Technopoly : : the Surrender of Culture to Technology

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Originally published: 1st ed. New York : Knopf, 1992.
The judgment of Thamus -- From tools to technocracy -- From technocracy to technopoly -- The improbable world -- The broken defenses -- The ideology of machines: medical technology -- The ideology of machines: computer technology -- Invisible technologies -- Scientism -- The great symbol drain -- The loving resistance fighter.
A social critic argues that the United States has become a "technopoly"--a system that sacrifices social institutions for self-perpetuating technological advancement--and suggests ways to use technical skills to enhance our democracy.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A must-read. submitted by terpsichore17 on July 25, 2018, 1:07pm Postman analyzes a technological landscape over twenty years old, but so much of it still rings true that the man seems prophetic.

His thesis: technology appears to be a friend, but does not give us time for reflection on potential losses before it changes the world. As scientists and inventors strive to make life easier, healthier, and longer…technology begins to usurp the place of our critical thinking and our consciences. It is so intertwined with modern life that most of us have difficulty finding a distant enough vantage point to see what consequences, secretly intended or unintentional, may follow. As King Thamus tells Theuth (or Thoth), “the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it.” The king referred to writing, distinguishing memory and wisdom themselves from the recollection and *appearance* of wisdom which writing would make possible.

Basically, technology can be used for good or ill – but once the tool is in the culture, it will change it: not just here or there, but throughout. For example, a culture that can produce written records can – eventually will – shift away from having an oral tradition. Hurrying toward what is ahead, the inventor does not necessarily examine all these implications, all the ways his invention will change the world – nor do those using it ask, typically. Instead, everyone emphasizes their hope for all the good this invention will bring. The culture thus conspires against itself: the onlookers cannot know how this novelty will change their existence, nor that they might well end up on “the losing side” of a technology.

And so Western society approached Technopoly: a totalitarian technocracy, wherein efficiency, objective data, and unambiguous calculation is valued more highly than human judgment, human dignity, or the complexity of the unmeasurable. “Lacking a lucid set of ethics and having rejected tradition, Technopoly searches for a source of authority and finds it in the idea of statistical objectivity.” Thus ideas are reduced to objects, abstractions are ranked, and realities which were never meant to be reduced to numbers – human intelligence, a student’s understanding of a subject, beauty, ability, how people regard political candidates, etc. – are flattened and simplified until they fit into such boxes.

Postman acknowledges that a certain amount of generalization or oversimplification is necessary for everyone, given that we are awash in information: the sorcerer’s apprentice, with only a broom against the flood. But in the past, some institution (familial society, religion, etc.) provided the framework for belief and understanding, dictating what was of greater or lesser importance. Technocracy unraveled that moral and intellectual coherence, and now such institutions, and such overarching structures of belief, are held in suspicion by the Technopoly-addled. What do they have instead? An incomprehensible universe, and an unending river of data sans context. Data management becomes the driving concern – again, not asking why this information or that must be preserved, but only caring how. “Information appears indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume and at high speeds, and disconnected from theory, meaning, or purpose.”

Further thoughts here: https://bit.ly/2NKrtD5

s submitted by Kenes on July 12, 2020, 10:44am summary of technology