Previous
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:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
The only communication event that could produce such collective attention in today's America is the Superbowl.
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Amusing Ourselves LitChart as a printable PDF.
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 .
(full context)
Common Sense sold over 100,000 copies in the space of just a few months, and the total...
(full context)
