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Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transformation into a society that is shaped by technology—from the acclaimed author of Amusing Ourselves to Death.
"A provocative book ... A tool for fighting back against the tools that run our lives." — Dallas Morning News
The story of our society's transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it—with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.
"A provocative book ... A tool for fighting back against the tools that run our lives." — Dallas Morning News
The story of our society's transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it—with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.
222 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Neil Postman
58 books901 followersNeil Postman, an important American educator, media theorist and cultural critic was probably best known for his popular 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than four decades he was associated with New York University, where he created and led the Media Ecology program.
He is the author of more than thirty significant books on education, media criticism, and cultural change including Teaching as a Subversive Activity, The Disappearance of Childhood, Technopoly, and Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century.
Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), a historical narrative which warns of a decline in the ability of our mass communications media to share serious ideas. Since television images replace the written word, Postman argues that television confounds serious issues by demeaning and undermining political discourse and by turning real, complex issues into superficial images, less about ideas and thoughts and more about entertainment. He also argues that television is not an effective way of providing education, as it provides only top-down information transfer, rather than the interaction that he believes is necessary to maximize learning. He refers to the relationship between information and human response as the Information-action ratio.
He is the author of more than thirty significant books on education, media criticism, and cultural change including Teaching as a Subversive Activity, The Disappearance of Childhood, Technopoly, and Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century.
Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), a historical narrative which warns of a decline in the ability of our mass communications media to share serious ideas. Since television images replace the written word, Postman argues that television confounds serious issues by demeaning and undermining political discourse and by turning real, complex issues into superficial images, less about ideas and thoughts and more about entertainment. He also argues that television is not an effective way of providing education, as it provides only top-down information transfer, rather than the interaction that he believes is necessary to maximize learning. He refers to the relationship between information and human response as the Information-action ratio.
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September 1, 2014
A large part of this is just stating what I would take to be pretty much the obvious. No ‘new technology’ is ever fully positive or fully negative. I can’t remember where I heard recently that an environment that has rabbits added to it is not, say, the Australian bush with rabbits, but actually a new environment. Technology does much the same thing with the human environment. The 1950s were not really just the 1940s with television added and the 2000s weren’t just the 1980s with the internet – new technologies create a new environment and that new environment has both benefits and disadvantages when compared with what came before.
Except, of course, we live in a world where we don’t like to talk about the disadvantages. Technology, in Mr Postman’s opinion, leads to Technopoly and Technopoly is a kind of society that is obsessed with the benefits of technology to the point where everything needs to be measure and assessed on the basis of how ‘efficient’ it is.
This is a book that challenges this cult of efficiency and that looks at some of the disadvantages technologies (particularly computer technologies) have brought to our world. This book was written in the early 1990s, i.e. well before the internet as we know it now. As you know, there have been quite a few books in the meanwhile talking about the negative impacts of the internet – particularly on quality journalism (if that is not an oxymoron).
It wouldn’t be fair to call Postman a Luddite – his criticism is both careful and intelligent. He points out that we have become obsessed with the scientific method – a method that we think is about measuring everything and about coming up with strict laws that the world is to conform to and that this is the aim of the ‘social sciences’ as well. There is a lovely part where he says that the nineteenth century created images of people that were presented to us by novelists, so Dickens might create a Uriah Heep and we might then use this character as a basis for categorising or understanding a certain type of person. Today we would be much less likely to do that, today we tend to base out character types on the work of social scientists, such as Freud, Erik Erikson, Marx and so on. This is an interesting change and an interesting observation. Postman says science is only properly applicable to processes, but the proper sphere for social ‘sciences’ is ‘practices’. The difference being that processes (such as water boiling) are measurable and conform to universal laws that are discoverable and describable. Practices, such as drinking tea (as strange as this may sound) are not universal and actually depend on a particular culture. When the tools of science are applied to practices, rather than processes, it is remarkable how often we are left with banalities masquerading as profundities. Postman quotes a study that found that most humans are afraid of death… I guess scientists may one day even have the technology to be able to prove that people like food and quite enjoy sex.
He makes the interesting point that we are a society obsessed with information, but that we have lost an overarching belief system that would allow us to filter that information and thereby make sense of it. Let me give you a case in point. The other night I received an email from someone I love very much that said that next month Mars would be closer to the Earth than it had for thousands of years and that it would appear to be about the size of the full moon in the night sky. It turns out that this is one of those bizarre hoaxes (I’ve never quite understood the joy people must get from spreading this stuff) – but Postman’s point is that we are so swamped today with useless and effectively meaningless information that we have become quite credulous. And why shouldn’t we be? We are confronted with an enormous ocean of information and most of it bombards us piecemeal as unconnected factoids.
There was a time when religion provided the overarching framework to judge the worth of information – but religion has lost its ability to play that role. However, we do need a way to separate the meal from the dross. Interestingly, he says that one of the few ways left in the US is the legal system. Courts have rules around what constitutes evidence and president and as such courts are one of the few remaining ‘arbiters of truth’ left in society – which Postman uses as a possible explanation for Americans' tendency to be quite so litigious.
He ends his book by talking about how to fix things. I tend to agree with him, but I can also see that many people would find this quite an unsatisfying part of the book. He points out that we should become loving freedom-fighters. This is from a part of the book that ought to make Americans feel very proud. It explains how the US has stood as an example to the rest of the world in its ongoing experiment in democracy. He also talks of the need to change the way we teach children – first that they need to become aware of the fact that what is worthwhile requires effort and second that they need to understand subjects have a history. In fact, he reiterates Marx’s view that all subjects are essentially history. That it is impossible to understand electricity without understanding the history of the concept, you know, from Maxwell on. I think this is wonderful advice – it does seem to be something the publishing world has jumped on recently, with lots of books published about say the potato or nutmeg or the number zero and the impact these have had through time.
There are nice things in this book about technologies and many things I didn’t know. I knew it was a huge innovation that zero was introduced into our numbering system, and that our placement system of numerals (0-9) made things infinitely easier for mathematics than Roman numerals. Imagine multiplying MCVI by CLXVII – except, as Postman points out, no one ever really did. Roman numerals were for writing numbers, not really for manipulation – arithmetic manipulation was done on counting machines like abacuses.
There is probably a little too much reliance on Popper’s views of science theory in the book – it is hard to imagine, but Popper’s theory of refutation isn’t the only theory in the history of the philosophy of science. Nevertheless, he does make a strong case for why science is really about limiting imagination and reducing, as much as possible, the number of hypothesises in any given subject. He gets this idea from The Ascent of Man. This is not meant as a criticism of science, but rather as a statement of nearly banal fact.
I think the main idea to take away from this book, though, is that despite our obsession with information it is probably not the case that what we need to fix any of the real problems facing us today is more information. Global poverty, for example, will not be solved by more information, nor will war or global warming. He makes the impressive rhetorical point that if computers had been invented before the atom bomb was developed that people would have said that we could not have invented the atom bomb without the computer. The fact that we did invent it without the computer does seem remarkable – and the fact it does seem remarkable says much about the culture we live in.
And the last thing I want to refer to before ending this review is that he has a very interesting take on the Milgram Experiment (the one where people administer electric shocks to people they cannot see up to the point where the people they cannot see appear to die, the test of authority and empathy). He points out that it is hard to know what this experiment really tells us. His view is that it tells us what people do in the very bizarre and unnatural setting of a psychology lab – and tells us remarkably little about what people are like in the real world. As he points out, how would we fit the Danes into this experiment, the ones who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazi death camps? Should we say the Danes contradicted Milgram’s experiment? Although I still find the Milgram Experiments deeply troubling, I do think he has a point that studying people in highly artificial environments should give us pause before accepting uncritically the conclusions from such studies.
Postman’s books are always thought-provoking – I enjoyed this one very much.
Except, of course, we live in a world where we don’t like to talk about the disadvantages. Technology, in Mr Postman’s opinion, leads to Technopoly and Technopoly is a kind of society that is obsessed with the benefits of technology to the point where everything needs to be measure and assessed on the basis of how ‘efficient’ it is.
This is a book that challenges this cult of efficiency and that looks at some of the disadvantages technologies (particularly computer technologies) have brought to our world. This book was written in the early 1990s, i.e. well before the internet as we know it now. As you know, there have been quite a few books in the meanwhile talking about the negative impacts of the internet – particularly on quality journalism (if that is not an oxymoron).
It wouldn’t be fair to call Postman a Luddite – his criticism is both careful and intelligent. He points out that we have become obsessed with the scientific method – a method that we think is about measuring everything and about coming up with strict laws that the world is to conform to and that this is the aim of the ‘social sciences’ as well. There is a lovely part where he says that the nineteenth century created images of people that were presented to us by novelists, so Dickens might create a Uriah Heep and we might then use this character as a basis for categorising or understanding a certain type of person. Today we would be much less likely to do that, today we tend to base out character types on the work of social scientists, such as Freud, Erik Erikson, Marx and so on. This is an interesting change and an interesting observation. Postman says science is only properly applicable to processes, but the proper sphere for social ‘sciences’ is ‘practices’. The difference being that processes (such as water boiling) are measurable and conform to universal laws that are discoverable and describable. Practices, such as drinking tea (as strange as this may sound) are not universal and actually depend on a particular culture. When the tools of science are applied to practices, rather than processes, it is remarkable how often we are left with banalities masquerading as profundities. Postman quotes a study that found that most humans are afraid of death… I guess scientists may one day even have the technology to be able to prove that people like food and quite enjoy sex.
He makes the interesting point that we are a society obsessed with information, but that we have lost an overarching belief system that would allow us to filter that information and thereby make sense of it. Let me give you a case in point. The other night I received an email from someone I love very much that said that next month Mars would be closer to the Earth than it had for thousands of years and that it would appear to be about the size of the full moon in the night sky. It turns out that this is one of those bizarre hoaxes (I’ve never quite understood the joy people must get from spreading this stuff) – but Postman’s point is that we are so swamped today with useless and effectively meaningless information that we have become quite credulous. And why shouldn’t we be? We are confronted with an enormous ocean of information and most of it bombards us piecemeal as unconnected factoids.
There was a time when religion provided the overarching framework to judge the worth of information – but religion has lost its ability to play that role. However, we do need a way to separate the meal from the dross. Interestingly, he says that one of the few ways left in the US is the legal system. Courts have rules around what constitutes evidence and president and as such courts are one of the few remaining ‘arbiters of truth’ left in society – which Postman uses as a possible explanation for Americans' tendency to be quite so litigious.
He ends his book by talking about how to fix things. I tend to agree with him, but I can also see that many people would find this quite an unsatisfying part of the book. He points out that we should become loving freedom-fighters. This is from a part of the book that ought to make Americans feel very proud. It explains how the US has stood as an example to the rest of the world in its ongoing experiment in democracy. He also talks of the need to change the way we teach children – first that they need to become aware of the fact that what is worthwhile requires effort and second that they need to understand subjects have a history. In fact, he reiterates Marx’s view that all subjects are essentially history. That it is impossible to understand electricity without understanding the history of the concept, you know, from Maxwell on. I think this is wonderful advice – it does seem to be something the publishing world has jumped on recently, with lots of books published about say the potato or nutmeg or the number zero and the impact these have had through time.
There are nice things in this book about technologies and many things I didn’t know. I knew it was a huge innovation that zero was introduced into our numbering system, and that our placement system of numerals (0-9) made things infinitely easier for mathematics than Roman numerals. Imagine multiplying MCVI by CLXVII – except, as Postman points out, no one ever really did. Roman numerals were for writing numbers, not really for manipulation – arithmetic manipulation was done on counting machines like abacuses.
There is probably a little too much reliance on Popper’s views of science theory in the book – it is hard to imagine, but Popper’s theory of refutation isn’t the only theory in the history of the philosophy of science. Nevertheless, he does make a strong case for why science is really about limiting imagination and reducing, as much as possible, the number of hypothesises in any given subject. He gets this idea from The Ascent of Man. This is not meant as a criticism of science, but rather as a statement of nearly banal fact.
I think the main idea to take away from this book, though, is that despite our obsession with information it is probably not the case that what we need to fix any of the real problems facing us today is more information. Global poverty, for example, will not be solved by more information, nor will war or global warming. He makes the impressive rhetorical point that if computers had been invented before the atom bomb was developed that people would have said that we could not have invented the atom bomb without the computer. The fact that we did invent it without the computer does seem remarkable – and the fact it does seem remarkable says much about the culture we live in.
And the last thing I want to refer to before ending this review is that he has a very interesting take on the Milgram Experiment (the one where people administer electric shocks to people they cannot see up to the point where the people they cannot see appear to die, the test of authority and empathy). He points out that it is hard to know what this experiment really tells us. His view is that it tells us what people do in the very bizarre and unnatural setting of a psychology lab – and tells us remarkably little about what people are like in the real world. As he points out, how would we fit the Danes into this experiment, the ones who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazi death camps? Should we say the Danes contradicted Milgram’s experiment? Although I still find the Milgram Experiments deeply troubling, I do think he has a point that studying people in highly artificial environments should give us pause before accepting uncritically the conclusions from such studies.
Postman’s books are always thought-provoking – I enjoyed this one very much.
Read
May 30, 2012 Though Postman wrote this book in 1992, his ideas remain as relevant as ever in 2012. If he thought Technopoly was running rampant in '92, I can't imagine (well, I can) his disgust at technology's further rise to eminence in the past twenty years. If you're one who recognizes that facebook, iPhones, and Twitter actually have downsides, then you'll be intrigued by Postman's passionate arguments, ones that extend beyond electronic technology because, after all, the computer was in its infancy then.
Rather than choose a specific star rating, I'll allow my previous sentence to serve as my recommendation. The mere act of assigning the pleasure or thought-provoking-ness of the book a numerical, measurable value would feed into Technopoly's invisible technologies whose sole purpose is efficiency. By 'invisible technologies', Postman refers to the processes that occur under the radar, byproducts of "progress" that go largely unnoticed by the average person.
How this would then play out: By me giving the book a 3-star rating, I show that I buy into the belief that a reading experience can be quantified, the subsequent statistic therefore being much more easily managed/manipulated/analyzed to produce some kind of 'truth' about the quality of the book than a lengthy review.
Postman applies this to education, science, pop culture...all with entertaining criticism. At the beginning of the book, Postman informs his reader that he recognizes the benefits of technology, and the reader must keep that in mind because the majority of the book is Postman examining and bringing to light the effects of technology that we overlook, the negative effects. If you forget that his goal is to reveal technology's underbelly, you'd wrongly assume that Postman is against any technological advance.
He raises questions that I find especially relevant as a budding educator, questions that nevertheless pertain to anyone who chooses to think critically. Postman's overarching question (the same question he asks in The End of Education) is, What narrative can unify a people and give them purpose? Damn. What a question.
So how then will I live in the Technopoly of America? While I don't feel the need to abandon facebook (or my goodreads account), I'll need to continue questioning what I gain and lose through the use of those technologies and look upon the gods of efficiency, convenience, and 'progress' with a critical eye. I can enjoy some of the easy things, like a star rating system for books or movies or music, so long as I make sure to pursue the more enriching and subjective conversations about them, face-to-face, in the same room with friends. I'm up for the challenge.
Rather than choose a specific star rating, I'll allow my previous sentence to serve as my recommendation. The mere act of assigning the pleasure or thought-provoking-ness of the book a numerical, measurable value would feed into Technopoly's invisible technologies whose sole purpose is efficiency. By 'invisible technologies', Postman refers to the processes that occur under the radar, byproducts of "progress" that go largely unnoticed by the average person.
How this would then play out: By me giving the book a 3-star rating, I show that I buy into the belief that a reading experience can be quantified, the subsequent statistic therefore being much more easily managed/manipulated/analyzed to produce some kind of 'truth' about the quality of the book than a lengthy review.
Postman applies this to education, science, pop culture...all with entertaining criticism. At the beginning of the book, Postman informs his reader that he recognizes the benefits of technology, and the reader must keep that in mind because the majority of the book is Postman examining and bringing to light the effects of technology that we overlook, the negative effects. If you forget that his goal is to reveal technology's underbelly, you'd wrongly assume that Postman is against any technological advance.
He raises questions that I find especially relevant as a budding educator, questions that nevertheless pertain to anyone who chooses to think critically. Postman's overarching question (the same question he asks in The End of Education) is, What narrative can unify a people and give them purpose? Damn. What a question.
So how then will I live in the Technopoly of America? While I don't feel the need to abandon facebook (or my goodreads account), I'll need to continue questioning what I gain and lose through the use of those technologies and look upon the gods of efficiency, convenience, and 'progress' with a critical eye. I can enjoy some of the easy things, like a star rating system for books or movies or music, so long as I make sure to pursue the more enriching and subjective conversations about them, face-to-face, in the same room with friends. I'm up for the challenge.
January 17, 2012
There are some good ideas in this book, but only incidentally so- Postman himself delivers almost nothing of merit. Postman tends to come across as a curmudgeon in his writing, but in Amusing Ourselves to Death, he presented a reasonable, fairly robust argument that felt supported by evidence. Even when he was opining, his position was plausible. In Technopoly, he fails to develop a convincing hierarchy of technological development.
Postman never admits as much, but across his books he has a gigantic bias for some never-really-defined golden era of the United States, against which every development since is an attack. But, whereas in AOtD, Postman kept close enough to his evidence, here he is way, way beyond support of his x's. Massively overextended, he pontificates with out-of-the-blue, sensational claims without a whiff of evidence. He makes bold, universal, absolute declarations with a straight face and expects the reader to trust him. He tries to persuade readers of the legitimacy of his coined terms- tool-using, technocracy, technopoly- by just using the words themselves over and over and over and over. He uses fallacious arguments as well- diverting to strawman tactics and guilt-by-association workarounds to attack what he percieves as huge cultural enemies. He does not maintain rigor in his definitions, and without much elaboration or evidence to support his claims, the writing comes across as the scattershot rant of a drunk, paranoid uncle.
By the end of the book, Postman's thesis (never clearly formulated in the beginning) is butchered beyond coherence. His argument bounces all over the place in some spastic attempts, and by the end, the reader is expected to swallow some mumbo-jumbo, half-baked prescription for thwarting the Technopoly, contradicting himself numerous times even in the final few pages. I expected so much more.
Postman never admits as much, but across his books he has a gigantic bias for some never-really-defined golden era of the United States, against which every development since is an attack. But, whereas in AOtD, Postman kept close enough to his evidence, here he is way, way beyond support of his x's. Massively overextended, he pontificates with out-of-the-blue, sensational claims without a whiff of evidence. He makes bold, universal, absolute declarations with a straight face and expects the reader to trust him. He tries to persuade readers of the legitimacy of his coined terms- tool-using, technocracy, technopoly- by just using the words themselves over and over and over and over. He uses fallacious arguments as well- diverting to strawman tactics and guilt-by-association workarounds to attack what he percieves as huge cultural enemies. He does not maintain rigor in his definitions, and without much elaboration or evidence to support his claims, the writing comes across as the scattershot rant of a drunk, paranoid uncle.
By the end of the book, Postman's thesis (never clearly formulated in the beginning) is butchered beyond coherence. His argument bounces all over the place in some spastic attempts, and by the end, the reader is expected to swallow some mumbo-jumbo, half-baked prescription for thwarting the Technopoly, contradicting himself numerous times even in the final few pages. I expected so much more.
October 16, 2015
Neil Postman makes an argument in this book that will resonate with most religious people and will probably be rejected by everybody else. It’s an argument against Technopoly and its brother Scientism: the view that science and technology can answer all the problems in our lives. Clearly, science and technology have solved some major problems the human race has faced, so it’s no wonder that it knocked religion of its throne in the Industrial Age. But just as religious leaders can be corrupt, so can scientists. They don’t deserve blind trust, yet in this day and age, men in white coats are almost automatically believed when they say, “This study proves. . .”
A corollary to this is the argument that not everything can be quantified. Surely something as ineffable as the intelligence of a human being cannot be summed up by a single number calculated by answers to a test. Yet we live in a world in which major decisions about our lives get made because of such numbers.
Now, sometimes Postman takes his argument a bit too far. For example, he described how the invention of the stethoscope gave doctors an excuse to listen less to patient input and more to the tool. After the stethoscope came other medical measuring tools, and they, in turn, invalidated doctors’ personal judgment. Who needs a doctor’s opinion? The machine measured X. It’s “objective.” The less we value human input, Postman argues, the more we have been taken over by Technopoly. I see his point, but stethoscopes have improved medicine, and I wouldn’t want to live in a world without them.
Unsurprisingly, the book includes a long section on computers, but it was published in 1992, before the popularization of the World Wide Web. Some of Postman’s predictions were prescient, and some are almost laughable. One thing is clear, though: he would have been appalled at the level we’ve allowed computers into our lives. Still, like with the stethoscope, their positive contribution is too big to ignore. Neil Postman makes a great case for humanity over machinery, but sometimes his strident tone can be a real turn-off.
A corollary to this is the argument that not everything can be quantified. Surely something as ineffable as the intelligence of a human being cannot be summed up by a single number calculated by answers to a test. Yet we live in a world in which major decisions about our lives get made because of such numbers.
Now, sometimes Postman takes his argument a bit too far. For example, he described how the invention of the stethoscope gave doctors an excuse to listen less to patient input and more to the tool. After the stethoscope came other medical measuring tools, and they, in turn, invalidated doctors’ personal judgment. Who needs a doctor’s opinion? The machine measured X. It’s “objective.” The less we value human input, Postman argues, the more we have been taken over by Technopoly. I see his point, but stethoscopes have improved medicine, and I wouldn’t want to live in a world without them.
Unsurprisingly, the book includes a long section on computers, but it was published in 1992, before the popularization of the World Wide Web. Some of Postman’s predictions were prescient, and some are almost laughable. One thing is clear, though: he would have been appalled at the level we’ve allowed computers into our lives. Still, like with the stethoscope, their positive contribution is too big to ignore. Neil Postman makes a great case for humanity over machinery, but sometimes his strident tone can be a real turn-off.
March 27, 2019
So much brain food. YUM.
Postman has the rare ability to peel away all the layers of cultural biases that form our worldviews and to see each problem he addresses (and there are several large themes in this book - ie technology, statistics, education, popular culture, politics) with clear eyes, intelligence and so much humor. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to live in the 70s to 90s as the culture's Jeremiah without becoming angry or reclusive. Yet there is no bitterness. Rather, a constant underpinning of hope, as if Postman is reprimanding his (very intelligent) wayward children because he believes they can change.
It has been a long time since I was so influenced by a thinker and his work. What a man he was.
I'm writing down here one of his lines that I most want to remember:
"We must keep in mind the story of the statistician who drowned while trying to wade across a river with an average depth of four feet."
Postman has the rare ability to peel away all the layers of cultural biases that form our worldviews and to see each problem he addresses (and there are several large themes in this book - ie technology, statistics, education, popular culture, politics) with clear eyes, intelligence and so much humor. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to live in the 70s to 90s as the culture's Jeremiah without becoming angry or reclusive. Yet there is no bitterness. Rather, a constant underpinning of hope, as if Postman is reprimanding his (very intelligent) wayward children because he believes they can change.
It has been a long time since I was so influenced by a thinker and his work. What a man he was.
I'm writing down here one of his lines that I most want to remember:
"We must keep in mind the story of the statistician who drowned while trying to wade across a river with an average depth of four feet."
September 17, 2023
Достаточно условно связанные друг с другом три наблюдения:
1. Я определённо наслаждался тем, как это написано, несмотря на то, что из представленной в книге системы взглядов я разделяю, может, десятую часть (и считаю полной чушью половину).
2. Книга заметно разваливается на переходе к примерам "плохих технологий" (доказательная медицина, social science), ко��да мгновенно становится очевидно, что познания автора в этих вопросах находятся на уровне, достаточном только для брюзжания.
3. Учитывая что Постман предсказал информационную перегруженность современного мира (и роль компьютерных сетей в ней) и корректно идентифицировал рождение (с изобретением печатного пресса) письменной культуры, её роль в новой эпистемологии, и закат эпистемологии старой в обезьянних процессах — удивительно, что он не сделал финальный шаг и не предвидел возрождения оральной культуры, маскирующейся за внешними признаками письменной.
1. Я определённо наслаждался тем, как это написано, несмотря на то, что из представленной в книге системы взглядов я разделяю, может, десятую часть (и считаю полной чушью половину).
2. Книга заметно разваливается на переходе к примерам "плохих технологий" (доказательная медицина, social science), ко��да мгновенно становится очевидно, что познания автора в этих вопросах находятся на уровне, достаточном только для брюзжания.
3. Учитывая что Постман предсказал информационную перегруженность современного мира (и роль компьютерных сетей в ней) и корректно идентифицировал рождение (с изобретением печатного пресса) письменной культуры, её роль в новой эпистемологии, и закат эпистемологии старой в обезьянних процессах — удивительно, что он не сделал финальный шаг и не предвидел возрождения оральной культуры, маскирующейся за внешними признаками письменной.
August 30, 2024
Audible. Own paperback. Read with local book club.
Postman has a great summary of the problems with information becoming a goal rather than a tool, and purposelessness breaking down personal effectiveness and agency, but his answer is to go back to secularism, which he calls "liberal democracy" and try again. He thinks what we have "now" (in the 90s) is a new system from secularism rather than the product.
Postman has a great summary of the problems with information becoming a goal rather than a tool, and purposelessness breaking down personal effectiveness and agency, but his answer is to go back to secularism, which he calls "liberal democracy" and try again. He thinks what we have "now" (in the 90s) is a new system from secularism rather than the product.
Read
July 29, 2021What Postman and I share is a deep-seated suspicion of technocratic governance. The difference is that my critique is essentially Marxist -- the idea of a "values-free," non-ideological panel of experts making decisions for us is both misguided and undemocratic, and liable to reproduce already-existing power structures. His critique is essentially romantic, that technology acts as a barrier to moral growth or self-actualization or some such thing. Regrettably, this angle is (mostly) bullshit.
It's a shame, considering that Amusing Ourselves to Death was at the very least a thought-provoking work. But by expanding his scope to technology as a whole, Postman generalizes beyond statements of much use-value, and a few good examples aside -- the overreliance on autopilot, thereby reducing human pilot readiness for emergencies, being an especially pointed and interesting example, especially given the rise of self-driving cars -- the whole argument falls apart.
It's a shame, considering that Amusing Ourselves to Death was at the very least a thought-provoking work. But by expanding his scope to technology as a whole, Postman generalizes beyond statements of much use-value, and a few good examples aside -- the overreliance on autopilot, thereby reducing human pilot readiness for emergencies, being an especially pointed and interesting example, especially given the rise of self-driving cars -- the whole argument falls apart.
November 4, 2024
Wow, this was a terrifying and very good critique of technology in America and the monopoly it has on our lives. Two parts that stood out to me were the chapter on technology in medicine and how harmful statistics are.
November 7, 2013
This book was absolutely horrible. Written by an old man who resents the fact that the things he esteemed in his life are no longer as respected as they once were. This book can be summed up with 2 statements:
1. I hate that Science is making it difficult to hold onto my faith, and has enabled the ridicule of fundamentalism.
2. I hate that Social Science is displacing being well read when discussing opinions of public affair. E.G. - The psychologist's theory on human behavior is given more respect than the literary scholar's.
This is just another rebuke of modern culture written by someone who has refused to adapt to changes. I don't begrudge him his opinions, but I resent that this entire book can be summarized like this:
"I really don't like that culture does A, B, C, D, & E. I don't know how to fix this; solve the problem for me. Oh, and if you don't agree with my assertions then you are an idiot." - Neil Postman
It got 2 stars instead of 1 because as horrible as the content is, it is well written. You completely understand exactly what you don't agree with as you're reading it. It's a good example of persuasive writing, but infuriating to anyone who is informed on the subjects that he speaks on as the learned reader can spot his "white lies" (deliberate or born of ignorance, I'm not sure), incorrect assertions, and use of logical fallacies.
1. I hate that Science is making it difficult to hold onto my faith, and has enabled the ridicule of fundamentalism.
2. I hate that Social Science is displacing being well read when discussing opinions of public affair. E.G. - The psychologist's theory on human behavior is given more respect than the literary scholar's.
This is just another rebuke of modern culture written by someone who has refused to adapt to changes. I don't begrudge him his opinions, but I resent that this entire book can be summarized like this:
"I really don't like that culture does A, B, C, D, & E. I don't know how to fix this; solve the problem for me. Oh, and if you don't agree with my assertions then you are an idiot." - Neil Postman
It got 2 stars instead of 1 because as horrible as the content is, it is well written. You completely understand exactly what you don't agree with as you're reading it. It's a good example of persuasive writing, but infuriating to anyone who is informed on the subjects that he speaks on as the learned reader can spot his "white lies" (deliberate or born of ignorance, I'm not sure), incorrect assertions, and use of logical fallacies.
September 16, 2013
There is much here to recommend to both those who are disquieted by technology and to those who wonder if we aren't losing our moral compass in our embrace of all things that distract and momentarily engage our flitting minds (minds, Postman would argue, increasingly shaped by the Technopoly we live in). As an educator, the Biggest Idea I took away from this book was the insight into the cataclysm now ravaging the public school system. Students come to us as the babes of technology culture and we, standing in the 400+ long tradition of the Book Culture, try to persuade them that reading, knowledge, wonder, and exploration are valuable. Silly teachers. We all know that the purpose of education these days is to make children into producers and consumers. The last chapter, with its proposition about how to rescue education, is intriguing and too "difficult to implement" for any bureaucrat. Postman suggests, afterall, teaching the history of each subject, therein connecting students with a grander narrative and a rich treasure trove of cultural symbols. It's a beautiful dream. Meanwhile, I am going to make a poster of this Cicero quote and post it on the door of my classroom: To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child. Cheeky me.
October 15, 2009
Technopoly tells us that technology has an inherent viewpoint, a 'take' on reality. That's obvious. More unsettling is that Postman argues we adopt the viewpoint of the technology we use. For example, by naively citing social science we adopt Scientism--a scarily amoral view of reality. Postman's Technopoly is a negative description of modern American society--wholly taken into technological development, wholly sapped of social mores and the traditions that uphold them. Religion and liberal education have been replaced by bureaucracy and science. God and learning have been replaced by efficiency and progress. Postman is less interested with renewing the vigor of God and learning than with remarking on the stupidity of this exchange. As with any social critic, he's long on problems and short on solutions. Nonetheless, his chapter on Scientism is upsetting enough to make awareness of the problem the beginning of the solution.
If you have a computer or a phone, or have ever used one, read this book.
If you have a computer or a phone, or have ever used one, read this book.
December 15, 2017
I picked up this book immediately after I finished Postman's other book, amusing ourselves to death and while I think there is some overlap, I think both books are so well-written and so precise in their identification of the challenges of technology. I kept thinking "he doesn't even know about Google and Facebook yet!" Yet he is prophetic about the problems in science, data, overly technical medicine, etc. It's only gotten worse since the book was written. Postman is either a crank or a prophet of our time and I lean toward the latter.
September 18, 2021
When considering the impact of technology on modern society, the narrative is often framed as being between those who promote and push forward with developing technology and those who oppose it. Neil Postman argues that this is incorrect, and that the real frame of conflict is between technology and everyone else.
This narrative may seem unnecessarily confrontational and dramatic, but Postman makes a compelling argument. He details his points as to how technology is seen as a close friend, giving unconditionally its gifts to society and allowing us to avail of its use. He finds it important however to moderate the din of its enthusiasts by presenting his dissenting voice of opposition in which he details why he thinks that technology and its uncontrolled adoption and diffusion into society can contain many harmful effects. Technology is a friend he concedes, but it also has a dark side and its gifts come with costs.
A common underlying theme throughout the book was that although technology has changed over time - indeed very rapidly over the last 150 years - the human brain and our social, mental, spiritual and physical needs have remained the same. Technology has not been able to allow us to rise above our very human constraints - and nor should it - for it is but an advancement of our tools, not our type. With this understanding, we can see how technology may introduce new links into society which leave our human brains and their modes of functionality at a clear disadvantage.
Postman goes on to state that whenever we admit a new technology into our society, we should do so with cautious, weary eyes rather than the unfettered enthusiasm of a child excited about a new toy. Often a technology can introduce or even permanently alter our ways of establishing truth, knowledge and justice. Even with the introduction of the mathematical concept of zero, new ideas such as that of calculable debt were able to change how an economic and ownership system functioned.
New technology can also change what words mean. 'Evidence' may have historically been understood to mean witness testimony, but its definition has arguably been expanded to include technological evidence such as image captures or video footage. This has also changed what we mean when we say we 'know' what may have happened.
One very insightful example that has spared no-one in its effects was that given of the clock. According to Neil Postman, who himself references Lewis Mumford, clocks were initially used inside Monasteries where they helped to alert and inform the religious devotees as to the timings of their proscribed rituals. Once it was taken outside of the Monastery walls however, it permeated society and became a tool to synchonrise the actions of men and allowed the birth of modern Capitalism and the 9-5 as we know it. One could have hardly predicted its wide-ranging consequences when the technology was being introduced then, so will we take heed to this principle going forth? That is up to us.
Other examples include how to spread of the Printing Press eventually led to an attack of the millennia-old Oral Tradition, and how the invention of the Telescope played a pivotal part of the disintegration of Christianity in Europe via the claims of Earth not being the centre of the universe and humans being removed from their pedestal of sacred uniqueness and importance. The subsequent decline of tradition and religion in Europe and America led to belief in the idea of constant moral, economic and social progress, the same idea which fuels our blind trust in technology today by virtue of association. Postman goes on to argue that we have now come to the point where we have replaced our idea of human progress with that of technological progress, our conflating of the two has led to the latter's triumph.
Further commentary on the state of information overload the average person experiences on a daily basis allows Postman to raise further questions on how we have come to accept our current state. While some may adopt the idea that being advertised to is a normal fact of modern day life, I found it insightful and thought provoking to understand that the best sources of knowledge are often the most restrictive in what they are allow to teach and be taught. The example given of a University was something I found which described this best. As part of a university course, we are expected to limit our inputs to a limited number of verified and agreed upon sources. This limitation does not necessarily lower the quality of the knowledge gained, rather it is increased because of it. Here, quality is truly prioritised over quantity - so why do we accept anything less than this standard in day to day life?
We are continuously bombarded with information and see the addition of information from endless sources as a proof of our continuous advancement, but as shown - the best institutions for higher learning always limit their inputs. Should we not take our lesson from them? I also found it interesting when Neil Postman commented that Plato and Aristotle did not associate the need for efficiency and productivity with the refinement of a man's mind. For them, the ideas did not mix. Achieving high efficiency and productivity was the goal of laborious work destined for slaves, it was not necessarily something which aided in the cause of human moral and intellectual advancement. Are we too in need of realising this truth once more?
Postman goes on to claim America as the first society to give free reign to technology dominance and intrusion on society - the first real 'Technopoly'. America was fertile ground for such a revolutionary change due to the natural distrust for constraints and the pervading frontier mentality when it came to business initiatives. This lack of concern for long term well-being allowed ample opportunity for 'radical technological intrusions' to work their way in to everyday society, the result being that people are generally heedless as to the origins and effects of the technologies that surround them. It is as though the sacred First Commandment has been appropriated to Science by which it is meant that there shall be no other god beside it.
The result of a Technopoly is the vast, gaping disconnect between our inherently human experience and the information digitised, numerated and presented to us via complex algorithms and ever increasing computers and machines. A vivid example provided is the now common reliance by medical professionals of their tools to the extent that they have almost entirely abandoned the subjective but real impact of an illness on the mental and psychological wellbeing of a patient. Quite often many of the doctors involved with a patient's treatment may never even have direct contact with them, instead working on their ailments remotely via the study of medical machinery output which has translated their human pain into a machine-readable value. As Postman eloquently writes, a Technopoly aspires to remove as much mystery and subjectivity as it can and replace it with discrete figures and indisputable facts. Perhaps some aspects of the human enterprise however, are not amenable to this attempt at standardisation.
To conclude, this book was fundamental in opening my eyes to the envelopment of technology in our culture, and to not blindly accept the narrative that it is inherently good. It is hard to believe that this book was written in 1992 as it seems to describe contemporary culture perfectly. One can only imagine the horror Neil Postman would have expressed if he saw how society had changed since then.
The book is filled with countless more examples which made me redefine what it means to have a technology benefit a culture, and to understand that it also comes at a cost.
Something is gained, but now I understand that something will also be lost. It is up to us to watch its introduction with open eyes and to decide if it is worth the cost.
If you have the slightest curiosity about technology and its impact on culture, this book is for you. It is an incredibly important topic that punches above its weight in moderating the overwhelming discourse on how beneficial technology is to us, and provides a fundamental redefinition on what it means to make social progress.
Highly recommended.
This narrative may seem unnecessarily confrontational and dramatic, but Postman makes a compelling argument. He details his points as to how technology is seen as a close friend, giving unconditionally its gifts to society and allowing us to avail of its use. He finds it important however to moderate the din of its enthusiasts by presenting his dissenting voice of opposition in which he details why he thinks that technology and its uncontrolled adoption and diffusion into society can contain many harmful effects. Technology is a friend he concedes, but it also has a dark side and its gifts come with costs.
A common underlying theme throughout the book was that although technology has changed over time - indeed very rapidly over the last 150 years - the human brain and our social, mental, spiritual and physical needs have remained the same. Technology has not been able to allow us to rise above our very human constraints - and nor should it - for it is but an advancement of our tools, not our type. With this understanding, we can see how technology may introduce new links into society which leave our human brains and their modes of functionality at a clear disadvantage.
Postman goes on to state that whenever we admit a new technology into our society, we should do so with cautious, weary eyes rather than the unfettered enthusiasm of a child excited about a new toy. Often a technology can introduce or even permanently alter our ways of establishing truth, knowledge and justice. Even with the introduction of the mathematical concept of zero, new ideas such as that of calculable debt were able to change how an economic and ownership system functioned.
New technology can also change what words mean. 'Evidence' may have historically been understood to mean witness testimony, but its definition has arguably been expanded to include technological evidence such as image captures or video footage. This has also changed what we mean when we say we 'know' what may have happened.
One very insightful example that has spared no-one in its effects was that given of the clock. According to Neil Postman, who himself references Lewis Mumford, clocks were initially used inside Monasteries where they helped to alert and inform the religious devotees as to the timings of their proscribed rituals. Once it was taken outside of the Monastery walls however, it permeated society and became a tool to synchonrise the actions of men and allowed the birth of modern Capitalism and the 9-5 as we know it. One could have hardly predicted its wide-ranging consequences when the technology was being introduced then, so will we take heed to this principle going forth? That is up to us.
Other examples include how to spread of the Printing Press eventually led to an attack of the millennia-old Oral Tradition, and how the invention of the Telescope played a pivotal part of the disintegration of Christianity in Europe via the claims of Earth not being the centre of the universe and humans being removed from their pedestal of sacred uniqueness and importance. The subsequent decline of tradition and religion in Europe and America led to belief in the idea of constant moral, economic and social progress, the same idea which fuels our blind trust in technology today by virtue of association. Postman goes on to argue that we have now come to the point where we have replaced our idea of human progress with that of technological progress, our conflating of the two has led to the latter's triumph.
Further commentary on the state of information overload the average person experiences on a daily basis allows Postman to raise further questions on how we have come to accept our current state. While some may adopt the idea that being advertised to is a normal fact of modern day life, I found it insightful and thought provoking to understand that the best sources of knowledge are often the most restrictive in what they are allow to teach and be taught. The example given of a University was something I found which described this best. As part of a university course, we are expected to limit our inputs to a limited number of verified and agreed upon sources. This limitation does not necessarily lower the quality of the knowledge gained, rather it is increased because of it. Here, quality is truly prioritised over quantity - so why do we accept anything less than this standard in day to day life?
We are continuously bombarded with information and see the addition of information from endless sources as a proof of our continuous advancement, but as shown - the best institutions for higher learning always limit their inputs. Should we not take our lesson from them? I also found it interesting when Neil Postman commented that Plato and Aristotle did not associate the need for efficiency and productivity with the refinement of a man's mind. For them, the ideas did not mix. Achieving high efficiency and productivity was the goal of laborious work destined for slaves, it was not necessarily something which aided in the cause of human moral and intellectual advancement. Are we too in need of realising this truth once more?
Postman goes on to claim America as the first society to give free reign to technology dominance and intrusion on society - the first real 'Technopoly'. America was fertile ground for such a revolutionary change due to the natural distrust for constraints and the pervading frontier mentality when it came to business initiatives. This lack of concern for long term well-being allowed ample opportunity for 'radical technological intrusions' to work their way in to everyday society, the result being that people are generally heedless as to the origins and effects of the technologies that surround them. It is as though the sacred First Commandment has been appropriated to Science by which it is meant that there shall be no other god beside it.
The result of a Technopoly is the vast, gaping disconnect between our inherently human experience and the information digitised, numerated and presented to us via complex algorithms and ever increasing computers and machines. A vivid example provided is the now common reliance by medical professionals of their tools to the extent that they have almost entirely abandoned the subjective but real impact of an illness on the mental and psychological wellbeing of a patient. Quite often many of the doctors involved with a patient's treatment may never even have direct contact with them, instead working on their ailments remotely via the study of medical machinery output which has translated their human pain into a machine-readable value. As Postman eloquently writes, a Technopoly aspires to remove as much mystery and subjectivity as it can and replace it with discrete figures and indisputable facts. Perhaps some aspects of the human enterprise however, are not amenable to this attempt at standardisation.
To conclude, this book was fundamental in opening my eyes to the envelopment of technology in our culture, and to not blindly accept the narrative that it is inherently good. It is hard to believe that this book was written in 1992 as it seems to describe contemporary culture perfectly. One can only imagine the horror Neil Postman would have expressed if he saw how society had changed since then.
The book is filled with countless more examples which made me redefine what it means to have a technology benefit a culture, and to understand that it also comes at a cost.
Something is gained, but now I understand that something will also be lost. It is up to us to watch its introduction with open eyes and to decide if it is worth the cost.
If you have the slightest curiosity about technology and its impact on culture, this book is for you. It is an incredibly important topic that punches above its weight in moderating the overwhelming discourse on how beneficial technology is to us, and provides a fundamental redefinition on what it means to make social progress.
Highly recommended.
January 13, 2019
Despite being published in 1993 and therefore dealing with technology well before the internet revolution, many of the ideas are very relevant in our world today. Some really thought provoking points, like asking how important the invention of the printing press was to the coming of the Lutheran reformation. The central hypothesis that there are good and bad effects to every new technological advance needs to be put forward, but the book tends to repeat that point so many times and never really goes deeper than that.
February 20, 2013
The late Neil Postman's book, Technopoly, is a sobering assessment of a technologically obsessed American culture. The fact that the book was presciently published in 1992, long before the Internet became ubiquitous, is alarming. Don't be fooled though, Postman isn't a pure Luddite and this isn't a book that is anti-technology. Perhaps the best way of putting it is that Postman harbors a sense of digital ambivalence. Like Postman, I don't necessarily condemn the technologies themselves per se, although I certainly share some of his concerns. Technology can complement human values or it can desecrate them. It all depends on its application. So how did American culture become a Technopoly?
According to Postman, a technological history of a society can be broken into three phases: tool-using, technocracy, and Technopoly. In a tool-using culture, technology is used merely as a physical tool (think utensils), where as in a technocracy the tools "play a central role in the thought world of the culture". In a Technopoly, then, the culture can only be understood through the tools. Technopoly can thus be thought of as a "totalitarian technocracy". At the time this book was published Postman claimed that United States was the only Technopoly in existence (I suspect he would revise that statement today if he were still alive).
A Technopoly is a society that thinks that knowledge can only be had through numbers and thus, it is a society that puts an obsessive focus on trying to quantify life and puts excessive trust in experts. It's also a society that believes that management is a science. I suspect Postman, if he were still alive, would agree with me that it's the soft technologies that are the most insidious. You know, things like IQ tests, SATs, standardized forms, taxonomies, and opinion polls.
The idea of trying to quantify things like mercy, love, hate, beauty, or creativity simply wouldn't make sense to the likes of Galileo, Shakespeare, or Thomas Jefferson, according to Postman. Yet, this is exactly what many of our platonified social scientists try to do today. He goes on to say that, "If it makes sense to us, that is because our minds have been conditioned by the technology of numbers so that we see the world differently than they did." Or as Marshall McLuhan succinctly put it: "The medium is the message."
So where did this obsessive focus on quantifying begin? Postman traces its history back to the first instance of grading students' papers (quantitatively), which occurred at Cambridge University in 1792, thanks to the suggestion of a tutor named William Farish. Farish's idea of applying a quantitative value to human thought was crucial to those who believed we could construct a mathematical concept of reality.
So what beliefs emerge in the technological onslaught? Here's one passage that resonated with me.
Another modern side effect of Technopoly is information overload and I think it's fair to say that Postman was disgusted by our obsession with information and statistics. There are statistics and studies that support almost any belief, no matter how nonsensical. Personally, I think Nassim Taleb put it well: "To bankrupt a fool, give him information." Postman stretches a popular adage to drive home this point himself. "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and therefore, "to a man with a computer, everything looks like data."
Postman reminds us, however, that not all information is created equal. He writes: "Information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems." For example, consider the following noise that I've made up, but could easily be recited on ESPN: 77% of all Superbowl games have at least one field goal scored within the last seven minutes and 27 seconds of the third quarter. Even if this were true, does it really tell us anything useful? If one has an opinion they want verified, they can easily go on the Web and find "statistics" to support their belief. Sadly, there seems to be not only a market for useless information on the Web today, but for harmful information too.
A Technopoly, according to Postman, also promotes the idea that education is a means to an end, instead of being an end in itself. He laments the fact that education is now meant to merely train people for employment instead of instilling a purpose and human values in them.
Ultimately, reading this book reminded me that those who don't learn how to use technology will be used by it.
According to Postman, a technological history of a society can be broken into three phases: tool-using, technocracy, and Technopoly. In a tool-using culture, technology is used merely as a physical tool (think utensils), where as in a technocracy the tools "play a central role in the thought world of the culture". In a Technopoly, then, the culture can only be understood through the tools. Technopoly can thus be thought of as a "totalitarian technocracy". At the time this book was published Postman claimed that United States was the only Technopoly in existence (I suspect he would revise that statement today if he were still alive).
A Technopoly is a society that thinks that knowledge can only be had through numbers and thus, it is a society that puts an obsessive focus on trying to quantify life and puts excessive trust in experts. It's also a society that believes that management is a science. I suspect Postman, if he were still alive, would agree with me that it's the soft technologies that are the most insidious. You know, things like IQ tests, SATs, standardized forms, taxonomies, and opinion polls.
The idea of trying to quantify things like mercy, love, hate, beauty, or creativity simply wouldn't make sense to the likes of Galileo, Shakespeare, or Thomas Jefferson, according to Postman. Yet, this is exactly what many of our platonified social scientists try to do today. He goes on to say that, "If it makes sense to us, that is because our minds have been conditioned by the technology of numbers so that we see the world differently than they did." Or as Marshall McLuhan succinctly put it: "The medium is the message."
So where did this obsessive focus on quantifying begin? Postman traces its history back to the first instance of grading students' papers (quantitatively), which occurred at Cambridge University in 1792, thanks to the suggestion of a tutor named William Farish. Farish's idea of applying a quantitative value to human thought was crucial to those who believed we could construct a mathematical concept of reality.
So what beliefs emerge in the technological onslaught? Here's one passage that resonated with me.
These include the beliefs that the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment; that in fact human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value; and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.
Another modern side effect of Technopoly is information overload and I think it's fair to say that Postman was disgusted by our obsession with information and statistics. There are statistics and studies that support almost any belief, no matter how nonsensical. Personally, I think Nassim Taleb put it well: "To bankrupt a fool, give him information." Postman stretches a popular adage to drive home this point himself. "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and therefore, "to a man with a computer, everything looks like data."
Postman reminds us, however, that not all information is created equal. He writes: "Information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems." For example, consider the following noise that I've made up, but could easily be recited on ESPN: 77% of all Superbowl games have at least one field goal scored within the last seven minutes and 27 seconds of the third quarter. Even if this were true, does it really tell us anything useful? If one has an opinion they want verified, they can easily go on the Web and find "statistics" to support their belief. Sadly, there seems to be not only a market for useless information on the Web today, but for harmful information too.
A Technopoly, according to Postman, also promotes the idea that education is a means to an end, instead of being an end in itself. He laments the fact that education is now meant to merely train people for employment instead of instilling a purpose and human values in them.
Ultimately, reading this book reminded me that those who don't learn how to use technology will be used by it.
July 19, 2007
This book is about how technology affects our society and culture. Specifically, this book is about how Technology negatively affects our society and culture. Postman is very one sided and hardly even pays lip service to any contradictory interpretations than his own.
I read this book very quickly, in one sitting, finishing the book in an afternoon. I don't remember his whole argument. However, when I finished I remember being dissatisfied with Postman's arguments, thinking he was an idiot, thinking the book was well written, and being damn proud of myself for reading the book in one sitting.
Neil Postman gets two stars for good writing, he would have had more, except that I disagree with his thesis and he does not argue it particularly well.
I read this book very quickly, in one sitting, finishing the book in an afternoon. I don't remember his whole argument. However, when I finished I remember being dissatisfied with Postman's arguments, thinking he was an idiot, thinking the book was well written, and being damn proud of myself for reading the book in one sitting.
Neil Postman gets two stars for good writing, he would have had more, except that I disagree with his thesis and he does not argue it particularly well.
July 29, 2019
کتاب اگر خوب باشد حتی اگر در مورد موضوعات روز باشد، بعد از ۲۶ سال هم از تازگی نمیافتد.
Read
October 30, 2022I couldn't bring myself to give this book a rating, which would have pleased Postman, because it is strangely uneven. It has chapters in which Postman is making several terrible arguments and strawmanning whole disciplines. Those chapters, even though they also say great things, deserve a very low rating. But then other chapters are astonishingly insightful and well-thought out, to the point of being some of the best social criticism I've read! I'll just leave this email I sent to my brother about it as my review:
"Finished Postman. What a whirlwind of a social criticism book! I found myself deeply annoyed with him in certain parts and then blown away by other parts. As with the way he wrote about medicine, I actually found his way of writing about scientism ironically too reductionist and badly argued. His complete dismissal of all social science seems to me essentially groundless - or if it has a ground, that ground is the mistaken belief that humans are not part of "nature" and do not have a studiable nature, even if it is not exact in its knowability. I think he misrepresented the arguments of social science greatly and, even though he also covered all the thoughtful and well-put criticisms of scientism as well - namely that it tries to provide a moral system and grand narrative while claiming to not be religious or transcendent - this strawmanning of entire disciplinary fields left a bad taste in my mouth and I think was just not a strong element for Postman. It again isn't that his main principles are wrong. It is that he attributes the wrong particulars as evidence for his main principles, sometimes in ways that strain credulity.
But then, after being frustrated (and also delighted, as I am always happy to find frustrating elements in books like this because it engages me all the more) I was jawdropped by the chapter, "The Great Symbol Drain." As a chapter, it was one of the greatest and most insightful pieces of social thought I've ever read. Neil was on another plane! Then my estimation of him went up further again with his final chapter on education. I was genuinely moved by his defense of the old things and his declaration that they must be taught above all else. I found myself almost in complete agreement with that whole section as well. It also made me sad to see him warn that schools cannot be centered on emotional well-being, or else, over time, students will become their own self-reference and their own whole education. Had a sinking, 'we are so fucked' feeling when reading that. Maybe Postman and myself are just too much of dreamers though. A lot to digest still and think about. Particularly loved the section on knowing the history of every subject, because the history shows students how we got there and imbues it with meaning that stretches over centuries and millennia. Thoughts?"
"Finished Postman. What a whirlwind of a social criticism book! I found myself deeply annoyed with him in certain parts and then blown away by other parts. As with the way he wrote about medicine, I actually found his way of writing about scientism ironically too reductionist and badly argued. His complete dismissal of all social science seems to me essentially groundless - or if it has a ground, that ground is the mistaken belief that humans are not part of "nature" and do not have a studiable nature, even if it is not exact in its knowability. I think he misrepresented the arguments of social science greatly and, even though he also covered all the thoughtful and well-put criticisms of scientism as well - namely that it tries to provide a moral system and grand narrative while claiming to not be religious or transcendent - this strawmanning of entire disciplinary fields left a bad taste in my mouth and I think was just not a strong element for Postman. It again isn't that his main principles are wrong. It is that he attributes the wrong particulars as evidence for his main principles, sometimes in ways that strain credulity.
But then, after being frustrated (and also delighted, as I am always happy to find frustrating elements in books like this because it engages me all the more) I was jawdropped by the chapter, "The Great Symbol Drain." As a chapter, it was one of the greatest and most insightful pieces of social thought I've ever read. Neil was on another plane! Then my estimation of him went up further again with his final chapter on education. I was genuinely moved by his defense of the old things and his declaration that they must be taught above all else. I found myself almost in complete agreement with that whole section as well. It also made me sad to see him warn that schools cannot be centered on emotional well-being, or else, over time, students will become their own self-reference and their own whole education. Had a sinking, 'we are so fucked' feeling when reading that. Maybe Postman and myself are just too much of dreamers though. A lot to digest still and think about. Particularly loved the section on knowing the history of every subject, because the history shows students how we got there and imbues it with meaning that stretches over centuries and millennia. Thoughts?"
June 29, 2021
4.5 stars. Very good observations on the dark side of technological infatuation. It holds up without being really dated almost 30 years later, which is an indication of how impressive Postman's insight is. The main point which has changed is the idea that at the time of writing, you needed to have statistical facts to get companies and governments to do something and he points out the ineffectiveness of other kinds of information; now, it is possible to use some narratives without statistical support. I don't think his solutions are adequate, however.
June 13, 2024
Enjoyed it in general even when I mildly disagreed, but actually found the end sort of inspiring after all the depressing previous pages.
June 16, 2022
don’t really like writing reviews since most of the people i know use them as currency but am deeply moved by this work and would implore people to read it.
cultural analysis, some strange living data with a contentious existence. Pretty quick and easy read with very little fat in it as a nonfictionwork
If you happened to be someone with some certain ‘ framework’ (sordid term+concept) that dismisses the claims Postman makes about the ethical ramifications of technological advancement this book will not do you much good. I am sure the author himself would be able to more than sympathize With these people due to his clearly prescient understanding of the absolutely treacherous encroach of subjectivity that (logically) follows oversaturation of information \ media. other reviewers are not incorrect in observing that most of the listicle observations made by Postman are cheap and (likely deliberately) schematic.
plainly, the book itself is good and conceptually smooth but the afterimage left in the readers mind is agonizingly upsetting. The cascading-cerebral-bituminous-smoothie of concurrence being a background to this work is fascinating and evokes an experience like nothing like, like reading Revelations whileseventrumpets sound faintly
cultural analysis, some strange living data with a contentious existence. Pretty quick and easy read with very little fat in it as a nonfictionwork
If you happened to be someone with some certain ‘ framework’ (sordid term+concept) that dismisses the claims Postman makes about the ethical ramifications of technological advancement this book will not do you much good. I am sure the author himself would be able to more than sympathize With these people due to his clearly prescient understanding of the absolutely treacherous encroach of subjectivity that (logically) follows oversaturation of information \ media. other reviewers are not incorrect in observing that most of the listicle observations made by Postman are cheap and (likely deliberately) schematic.
plainly, the book itself is good and conceptually smooth but the afterimage left in the readers mind is agonizingly upsetting. The cascading-cerebral-bituminous-smoothie of concurrence being a background to this work is fascinating and evokes an experience like nothing like, like reading Revelations whileseventrumpets sound faintly
November 3, 2020
Very direct and short. I don't agree with everything he says, but it's worth a read as he has some interesting ideas. It's about the history of technology and its influence on our Western culture: how we think about tools and how we train our brains to work. He talks about the difference between learning information and facts (knowledge) vs. understanding the history and ideas behind that information (wisdom). Most of all, he urges us to start critically analyzing our interaction with technology (something that still astounds me people don't do).
He references ideas from The Closing of the American Mind. Some of his ideas reminded me of Lewis's "men without chests" from The Abolition of Man. See also Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, though I liked this one better. I still want to read Postman's The Disappearance of Childhood.
Also see:
--The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
--Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
--Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
He references ideas from The Closing of the American Mind. Some of his ideas reminded me of Lewis's "men without chests" from The Abolition of Man. See also Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, though I liked this one better. I still want to read Postman's The Disappearance of Childhood.
Also see:
--The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
--Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
--Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
October 26, 2022
Neil Postman is late 20th century America's lovable Luddite. One of the thoughtful and erudite variety, but still curmudgeonly around technology of any kind! Technopology is a sequel of sorts to Postman's influential Amusing Ourselves to Death, which argued that television had degraded public discourse into a form of entertainment. Technopoly expands the scope to this argument to all flavors of technology, asserting every innovation drives changes in human psychology and behavior. He then proceeds to somewhat implicitly and incompletely argue that certain technologies are materially better than other in terms of developing a robust, healthy culture.
Technopology is a wide-ranging work, moving through a number of important topics. Postman's perspective would be considered interestingly heterodox given today's rigid ideological dividing-lines. Postman's aesthetics are prescriptively elitist and traditional yet his politics are seemingly socialist or at least oriented toward working-class material concerns. Showing off his heterodoxy, Postman dedicates a portion of Technopoly to criticizing "scientism," which he defines as,
In our present, especially pandemic times, this perspective would appear reactionary or at least many would jump to label it as such. Even from a right-of-center perspective, I think Postman's dismissal of the social sciences is flippant and unwise. The application of the scientific method isn't the problem, it is a lack of rigor and epistemic humility that have contributed to calamities or profligacies related to deployment of vogue but incorrect social science as policy. However, I am sympathetic to parts of Postman's critique. Some of these failures also are due to ignorance of traditional and aesthetic profundity provided by the Western canon of philosophy and literature, which Postman relishes pointing out. Moreover, the Sunstein and Thaler "Nudge" approach (and behavioral economics generally) can lay claim to legitimate successes, but there are plenty of problems of civilization and human behavior that cannot be resolved through technocracy or technological innovation, and it is harmful to try to.
Neil Postman's Technopoly is a demure polemic about the cultural perils attendant to technocratic optimization. Postman's thesis makes him a bit of a crank and a prophet who is all around prickly to contemporary "very online" audiences, but Technopoly is eminently readable and engaging. I hope that it makes the syllabi of many high school and college courses.
My extending review -> https://stetson.substack.com/p/the-en...
Technopology is a wide-ranging work, moving through a number of important topics. Postman's perspective would be considered interestingly heterodox given today's rigid ideological dividing-lines. Postman's aesthetics are prescriptively elitist and traditional yet his politics are seemingly socialist or at least oriented toward working-class material concerns. Showing off his heterodoxy, Postman dedicates a portion of Technopoly to criticizing "scientism," which he defines as,
Not merely the misapplication of techniques such as quantification to questions where numbers have nothing to say; not merely the confusion of the material and social realms of human experience; not merely the claim of social researchers to be applying the aims and procedures of natural science to the human world [but also] the desperate hope, and wish, and ultimately the illusory belief that some standardized set of procedures called ‘science’ can provide us with an unimpeachable source of moral authority.
In our present, especially pandemic times, this perspective would appear reactionary or at least many would jump to label it as such. Even from a right-of-center perspective, I think Postman's dismissal of the social sciences is flippant and unwise. The application of the scientific method isn't the problem, it is a lack of rigor and epistemic humility that have contributed to calamities or profligacies related to deployment of vogue but incorrect social science as policy. However, I am sympathetic to parts of Postman's critique. Some of these failures also are due to ignorance of traditional and aesthetic profundity provided by the Western canon of philosophy and literature, which Postman relishes pointing out. Moreover, the Sunstein and Thaler "Nudge" approach (and behavioral economics generally) can lay claim to legitimate successes, but there are plenty of problems of civilization and human behavior that cannot be resolved through technocracy or technological innovation, and it is harmful to try to.
Neil Postman's Technopoly is a demure polemic about the cultural perils attendant to technocratic optimization. Postman's thesis makes him a bit of a crank and a prophet who is all around prickly to contemporary "very online" audiences, but Technopoly is eminently readable and engaging. I hope that it makes the syllabi of many high school and college courses.
My extending review -> https://stetson.substack.com/p/the-en...
July 19, 2020
El autor reflexiona sobre la pérdida de los valores morales tradicionales, de modo que la dicotomía entre el bien y el mal desaparece para dar protagonismo a nuevos valores: la eficacia, la precisión y la objetividad. En este sentido, los expertos se apoyan en estas tres ideas para dotar a las nuevas tecnologías de una importancia superlativa que tiene como consecuencia la deshumanización de la cultura y de la sociedad.
Postman también advierte que es un error pensar que tener mucha información a nuestro alcance supone que todos podamos desarrollar una mayor comprensión sobre nuestro mundo, ya que la sobreinformación produce ruido y tiende hacia ‘verdades únicas’ de las que debemos sospechar. Sin embargo, las facilidades que otorgan las nuevas tecnologías nos vuelven vagos e inútiles, destruyendo nuestra capacidad de reacción y nuestro sentido crítico. Por otra parte, las sociedades dependientes de la tecnología excluyen a aquellos que no pueden acceder a estas herramientas —brecha digital— creando nuevas divisiones sociales discriminatorias.
A pesar de que Postman tiene un punto de vista apocalíptico sobre las tecnologías (al igual que todos los autores que hemos leído en esta asignatura), también les reconoce ciertas ventajas, como la eliminación de las barreras espaciotemporales. Aunque, enseguida, explica que esto también es peligroso porque llega al usuario a experimentar una sensación una falsa sociabilidad (el individuo cree que tiene vida social gracias al ordenador, pero no es el mundo real).
Desde mi punto de vista personal, es un libro muy bueno y crítico. Aunque me ha costado leerlo (más que nada, por falta de tiempo), el autor sabe transmitir desde la primera línea cuál es su punto de vista y lo defiende con argumentos y honestidad. Estoy muy de acuerdo con todo lo que dice Postman, por supuesto. Pero como ya decía el filósofo Averroes, dos verdades opuestas pueden ser ciertas al mismo tiempo.
Postman también advierte que es un error pensar que tener mucha información a nuestro alcance supone que todos podamos desarrollar una mayor comprensión sobre nuestro mundo, ya que la sobreinformación produce ruido y tiende hacia ‘verdades únicas’ de las que debemos sospechar. Sin embargo, las facilidades que otorgan las nuevas tecnologías nos vuelven vagos e inútiles, destruyendo nuestra capacidad de reacción y nuestro sentido crítico. Por otra parte, las sociedades dependientes de la tecnología excluyen a aquellos que no pueden acceder a estas herramientas —brecha digital— creando nuevas divisiones sociales discriminatorias.
A pesar de que Postman tiene un punto de vista apocalíptico sobre las tecnologías (al igual que todos los autores que hemos leído en esta asignatura), también les reconoce ciertas ventajas, como la eliminación de las barreras espaciotemporales. Aunque, enseguida, explica que esto también es peligroso porque llega al usuario a experimentar una sensación una falsa sociabilidad (el individuo cree que tiene vida social gracias al ordenador, pero no es el mundo real).
Desde mi punto de vista personal, es un libro muy bueno y crítico. Aunque me ha costado leerlo (más que nada, por falta de tiempo), el autor sabe transmitir desde la primera línea cuál es su punto de vista y lo defiende con argumentos y honestidad. Estoy muy de acuerdo con todo lo que dice Postman, por supuesto. Pero como ya decía el filósofo Averroes, dos verdades opuestas pueden ser ciertas al mismo tiempo.
December 25, 2014
This book left me with very mixed feelings. Had I read just the conclusion, as an essay, I most likely would have agreed wholeheartedly with it. Unfortunately, the rest of the book was perhaps the most pure neo-Luddite manifesto I've ever read in my life. The strange nostalgia the author clearly feels for a pre-Enlightenment era he has clearly romanticised to the point of almost fetishisation, and the arguments based on that world view, actually made me less inclined to agree with his conclusions. It is an odd thing indeed to agree with someone's conclusions, while fervently disagreeing with every single argument they made to support it.
I have long put Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business near the top of any 'must read' list, for anyone who wants an informed view of the media culture we live in, but this book goes much too far. I feel the same material is handled much better, and from a much less technophobic perspective in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, and would highly recommend reading that book instead.
I have long put Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business near the top of any 'must read' list, for anyone who wants an informed view of the media culture we live in, but this book goes much too far. I feel the same material is handled much better, and from a much less technophobic perspective in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, and would highly recommend reading that book instead.
April 4, 2016
"Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman is one of my favorite books, and Technopoly offers some of the same kind of effective cultural criticism that made that one such a classic. To be honest many of the ideas he espoused here felt somewhat familiar to me. In fairness, this book was written decades ago and so his ideas have had a long time to filter out. I wonder what he would make of the Technopoly given that this book was written even before the Internet was invented. He correctly notes that an absence of other solid cultural values (degraded as they have been by other philosophical and scientific developments) has left many of us completely unable to contextualize technology into our own lives. Instead, technology ends up dictating the terms and uses us for its own purposes. Unlike tools which we developed for a purpose, our development of technology goes on autopilot and we resign ourselves to going wherever we may with it.
All in all this is a solid and necessary need to understand the age we live in. My own somewhat tepid review reflects the familiarity of many of his arguments to me.
All in all this is a solid and necessary need to understand the age we live in. My own somewhat tepid review reflects the familiarity of many of his arguments to me.
November 11, 2021
The topic of technology is a difficult one - since we are completely immersed in it these days. In general, we like to think of it as something objective, efficient, beneficial, and so on; and for the most part of it we are in the right. But what if technology is also some power structure that just pretends to be neutral or some kind of genie out of the bottle with its own agenda that systematically takes down all our values. In this book, Postman seems to argue for the latter and proposes some form of cultural resistance against technology. To understand technology as anti-metaphysical seems wrong to me; as according to Nietzsche/Heidegger technology is but the nihilistic fulfillment of metaphysics. If this is the case, then an understanding of technology cannot be found in economics, culture, literature, politics, theology, and so on; but in fundamental philosophy that goes back to the roots of metaphysics.
May 28, 2007
Another book about the danger of trusting too fully in technology. Postman's argument encourages us to keep those low-tech ideas and solutions that still work (better) and view technology with reason, looking for that which truly benefits us as humans, rather than embracing technology that degrades us. (For similar writing, read Wendell Berry also.)
September 18, 2024
This an excellent examination of the dangers new technologies bring. Often we are so taken up with the positives we do not see the potential harm. Postman's book is a plea to be more aware of the unseen ways technology shapes us and the way we view the world. He wants us to be people who can use technology but are not used by it. It is therefore a must-read in a technology-soaked world.
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