Neil Postman Response

Terry S. Toney

Neil Postman's book, Technopoly was an eye opening read. It was at once both amusing and somewhat infuriating. It was both mired in facts and in misinterpretations. There are several points, (actually more than several points) that I found to comment on, but have decided for space considerations to focus in on only two of them-his use of a Socratic parable to make his staements against technology and his idea that "Technopolies" invariably mean that we are losing our cultural "humanity" to computers.

Neil Postman's use of a parable from Plato's Phaedrus to emphasize what pitfalls technology may produce in our society was somewhat off-putting for me. It was made more difficult by the fact that I found a objection to his book on page one. Reading the rest of the book was somewhat difficult.

Surely anyone will agree that no new technology is completely good, nor is it completely bad. The difference between Marshall McLuhan (our last author) and Postman is the way they feel that they must or must not interact with the discussion at hand. McLuhan played the part of the quiet, intuitive, but non interactive observer. He studied, he examined, he recorded, but made no value judgements. Postman is incapable of examining something without then making moralistic comments on his findings. Postman feels it is his job not only to observe and record, but to then judge the effect technology plays in our society. This was in such stark contrast to Marshall McLuhan that it was a little stunning.

The first thing I noticed about Neil Postman upon reading his book, Technopoly, was that this man had a definite aversion to any type of paradigmatic shift. He simply does not seem to appreciate change. Look at his book titles-Amusing Ourselves to Death, Teaching as Subversive Activity (ok, I'd like to read this one!), The Disappearance of Childhood...he doesn't seem to take change well. It becomes evident that, unlike Marshall McLuhan, who sought to catalog and identify traits and trends that affected the American public without making value judgements on these observations, Postman feels it is necessary to engage in long, moral laden discourses concerning his observations. Anything new to Postman is perceived as a possible threat to society as a whole.

Postman enjoys quoting Plato's Phaedrus, a story narrated by Socrates. Socrates is forever known as the both the bane and the beloved to any junior law student in the United States, and having had a misspent, but definitely enjoyable youth, which included among other things a brief turn in law school, I found Postman's constant references to one of Socrates writings amusing. Well intentioned as Postman undoubtably was when he read this parable, his lack of a formal introduction to the Socratic method of teaching made Postman misinterpret this parable completely. What an interesting read this was when I realized that Postman had already made a fatal error on the first page of his book!

Postman uses a Socratic parable about two men called Thamus and Theuth, constantly portraying himself as the ever more wise and noble Thamus, to the eager but naive Theuth. This is where he begins his book and he constantly relates many salient points back to this one parable. I counted no less than eight separate references to this parable in the first two chapters of Postman's book. The amusing thing is that Postman, in my estimation, misinterpreted the entire focus of the parable!

Theuth was an inventor of great things, portrayed by Postman as a naive, eager, but thoughtless young man. Theuth supposedly invented writing and showed it, among other worthy inventions such as geometry and astronomy, to his King. Theuth proclaimed in the parable that "writing will improve the wisdom and memory of the Egyptians. ...and will be a sure receipt for memory and wisdom". Thamus then gently rebuked the inventor, stating that the inventor of something was not necessarily the person to determine its inherent worth to society. What Theuth thought as a way to improve memory and wisdom Thamus perceived entirely different. To Thamus, writing would decrease the ability to memorize things, making the Egyptians forgetful and that wisdom would suffer, based upon the student receiving much information, but little instruction in its use.

Postman used this little parable as a stick to beat over the readers heads, warning that "technophiles" like little zealous Theuths, are running amok in the world, replicating and inventing new technologies that without regard to the inherent virtue (or lack thereof) that the technology eventually will have. Indeed, the technophiles, in Postman's eyes are as virulent and destructive as any computer virus ever has been.

Upon the first reading of this parable, I could see where a layman, one who is not formally trained in the Socratic method of logic and thought processes, would see King Thamus as a wise and noble man, concerned with the health and well being of his Egyptian people. Furthermore, it is easy to see how Theuth could be seen as a unconcerned zealot, caught up in the magic of a new technology, without thought of the consequences his new technology may bring to an unsuspecting or unprepared society. Postman, however, made the mistake of assuming that this parable could be taken at face value. It could be read, digested and then regurgitated in its entirety as a historical vignette that supported his idea that technology cannot be part of the natural order of things in any society, that it carries "a program, an agenda, and a philosophy that may or may not be life enhancing and that therefore require scrutiny, criticism and control" (p.185).

The Socratic method of thought is never this simple or straightforward. Indeed, the entire parable is just that- a parable, that must be interpreted based upon the way Socrates, the narrator, would have used this with his students. In point, Socrates placed great emphasis on being able to see a problem from different angles. In law schools around the country, the Socratic method is applied religiously, until the student can argue a problem with himself and change sides every few minutes without even stopping to catch his breath. Socrates was using this parable, not as a defense against writing (a new technology), or even against new inventions, but rather as a way to encourage others to look at ideas from other points of view. Socrates felt that individual perceptions caused people to ignore salient aspects of an argument, and he sought to encourage his students to divorce themselves from their feelings and perceptions and look at the problem rationally and dispassionately. What looked to Postman as a wiser, more learned King rebuking a naive little inventor was in actuality Socrates making a statement about perceptions and their extreme influence on arguments. In reality, Socrates could have had Thamus and Theuth discussing what color to paint a bedroom, rather than the societal effects of writing. The idea was that Socrates was trying to impart the importance of always seeking to discern facts, while ignoring personal perceptions when making an argument. Postman missed this one by a mile. In reality, this pithy little parable that Postman was so taken with was just an exercise Socrates dreamed up to probably test his freshmen with on a Friday before a football game...or whatever sport they played back then.

I found Postman's discourse on the types of cultures-" tool using", whose integration of tools did not change their belief system or ideology," technocracies", whose in Postman's view, changed society to mimic machines- the advent of the Industrial revolution and the beginning of factories and interchangeable parts being aligned with this portion of history and more lately, "technopolies"-of which he states only the USA is one, of great interest, as was his references to the Luddite movement, the failure of the "Utopian Cultures" and even the Scopes monkey trials as historical references to these types of cultural derivations. His divisions of these cultures were based upon the culture's relationship with God or their own deity and where God stood as opposed to the technology. Postman was clear that Technopoly was achieved when there was a deification of the technology- where a culture seeks personal affirmation by the technology (p.71). Postman feels that the deification of technology then causes huge societal implications.

Postman's emphasis on the effect technology has on society was his most impressive argument in the entire book. He felt that technology lead to "information overload" and this subsequent "overloading" could have dire effects on society. He states that "insufficient information" rarely leads to social, political or personal problems (p. 60), rather it is the reverse that causes these problems to overflow into society. He feels that the information has achieved an undeserved metaphysical status in our culture. We must constantly "access" information, sometimes without clearly knowing what drives us to learn more. I can say I recently saw a TV commercial that must send premonition shivers down Postman's spine! The commercial shows a man in front of a computer, surfing on the Internet- his wife asks him what was wrong and he states in a semi-daze, " The computer just said I made it to the end of the information superhighway- I saw and learned everything there is to know". Societal institutions, long used to control and structure society, under bombardment from this overwhelming new information overload seek to provide social structure and filtering, causing chaos and fragmentation to occur in Postman's estimation.

It's an interesting argument, but one that seems to be placing the blame for the destruction of the nuclear family squarely on technology. There are many reasons why the nuclear family and society as a whole are not functioning perfectly today, but I doubt the advent of home computers and modems are at the very root of our societal difficulties. I believe it is an over simplification to simply state that "information overload" causes societal, political and other stresses that seeks to destroy the foundation of our culture. I also do not feel just because I am sitting in front of a computer monitor typing this report that I am worshiping a demi-God of some type. I can see myself worshiping my coffee pot every morning at six am, but not my computer. And the coffee pot is an old drip pot that you heat on the stove, so it doesn't qualify as a new technology- tool using cultures use the same type of coffee pot I do.

That is not to say that I do not agree with Mr. Postman in certain instances. I feel that we are not taking responsibility, nor are we entirely cognizant of the fact that computers do have power over their audiences. Marshall McLuhan taught me that the "medium is the message" and that the medium cannot be separated from the message, it is one and the same and exerts tremendous unforseen and unacknowledged power over the user.

Indeed, I will be the first to say that we as Educational Technologists must be at the forefront of this developing technology. We must be armed with the knowledge that there really are Theuth-like zealots out there, running amok, with little regard to what technology can and cannot do, what it should and should not do. Microsoft has definitely not taken a leadership role in determining what the proper role technology should have in a society- they simply want to make money. As a technologist in charge of children, I should and must be aware that the medium is inseparable from the content and that both exert influence on the user. It is up to me to become aware of this influence and to catalog it's effects.

Postman addresses this power by mentioning David Bolter's book, Turing's Men, which argues that computers are the dominant metaphor of our age...by suggesting a new relationship to information, to work and to nature itself (p.111). He goes further to state that humans have become "information processors", with nature the information to be processed. Postman feels that this is a reference to the fact that we are losing our identities to machines, that we are becoming machines, rather than individual sentient creatures.

To which I answer, when, in the entire history of man, have we not been "information processors?" In what instance in history, has mankind not had to take factual references, mixed perceptions and intuitive knowledge and spent time processing this into recognizable data to be acted upon? Where Postman finds despair, I find joy. We are historically walking, talking surviving information processors, we are simply living in an era where information is growing exponentially, rather than linearly, yet we continue to keep up and even outdistance this information glut. Where Postman finds deification of technology, to the point where the human is subjugated, I see a working partnership of man and machine.

Postman likens himself to the all-knowing and benevolent King Thamus, shouting warnings to his beloved masses. In reality, I feel Postman more closely resembles Theuth, the naive and eager inventor. Theuth did not step back and look at all sides of his newest invention rationally and dispassionately, He did not diligently search his newest toy in an effort to catalog the advantages and drawbacks of his new invention, in truth, inherent in all new inventions. Postman is like Theuth, in that he chooses to see only one side of the use of technology. He refuses to lay aside personal perceptions and view technology as it really is, a potent tool that does have the ability to influence its audience in both positive and negative ways. It is up to us, as future educational technologists, to understand technology's unseen and yet definitive influence, but it is not necessarily our job to pass judgement on that influence. Overall, I can say that Postman was an interesting read. He was not, however, Marshall McLuhan by any stretch of the imagination. His discussion of the moralistic views of technology use in society has helped prepare me for the intelligent discourse with people who feel as Neil Postman does, that technology while maybe not inherently evil, is at least in their estimation, overrated and overused as a cure-all. Certainly anyone who teaches in a school could recognize at least one Postman groupie on their staff. For this reason alone, I waded through Postman and feel I am the better for it.