Abstract
The great English playwright and social philosopher George Bernard Shaw once remarked that all professions are conspiracies against the common folk. He meant that those who belong to elite trades – physicians, lawyers, teachers, and scientists – protect their special status by creating vocabularies that are incomprehensible to the general public. This process prevents outsiders from understanding what the profession is doing and why – and protects the insiders from close examination and criticism.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Sense Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Postman, N. (2013). Informing Ourselves to Death. In: Clough, M.P., Olson, J.K., Niederhauser, D.S. (eds) The Nature of Technology. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-269-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-269-3_2
Publisher Name: SensePublishers, Rotterdam
Online ISBN: 978-94-6209-269-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)