisation of
academic labour and how universities have become debt-driven institutions.
Furthermore, it does not address that students struggling with classics like
Dickens often work two jobs to afford fees that once were negligible.
The reading crisis is often seen as a failure of personal
willpower rather than a weakness in social infrastructure. The moral appeal of
'put down the phone, pick up the book' targets those who still have free time
to read, while it is directed at a class that increasingly lacks this leisure.
Why the Commentariat Loves This Book
It's worth considering why Marriott’s book has been so
warmly received by the very media outlets that helped foster the conditions he
criticises. The reason is straightforward: it focuses on the wrong enemy.
Criticising mass culture by blaming technology instead of capital doesn't
threaten the institutions that publish such critiques. This lets outlets like
the Times and the Guardian lament “slop” while still profiting from the same
attention-driven economy that creates it. It also appeals to their audience—the
few who can read a 208-page book—by suggesting that their own habits are the
final defence against chaos.
Most importantly, it lets commentators talk about cultural
decline while avoiding underlying social issues such as deindustrialisation in
entire regions, the loss of stable jobs, the fragmentation of youth
communities, the breakdown of public services, and the militarisation of
foreign policy. These are the true causes of the “post-literate society,” yet
they are exactly the subjects the Times tends to steer clear of.
Marriott’s book is therefore valuable. It presents a crisis
for discussion, highlighting issues often examined endlessly without
considering the underlying economic system. Marriott correctly notes that
sustained reading encourages sustained thought, which has political
consequences as its decline makes the public more vulnerable to demagoguery.
Viewing this purely as a technological problem misses the core issue. Trotsky
emphasised that cultural issues are always linked to material conditions.
Literacy relies on factors like free time, decent housing, proper nutrition,
quality schools, and a shorter workday that allows leisure. Culture doesn't
develop in isolation but arises during the free hours after work.
Marriott’s emphasis on “the written word” overlooks
important social realities. It defends reading for a privileged class that
still has free time, ignoring the circumstances that deprive millions of that
opportunity. The connection between readers was never just about printed
material; it was built through struggles over education, working hours, and
leisure rights. Reclaiming that link won't come through moral pleas or
nostalgia; it requires a fight over resources and societal structures that
shape who can find time, energy, and institutional support to read. This
essential conflict is missing from The New Dark Ages, and its absence reveals
the book’s true focus.
A Crisis Misnamed, A Crisis Unresolved
Marriott has written a book about the death of reading that refuses to ask why reading is dying. He has written a book about cultural decay that refuses to name the social decay beneath it. He has written a book about democracy that refuses to mention the economic order that has hollowed democracy out.It is a jeremiad against “slop” that never asks who cooks the slop, who profits from it, and why so many people have no alternative.The crisis of literacy is real. The crisis of attention is real. The crisis of culture is real. But smartphones don't cause them. They are caused by capitalism.
