Is Las Vegas Still a Metaphor of our National Character?

In his seminal book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argued Americans were worried about the wrong kind of dystopia. With great swiftness and dexterity, he outlined why the warnings from culturally pervasive texts like George Orwell’s 1984 and America’s political fear-mongering over a USSR-like future was mostly overblown. And ultimately, the dystopia worth brooding over would be one…