Theory on Technology by Neil Postman - Thesis Example

? Introduction Seeing as technology and culture change with the times it stands to reason that the ideas and philosophies regarding those topics should change with the time also. With that in mind one might believe that Postman’s ideas on humanism and technology are not incorrect but rather out-dated. In a nation that represent a world of culture in a world that is filled with ever evolving technology, there h as to be a limit to how old an idea can be before it is consider obsolete." For many people technology would be using a cell-phone to call up one’s friends and asking after them. For others it may be a release from the daily stress of work by watching a grand movie on the television. For still others it may be finding solutions to problems faced by mankind, which works as a combined shot at development of the human race. No matter what form of technology or what meaning one chooses to give to technology, crux of the discussion can be simply put that “technology is defined by how one chooses to use it”.  Neil Postman, a very famous cultural-critic of the USA, came out with a book in, called Technopoly. Being a successful critic, Neil, in this book, raises issues that state, “In the age of technopoly, technology is not merely the dominant factor within culture; rather technology seeks to redefine culture itself “(technopoly, 2002). Neil described today’s American culture as one, which is ruled more by technology than their beliefs and morals so much so that technology has evolved into a culture. The book claims that these three cultures of technology and advancement are relevant and apparent through put to the world in a number of different ways. He goes ahead and describes his claim and alleged culture in three simple yet complete words as: Tool-using: The book claims that the very primitive of technical-culture was the tool-using culture. It came in the very start of the world. In this culture the entire technology was aimed to achieve the solutions to all human’s problems in the physical life and in the artistic dimension. For this purpose a variant number of tools were made which were representatives of all the technology of that age. None of these tools had ever been a nuisance to the humans. Soon these tools and technology were integrated into the lives of the people and did not stand out on their own. So they only affected the human life to the extent of problem solving and not anything else. And so they did not change the human culture in the slightest of means. These also did not change any of the human believes about the existence of god or a higher superior power. And so were deemed harmless. This culture assumption was based on theology and was used as a means of controlling ideology. The very basic theological belief is and forever has been, that God is the inventor and giver of all intelligence and efficiency, so whatever number of tools that humans did make with this intelligence so these tools and inventions were only a means of furthering man’s belief in god and the higher powers. In that time, man was the slave of theology and not technology. Technocracy: the second part of the book introduces the concept of technocracy. The book says that in this culture the tools invented for the development of man-kind are the main-point or the through put of the world. Technocracy deals with the invention of techniques and tools. But it is different from the tool-using culture in the sense that it does not make tools which leave after the work of humans is done. It also enhances the thought process of humans, forcing them to think of customs and procedure regarding the use of technology as a part of them. The highlight of this culture is the invention of the clock, the printing press and the telescope. These inventions were the breakaway of the humans from their independency on tools. Among them the telescope was by far the most important invention of this culture, both in the good way and the bad way. Before the advent of the telescope, it was widely believed that the universe centered on the earth and God really liked mankind and was highly interested in him. But with the invention of the telescope it was soon realized that the universe did not revolve around the world, the earth was not flat and there were a lot of other planets in the space. This raised bad thoughts and questions against the Gods, like if the Gods weren’t much or at all interested in humans and if not at all, then why did they create humans. This was a huge blow to a lot of important sections of the human nature like moral, spiritual and structural aspects of the society. Technopoly: this term is a theory which describes a culture which has technology dictating the philosophical and moral rules of a society instead of a government or the church. This part is defined as the phrase where the technology has come to be beatified and so this culture is named the technopoly. The book states that the human culture now seeks refuge and emancipation from all its pains and in the form of technology. The culture even starts to take orders of all kinds from the technology. The technopoly culture formulates a society where technology has replaced theology, morals and societal beliefs that existed in the cultures before it. Technology is given preference and exultation over human emotions, interpretations and judgment. Technopoly is pollution of information. Information is ever-increasing and flowing. It may be said here that too much information is bad, but the situation calls more for the saying, “what to do with too much information”. Too much information only leads to an ultimatum set in the societal norms in the form of progress and efficiency. This situation is aggravated by technology not only being the problem but also the solution to the problem. This can be explained by the fact that too much information about technology can be stored only by more technology. This creates a never ending cycle. Schools, government, churches, families are a few components which can break through this hub of technology but even they are now trivialized by technology in the name of progress. Neil Postman’s book not only gives technopoly as the root of the problem but also described ways to solve it. These include bureaucracy, rise of experts, and the technical machinery. Technopoly also comes in the form of trivialization of traditions of any society. Any cultural symbol can now be used as the means of information, efficiency or progress by anyone. Even traditional symbols are trivialized by their over-usage and indiscrimination. In the book Neil Postman deems technology omnipotent over all other life’s and decisions. This technology is termed technopoly. Unites states of America, he says, is now the one and only country which is this deeply into the early stages of technopoly. Technopoly has forced USA to redefine its culture, privacy, religion, truth, politics, art, family life, consideration, intellect and judgment. There was a time in USA when people fought on horse-back, and made fire out of stones. But today, people would not travel 10 feet without a vehicle and light fire without safety matches. Though it cannot be ascertained when the transition from technocracy to technopoly took place but it can be assured that USA entered a technocracy culture in the early 1860s. Neil said in his book, that technopoly has an agenda to completely take over the culture of USA. Students of USA now undergo a media-war inside their heads. Those who use television at home have trouble with prints on the computer screens. But they are still intelligent. They are failures in terms of being all-rounders, even with being high-achievers of their classes. Postman says that the entire culture of USA has been redefined as a result of technopoly. The traditions of the country have been terminated by technopoly. Even though the USA life-style is completely dependent on technology, but nevertheless, most of them despise and fear it. When talking about the fact that whether USA has lost its sense of culture under the trance of technology or its culture is still intact, this report would like to state USA culture. American culture may be defined with people waking up in the morning, with the help of an electric alarm, watching the morning news, with a cup of freshly-brewed coffee from the coffee-maker, and at the same time, checking mails for latest updates from their boss. Going to work in a car and stopping at a traffic light. In the office, printing pages from out a printer and typing reports on a computer, while the computer spell-checks every bit of the sentences. Calling your parents with your brand-new cell phone and having a long chat. Going to the bank and paying your bills through a credit card and a touch-screen computer. All of the average American life is ordered by the technology. But it is still highly inappropriate to claim that the American culture is lost as a result of this incorporation of technology into the American lives. No doubt technology can solve most of our problems, but it most certainly cannot replace the gathering of one’s family for tanks-giving, or a member of the family’s funeral. The fact maybe true that technology has to some extent rendered the human intelligence as bleak and lesser, but the fact that this technology is made by intelligent humans, neutralizes the effects of technology on humans lives. After all technology are mankind’s slave and not the other way round. In USA, on average, a person sends around 3500 text messages per day (Sherry Turkle, 2011). Is it the trend of the day, need of the hour, or just technology over-taking us? If it is the third one, then this must also imply that , technology is bad for us as it is making people grow apart rather than bring them closer together. But the real question is, is it true that technology grows takes people away from each other? It can be said in the same context that news papers have grown almost obsolete due to the influx of a lot of online technology which makes the need to buy newspapers redundant. But that is most certainly not the case. Postman says, “Technology giveth and technology taketh away”. This may not necessarily be true as what we get from technology is how we choose to get from it. Whatever is gained from technology outweighs that which is lost because of it. Although there is no doubt about the fact that technology should be used way wisely. Proper and sustained guidance is particularly needed if everyone is to use technology so that no part of technology takes over us. After all it would be highly immature of an adult to leave a child alone with paints without any prior guidance and then blame the child for drawing an immature picture. When talking about culture development in America, a lot of people would argue that Model-T is foregone now. And we would like to think that it is due to model-t that we changed or the invention of combustion engine that changed us. But if the truth be told then it would be totally the other way round. We build combustion engine because we had already changed enough to move on from horse-drawn carts to cars. Technology may have disconnected our cyber-experience form our bodies and presence, but that only happened because we needed and were ready for a virtual-self. Typically, it may be said that technology has a bad influence on real-world communities. This can be said from the fact that many people spend hours and hours on end in front of the television instead of walking out their door to the club and interacting with people there. But then, on the other hand, there are also people who watch the news while walking to work every day on the small screens on the road-sides. That is a form of interaction with the world too. If someone likes or needs to socialize with people in a particular place, they would have to travel to that place. Or with the help of technology they could just make a video-conference call and socialize and it makes things very easy for the average human. This can all be put under the banner of technopoly or simply the fact that the urban life has advanced in the field of technology. It could be safely said that the urban experience has increased, thus the reason for the development and evolution of humans too. Who says that the old ways aren’t still there? Anthony Townsend is an urban city-planner and works at Silicon Valley's Institute for the Future; he says that the blend of America’s old culture and new technology-enhanced culture has given rise to a form of “blended urban reality". Instead of vanishing behind the frame of technopoly, American life-style had simplified without losing its culture. In fact technology has helped it to form a new culture. Technology has helped by: The standard of life has faced a sharp acclivity, and the society becomes well-formed. People learn quicker and easily, and are able to multi-task by just clicking buttons. Globalization becomes prevalent and people come closer, and achieve better specialization in jobs. Enables a better information of values and cultures, mass flow of ideas, Conclusion Some find it easier to claim that Neil Postman’s book was a technological critique. But what most people fail to realize is that the book talks more about the views of technology from all over the world statistics. This book also provides a need to really understand what is required of one in order that they don’t come under the influence of technology. Bibliography Sherry turkle: Is technology tearing us apart (2011): http://www.thetakeaway.org/2011/jan/18/technology-tearing-us-apart/ Jeremy Adam Smith: Is Mobile Technology Bringing Us Together or Tearing Us Apart? Two Viewshttp://shareable.net/blog/is-mobile-technology-bringing-us-together-or-tearing-us-apart-two-views Connie McNabb: Reflections on Neil Postman’s Technopoly: http://pangea.tec.selu.edu/~cmcnabb/philosop/postman.htm Linda Joiner (2004): http://pangea.tec.selu.edu/~ljoiner/695/postman1.htm Steve Erikson: Technopoly (2004): http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/courses/cs403/currentReviews/erickson.html Read More