Neil Postman Defending Against The Indefensible Summary

Neil Postman, in his essay “Defending Against the Indefensible,” suggests that it is important to encourage students to notice certain types of language that can be subjective or misleading. Postman establishes seven notions that should be taught to students for the purpose of allowing them to be conscious of potentially harmful material: definitions, questions, simple words, metaphors, reification, style and media.

First, Postman states that definitions are often “arbitrary” and students should consider that definitions often do not consist of straight facts as they are created by a person-and therefore are influenced by the creator’s personal biases-for a specific purpose (22).

Postman then introduces his second concept: questions. We must understand that the wording and language used to pose a question influences the answer we will receive. It is suggested that students need to learn to

recognize that the answers that we receive in many disciplines correspond directly to the way in which the questions were asked. It is potentially dangerous to ignore the relationship between question and answer, and vice-versa.
Next, Postman claims that students need to be aware of the meanings of words for which the definitions are often considered to be intuitive. These simple words such as “true” or “fact” are often subjective and therefore their definitions cannot be understood without considering the conditions in which they are applied.
Fourth, Postman places emphasis on the importance of understanding metaphors as a means to fully understand information in various domains.

The education of students is lacking in substantial curriculum designed to help students decipher the metaphors that we encounter so often.

Reification is introduced by Postman to be the fifth concept designed for students to consider when learning to avoid misleading information. It is important to acknowledge that “there are things in the world and then there are our names for them; that there is no such thing as a real name; and that a name may or may not suggest the nature of the thing named…” (Postman, 26). We must be aware that misleading names can be attributed to items or actions in order to distort our perception of the item or action itself.

Sixth, style and tone are responsible for a large portion of the discernment between genres and subjects. Postman states that every discipline has its own range of style and tone that sets it apart from other genres. Textbooks can often mask these subtleties with a uniformly bland

tone.
Lastly, Postman discusses how the medium in which language or information is conveyed alters and systemizes the language itself. It is necessary to understand