Neil Postman's Technopoly and Raysa Leer's Rethinking the Future of Learning - Essay Example

Invisible technologies include polling mechanisms, statistics, and I.Q scores while visible technologies include computers and television (Leer & Ivanov, 2013). Neil Postman divides culture into three kinds; technocracies, technopolies, and tool-using cultures. In tool-using culture, tools were developed to solve particular and urgent problems of life. In addition, they were invented to serve a symbolic world of myths, politics, religion, and art. Neil Postman asserts that in tool using technology is not perceived as independent and is subject to the judgment of some binding religious or social systems.

In a technocracy, the religion and social custom control society. Further, society is driven by a desire to invent. However, it does not have much influence on society like technopoly. In Technopoly, Neill Postman argues that people look for all forms of cultural life to different types of technique and technology. Additionally, Neil Postman believed that civil affairs are best directed and performed by experts and subjectivity is perceived as an obstacle to thinking (Postman, 1996). Neil Postman argued that traditional information no longer has a place in the modern world.

Therefore, people should turn to bureaucrats, social scientists, and experts who, assisted by computers, manage massive data. Technology essential since it is superior to ambiguous, complex and lax human reasoning and judgments. Further, is a means and end of human reasoning and creativity because the concept is overcome by the objective of getting information for its own sake. In turn, the lack of cultural coherence characterizes Technopoly (Postman, 1993). Raysa Leer's Raysa argued that data acquisition is any procedure of formulating and collecting raw facts.

The drive of data gathering is to acquire material, to keep a record, to reach conclusions on significant matters, or to administer the materials to others. However, data are collected to give information on a certain topic. Unlike in the past, today technology is widely applied in scientific data collection and learning as discussed below.