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Symbols
Postman believes that the wide circulation of Thomas Paine’s famous 1776 pamphlet (an argument for American freedom from the British monarchy) is a symbol of the strength of print culture in America’s foundational period. The popularity of Common Sense indicated a desire to know things through reason and to engage in meaningful, lengthy discourses about issues most relevant to the American public. This also demonstrated that America was enjoying a true age of reason and enlightenment. For Postman, Common Sense is most potent as a symbol when we consider the impossibility of an argumentative pamphlet having such an impact in 20th century society. Thus Common Sense is an aptly titled stand-in for what we used to have, and for what we’ve lost in the rise of the Age of Show Business.
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense Quotes in Amusing Ourselves to Death
The Amusing Ourselves to Death quotes below all refer to the symbol of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
The only communication event that could produce such collective attention in today's America is the Superbowl.
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Postman has described the print culture of 17th and 18th century America in positive, nostalgic terms, mentioning the high literacy rates and the popularity of Thomas Paine's pre-Revolutionary War pamphlet "Common Sense", which sold a total of 3 million copies despite being a complex, intellectually rigorous text. He concludes disdainfully that in the America of the 1980s only the Superbowl would receive such a level of collective public attention. There is much to critique about Postman's romanticization of colonial America. Perhaps the most crucial point is that, if print culture created such rational, sophisticated ways of thinking, how did that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum.
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Thomas Paine’s Common Sense Symbol Timeline in Amusing Ourselves to Death
The timeline below shows where the symbol Thomas Paine’s Common Sense appears in Amusing Ourselves to Death. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3: Typographic America
...a particularly telling example of Colonial America’s literacy is the distribution of Thomas Paine’s tract Common Sense.
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Common Sense sold over 100,000 copies in the space of just a few months, and the total...
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