Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Here the author briefly presents his topic of technology and poses the fundamental question of whether it is good or bad. He concludes that it can be helpful but also destructive when left uncontrolled. In fact, it can be so destructive that it can extinguish “the vital sources of our humanity” by “undermin[ing] certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living” (xii). 

Postman begins with a parable from Plato’s Phaedrus, in which King Thamus of Egypt opines on the invention of writing. The inventor who presents it to him finds it wonderful, espousing all its supposed benefits. Thamus, however, counters each of these with the harmful effects writing will have; he sees it as all negative. The truth, Postman, argues is in the middle: all technologies have some good and some bad aspects.

The author then explains the effects of a new technology. First, it changes how we view things by redefining words already in use, giving us a different perspective of them. For example, with the introduction of writing, the word “wisdom” changed to mean something more like “knowledge.” In addition, those with “competence in the use of a new technology become an elite group that are granted undeserved authority and prestige by those who have no such competence” (9), creating winners and losers.