Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

In Neil Postman's book, "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology," he discusses the many beneficial and also consequential aspects that technology has brought to our culture. Over centuries our society has changed in drastic ways, through new inventions and revolutionizing ideas. Postman states that "Cultures may be classified into three types: tool-using cultures, technocracies, and technopolies. At the present time, each type may be found somewhere on the planet..." (pg. 22). All countries were tool-using cultures in the beginning stages of their development, and there are some still present today. The usage of their tools was more specific to everyday necessary tasks, such as tools in the use of waterpower, windmills, wheeled plow, and construction of castles and cathedrals (pg. 23). The difference between a tool-using culture and a technocracy, is that "in a technocracy, tools play a central role in the thought-world of the culture...they are not integrated into the culture, they attack the culture...bid to become the culture" (pg. 28). Technocracy was the beginning of an era where new inventions replaced old traditional ideas. For example, the mechanical clock allowed people to follow a new perception of time, and even the printing press with movable type got rid of oral tradition (pg. 29). As the American culture proceeded to advance in its technologies and inventions, it brought forth the rise of Technopoly, or as Postman describes it "totalitarian technocracy" (pg. 48). Our American culture has grown into this technopoly, where people in our society have become consumed by technology and machinery. One reason for this is that it provides convenience in our everyday lives. Looking at the modern world today, a very large majority of our population would not be able to survive one day without the use of technology. Our very existence and everyday lives have become dependent on cars, computers, cell phones, high-tech medical instruments, and so much more. These inventions have definitely created a comfortable and longer life for people today. However, as technopoly emerged, old customs and traditions dwindled away. "Technocracy also speeded up the world. We could get places faster, do things faster, accomplish more in a shorter time. Time, in fact, became and adversary over which technology could triumph. And this meant that there was no time to look back or to contemplate what was being lost" (pg. 45). In just a few sentences, Postman has accurately described what has happened to our American culture. How many of us have actually thought about how much technology has changed our lives? It has revolutionized the way we communicate with others, brought new teaching methods for education, caused advances in medicine, and so much more. However, on a different scale it has also changed how we think and act. A simple example would be if a student was given an assignment to write a paper on a certain topic, the first place they would probably look for information on such a topic would be the internet. Before computers had changed our whole world, "information" was found in books and encyclopedias. Technology has developed our country into what it is today, and there is definitely no going back. However, our culture does need to take a step back to think how this technopoly has effected us, and what affect it will have on our futures.