Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology Part II

In the second half of Technopoly, Neil Postman continues his ongoing rant about the consequence of modern technologies. While discussing medical technology, he completely takes a negative viewpoint on the matter, saying "doctors rely more on machinery than on their own experience and insight" (pg. 99). Medical machines have definitely revolutionized the way doctors diagnosis and treat diseases and/or medical problems, but the argument that Postman makes is unreasonable. Doctor's must be able to use both their personal judgment through experience and knowledge that they have acquired, along with the results that a medical machine may come up with to make the best possible diagnosis for a patient. For example, I've been working at an optometrist's office for over a year now, and some of my responsibilities are to pre-screen patients before they see the doctor. One of the machines that I was taught how to use actually refracts the patient's eyes, basically giving the doctor a small print out of what the patient's prescription might be; MIGHT being the key word. If all doctor's were to go by this information, I'm sure a lot of our patient's would have many complaints about their vision. The refraction machine is mostly there to give the doctor an idea of where to start, to be able to have an idea of what might be visually clear and/or blurry to the patient. The technologies for the medical industry, I believe, were invented to enhance doctors ability to help their patients as best as they possibly can, not completely replace a doctor's educated judgment. However, there was a certain point that Postman made that I do agree with. He discussed how pregnant women nowadays opt to have a Cesarean section rather than normal vaginal delivery. C-sections are surgical procedures that were mostly an option for women that had complications during child birth. For a woman to choose to have a C-section as just an option puts her in unnecessary danger that she could have avoided (pg. 103). In certain cases Postman has a valid point, patients have become accustomed and reliant on new technological advances available to them, but we have no one to blame but ourselves for that. Moving on to Postman's next argument, he discusses how the world has come to believe that the most serious personal and public problems can be solved using technical solutions, such as computer technology, because of its fast access to information. However, he poses example questions about people dying of starvation, families breaking up, children being mistreated, what can computer technology do in addressing them? (pg. 119) Many charities and non-profit organizations have commercial advertisements, internet websites where people can donate money online, or through text messages even. In this sense technology is a beneficial factor, but in these examples many emotional problems that people suffer cannot be solved through technological solutions. Postman ends his novel with a proposal, for a new beginning of education, where it goes "back to the basics" and in complete opposition of technopoly. By doing so, Postman believes our world will then realize what technopoly has done to our society and only then will we be able to analyze, criticize, and finally modify it (pg. 199). Honestly, I highly doubt our society will ever go "back to the basics" mainly because technology has impacted every aspect of our daily life, and there's definitely no changing it now.