Technopoly
Neil Postman, Vintage Books, 1992
Reviewed by Steve Erickson, Computers in Society, Gordon College, 2004
In the book, Postman breaks history up into three
periods.Ê In keeping with other methods
for categorizing history (e.g. Stone age, industrial revolution, etc.) he
explains history
in terms of three technological stages.Ê He begins by describing tool using
cultures.Ê In these cultures tools are
not intruders.Ê They are integrated into
the culture in ways that do not pose significant contradictions to its worldview
(25).Ê For the most part these cultures
are theocratic.Ê It is theology, not
t
echnology which shapes society and gives meaning.
The ne
xt stage which Postman describes is a
technocracy.Ê This age is characterized
by a separation of moral and intellectual values.Ê It can be traced as far back as to Galileo
and the telescope.Ê With his
revolutionary discovery, there is created a distance between the moral sphere
of life and the intellectual or scientific.
Yet the citizens of this era d
o to hold science up to be their god.Ê They "knew that science and technology
did not provide philosophies by which to live and they clung to the
philosophies of their fathers" (47).
The term which Postman uses to describe where we in America
find ourselves today is Technopoly.Ê In a
Technopoly, all other worldviews other than that of technology, progress and
efficiency are deemed irrelevant.Ê Fo
ur
reasons are given for the rise of technopoly in America.Ê 1)Ê The
American character of movement and advancement where newness and improvement
are closely linked.Ê 2)Ê The genius of American capitalists.Ê 3)Ê The
apparent successes of technology in providing convenience, co
mfort, speed,
hygiene, and abundance.Ê 4)Ê Old sources of belief coming under siege by
people like Einstein, Darwin, Marx and Freud (53-55).Ê
In a technopoly, people believe whatever science tells
them; this is similar to the middle ages where religion had the authority and
the people simply believed whatever Rome said.
Today we live in a culture where we are continually bombarded with new
scientific fact
s.Ê The interesting thing
is that we are not occupied with these new facts for very long.Ê This is because we do not have a worldview
big enough to have the facts make much of a difference.Ê We have such an incoherent view of culture
and the world that even if something earth shattering came along it cannot
disrupt our already chaotic understandings.
It is like recognizing and expecting a pattern in a brand new deck of
cards versus one that has been shuffled many times over and a jack of hearts is
just as likely to come up as any other card (58-59).Ê
Part of the problem with a technopoly is the pollution of
information.Ê Whether it is writing, the
telegraph or television, they all serve to create more information.Ê The real problem comes when progress and
efficiency are held up as the ulti
mate good of society.Ê This is because science and technology are
the only answers to the problem of progress and when this is the case then not
only is technology our problem but it makes it worse by also claiming to be the
answer.Ê In our culture, how are we to
handle the barrage of information created by technology?Ê The common answer given is with more
technology; and so the cycle con
tinues and our view of the world is filtered
only through the lens of technology and science.Ê Other cultures had information filters; those
pieces of society which helped to sort through information, assigning more
value to some than to others and giving meaning to the whole thing.Ê These were institutions like schools,
churches, government, and families.Ê But
when technology trivializes
these and makes them seem irrelevant in light of
progress and efficiency then it must come up with its own ways of managing
information.Ê Postman gives three new
ways of managing information in a technopoly.
The first is beauracracy, where information is managed by eliminating
information which diverts attention away from the problem at hand.Ê Efficiency becomes the authority.Ê The second is the rise of experts.Ê In a technopoly, experts are wholly ignorant
of areas unrelated to their own.
"The role of the expert is to concentrate on one field of
knowledge, sift through all that is available, eliminate that which has no
bearing on a problem, and use what is left to assist in solving the
problem.Ê This process works fairly well
i
n a situation where only a technical solution is required and there is no
conflict with human purposes" (88).
But the question is:Ê can all of
human life be explained simply in terms of technology, science and
progress?Ê Postman describes this new
religion of science in most eloquent terms. "In Technopoly, all experts
are invested with the charisma of priestliness.
Some of our priest-experts are called psychiatrists, some psychologists,
some sociologists, some statisticians.
The god they serve does not speak of righteousness or goodness or mercy
or grace.Ê Their god speaks of
efficiency, precision, objectivity.Ê And
that is why such concepts as sin and evil disappear in Technopoly.Ê They
come from a moral universe that is
irrelevant to the theology of expertise.
An so the priests of Technopoly call sin 'social deviance,' which is a
statistical concept, and they call evil 'psychopathology,' which is a medical
concept.Ê Sin and evil disappear because
they cannot be measured and objectified, and therefore cannot be dealt with by
experts" (90).
The third way information is managed in a technopoly is the
use of technical machinery.Ê <
/span>Those in
technopoly do not concern themselves with questions of "what is
truth" or "what is the good life".Ê "Machines eliminate complexity, doubt,
and ambiguity.Ê They work swiftly, they
are standardized, and they provide us with numbers that you can see and
calculate with" (93).
This whole project of trying to see the world only through
mathematics or the idea that all thoughts can be objectified and quantified,
Postman calls Scientism.Ê In Scientism, the
methods of the natural sciences are applied to the study of human
behavior.Ê Then we can generate specific
principles which can be used to organize society on a rational and humane
basis. Science then is seen as a comprehensive belief system that gives meaning
to life, as well as a sense of well-being, morality, and even immortality
(144-148).Ê All of this is an explanation
o
f a quote Postman writes at the beginning of the book, "technology
creates a culture without a moral foundation.
It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make
human life worth living" (xii).
Another feature of a technopoly is the trivialization of
traditional symbols in a culture.Ê Here
any cultural symbol, including those of religion, can be used by whomever for
their own purposes; for they can all be justified by the appeal to
efficiency.Ê Symbols become trivialized
in two ways, first by overusing them and second by indiscriminately using them
in any context.Ê Postman writes, "one
picture, we are told, is worth a thousand words.Ê But a thousand pictures, especially if they
are of the same object, may not be worth anything" (166).Ê Some point to advertising as the culprit of
this abu
ndant and indiscriminate use of symbols, but Postman says that the
blame is really on technology.
"Such cultural abuse could not have occurred without technologies
to make it possible and a world-view to make it desirable" (171).
One of the effects of a loss of meaningful symbols in a
culture, is the loss of a meta-narrative for life.Ê Worldviews are applications of
narratives.Ê A narrative is "a story
of human history that give
s meaning to the past, explains the present and
provides guidance for the future.Ê It is
a story whose principles help a culture to organize its institutions, to develop
ideals, and to find authority for its actions" (172). The story of
technopoly is "progress without limits, rights without responsibilities
and technology without cost.Ê It puts in
its place efficiency, interest and economic advance.Ê It promises heaven on earth through the
conveniences of technological progress.
It casts aside all traditional narratives and symbols that suggest
stability and orderliness, and tells, instead, of a life of skills, technical
expertise, and the ecstasy of consumption.
Its purpose is to produce functionaries for an ongoing Technopoly"
(179).Ê
The final chapter of the book is a humble attempt to offer
some guidance for
the future.Ê Postman
calls us to be "loving resistance fighters".Ê By loving he means that "in spite of the
confusion, errors, and stupidities you see around you, you must always keep
close to your heart the narratives and symbols that once made the United States
the hope of the world and that may yet have enough vitality to do so
again" (182).Ê Resistance fighters
ar
e characterized by those "who refuse to accept efficiency as the
pre-eminent goal of human relations; who have freed themselves from the belief
in the magical powers of number, do you not regard calculation as an adequate
substitute for judgment, or precision as a synonym for truth; who refuse to
allow psychology or any 'social science' to pre-empt the language and thought
of common sense; who are, at least suspicious of the idea of progress, and who
do not confuse information with understanding;
who do not regard the aged as
irrelevant; who take seriously the meaning of family loyalty and honor. . . Who
take the great narratives of religion seriously and who do not believe that
science is the only system of thought capable of producing truth; who know the
difference between the sacred and the profane, and who do not wink at tradition
for modernity's sake; who admire technological ingenuity but do not think it
represents the highest possible form of human achievement" (184).Ê Beyond this, Postman leaves it to the reader
to decide for himself how he will live in a culture that sees technology and
science as the authority.Ê He concludes
by offering advice to schools on courses that they should offer to help us to
think more integratively and holistically about life and learning.Ê History ought to be made an essential part of
all disciplines.Ê
One cannot adequately
study any field of knowledge apart from the history of study in that
field.Ê "Knowledge is not a fixed
thing, but a state in human development, with a past and a future"
(190).Ê Another course he suggests is one
in the philosophy of science.Ê We need a
course in semantics - the processes by which people make meaning - in order to
improve our ability
to discern.Ê We need
a course in the history of technology and finally we need courses in
religion.Ê Each of these he sees as ways
in which we can being to realign our understandings of the world and put
technology back in its rightful place in human culture.Ê It does have a place, just not at the top of
everything where all other parts of human existence become subservient to it.
In conclusion, while some might say that this book is a
critiqu
e of technology in culture; it is really more a book about
worldviews.Ê World view is that pesky
word which everybody uses in college but nobody really understands.Ê This book helps put a finger on the pervading
worldview of our culture today in the process helps the reader to better
understand the need for a comprehensive, coherent worldview.
For all of the book's laments, it still comes across has
having an optimistic tone about the future.
P
ostman is still filled with hope that the same humanity which has made
itself a servant of its tools can re-align that relationship.Ê It is a wonderful book that those who are
going into the field of science would do well to read.Ê But it is also so much more than that.Ê This book really should be read by a large
variety of people, not because it provides such great solutions but because i
t
serves as a tool to better understand our culture.