Neil Postmans Technopoly Essay -- Neil Postman Technopoly Essays Pape

Neil Postman, writer, educator, critic and communications theorist, has written many books, including Technopoly. Mr. Postman is one of Americas most visible cultural critics, who attempts to analyze culture and history in damage of the effects of technology on western culture. For Postman, it seems more important to consider what society loses from new technology than what it gains. To illustrate this, Postman uses the Egyptian mythology called The Judgment of Thamus, which attempts to rationalize how the development of writing in Egyptian civilization decreases the amount of knowledge and wisdom in the society. He traces the roots of technology to show how technology impacts the honorable and intellectual attitude of people. Postman seems to criticize societies with high technologies, yet he seems naive to the benefits technology has given society. Postman can be considered fairly right in his views regarding technology. His lucid writing style stimulates thoughts on issues in t odays technological society however because of his moral interpretations and historical revisions, his ethos is arguable. For every good insight he makes, he skips a nonher mark completely. Postman divides history into three types. He begins his argument with discussion of tool-using cultures. In these cultures, technology has an ideological bias to action that is non thought about by users. He says that this is a time of logic, sequence, objectivity, detachment, and discipline, where historical figures such as Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and others clung to the theology of their age. This was a world with God, which was concerned with truth and not power. Postman remarks that the mass production of books and the invention of the printing pre... ... Review. v42 n18 (Sept. 14, 1992) Copyright National review Inc. 58. Lubar, Steven. Engines of Change The American Industrial Revolution 1790-1860. Smithsonian Institution. http//www.si.sgi.com/organiza/museums/nmah/homepage/docs/engin 10.htm ( 1986). Mack, John. Out of Many, v 2, Prenther- Hall, Inc (1995) 405-423. Moulthrop, Stuart. actually Like a Book Wired Subscribe. Wired ventures LTD.http//www.hotwired.com/wired/3.11/departments/moulthrop.if.html (1995). Ravvin, David. Without Judgement or Morality, Technology becomes God (I couldnt connect on-line so couldnt get the addess once more when I went to do it- it kept saying the file was not found). Star, Alexander. Technopoly The Surrender of Culture to Technology. New Republic. v207 n5 (July 27, 1992)59. Weir, Stuart. Nation. v255, n6 ( Aug. 31, 1992) The Nation Company Inc. 216.