Neil Postman's 'Technopoly'
An intermediate issue. The standard Fortnightly will be back this time next week, followed a week later by an issue of The Occasional for paid subscribers.
Neil Postman died in 2003 at the age of 73. Probably his best-known book is Amusing Ourselves to Death. Recently I picked out my copy of Technopoly: the surrender of culture to technology, which was first published in 1992, and re-read it.
Postman is being cited a lot these days, in the context of the development of AI and the dominance of our tech over-lords (see for example
on Postman’s Prophetic Provocations). It is extraordinary that he was so prescient about technologies which had hardly developed when he was writing.
I started writing this consideration of Neil Postman’s book Technopoly on the first full day of the second Trump presidential term, just after his inauguration in the Rotunda of the Capitol. Close to Trump then were the new ‘robber barons’ of our world, a line-up of men (called by Laura Hilliger mediocre white dudes who have outsized egos and billions of money) who have made their enormous wealth from technology, and a visible manifestation of where power is right now in America. If Neil Postman were alive and writing a follow-up to his 1992 book he might well have called it Technocracy.
Mind you, I’m not sure Postman would need to write a follow-up. The most remarkable thing about this book is that, well before the invention of the current online technology maelstrom, he got everything right about it in the early 90s before it was invented. I re-read Technopoly recently, having fished my 1993 copy from my shelves. Pictured, and in good condition by the way - a tribute to printing technology.
As with my piece on Thomas Newkirk’s The Art of Slow Reading, my re-reading was particularly in the context of the gathering developments in AI.
Early on Postman states that
we are currently surrounded by throngs of zealous …. one-eyed prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo. We might call such people Technophiles. They gaze on technology as a lover does on his beloved, seeing it as without blemish and entertaining no apprehension for the future.
For him, technology is never neutral, and always both a burden and a blessing. Even medical technology such as the invention of the stethoscope has not been unblemished in its consequences, so
when we admit a new technology to the culture, we must do so with our eyes wide open.
Of course, we failed to do this in the early heady days of social media, and now we are paying the price of its depredations and degradations, and children especially have suffered because we were not alert enough to see the damaging consequences down the line. Now we are trying to haul back those consequences, all too late. In education it looks horribly likely that we have not learned that lesson, in the giddy and even hysterical proselytsing for AI use in schools, for the intellectually-mistaken reason that children will use it in the real world (my rant). As Postman states
Once a technology is admitted, it plays out its hand; it does what it is designed to do.
It tends to hoover up all the oxygen in human endeavours:
Technology imperiously commandeers our most important terminology. It redefines “freedom,” “truth,” “intelligence,” “fact,” “wisdom,” “memory,” “history”—all the words we live by. And it does not pause to tell us. And we do not pause to ask.
We can see this right now in the manifold ways in which AI has become anthropomophised: it’s too late to take this word back, but its intelligence is not intelligence at all. The best-known service is ChatGPT (it’s not chatting), and now there are cute names like Claude, and reassuring terms like ‘Co-Pilot’. And surely ‘Leonardo’ is a badge of civilised creativity?
Some more observations by Postman, (in bold, followed by my own comments).
Because of its lengthy, intimate, and inevitable relationship with culture, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most people are inclined to give. / So technology is an Iago, smoothly presenting itself as helpful, as our best and must trustworthy friend.
Stated in the most dramatic terms, the accusation can be made that the uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without a moral foundation. It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living. Technology, in sum, is both friend and enemy.
The benefits and deficits of a new technology are not distributed equally. There are, as it were, winners and losers. It is both puzzling and poignant that on many occasions the losers, out of ignorance, have actually cheered the winners, and some still do. / All too common a feature of contemporary life, including in politics. And we should have learned in education that technology often exacerbates inequality. Take the coming Additional Assessment Components in the Irish Leaving Certificate: those who will cope best and benefit most will be the comfortably off. Children in disadvantaged families often have worse access to technology and to family support: the Matthew Effect.
It is to be expected that the winners will encourage the losers to be enthusiastic about computer technology. / And become exasperated and condescending when they’re not. For instance, teachers who believe the technology will degrade their students’ learning are dismissed as out of touch and ‘Luddite’. Enjoy Conor Murphy’s sarcastic piece How to Cheat Using AI and Not Get Caught.
Embedded in every tool is an ideological bias, a predisposition to construct the world as one thing rather than another, to value one thing over another. / We cannot expect our young pupils to see this naturally, but as adult teachers we have to educate ourselves, become aware of it, and point it out to those we teach.
Unforeseen consequences stand in the way of all those who think they see clearly the direction in which a new technology will take. / When I put together this collection on AI in English, I quoted William Goldman’s famous dictum about film: Nobody knows anything. So often lazy thinkers (usually not classroom teachers) over-predict positive outcomes for new technologies. There is a lot of noise, and years later their hyperbole has fizzled away into nothingness.
On the one hand, there is the world of the printed word with its emphasis on logic, sequence, history, exposition, objectivity, detachment, and discipline. On the other, there is the world of television with its emphasis on imagery, narrative, presentness, simultaneity, intimacy, immediate gratification, and quick emotional response. / In 1992, Postman was writing primarily about the effects of television. But much of this is still relevant right now when directed at the online world. The world of the printed world with its emphasis on logic, sequence and so on may seem quaintly irrelevant, but it is our jobs as teachers to help our pupils learn and enjoy these longer deeper narratives, and not just in classic literary texts. Film can do it too, and the long narratives of top-class television (Postman would be shocked at that). Recently Will Tavlin wrote in n+1 about the way Netflix is deliberately creating narratives which do not need attention, and how their programme-making often panders to the lowest common denominator, an object-lesson for teachers that we must not dumb down in our own classes:
Several screenwriters who’ve worked for the streamer told me a common note from company executives is “have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.” (“We spent a day together,” Lohan tells her lover, James, in Irish Wish. “I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain, but that doesn’t give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow I’m marrying Paul Kennedy.” “Fine,” he responds. “That will be the last you see of me because after this job is over I’m off to Bolivia to photograph an endangered tree lizard.”)
Over four centuries, teachers, while emphasizing print, have allowed orality its place in the classroom, and have therefore achieved a kind of pedagogical peace between these two forms of learning, so that what is valuable in each can be maximized. Now comes the computer, carrying anew the banner of private learning and individual problem-solving. / Well, this is the arena of English teaching, a space for discussion. ‘Oracy’ is mentioned a lot in English these days. We think back to the remote teaching of the pandemic lockdowns, and how difficult it was to recreate that fruitful space online, and how exhilarating it was to get back to a physical room.
What we need to consider about the computer has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning. / This is exactly right; the very idea of efficiency is highly problematic and suggests the user does not understand the principles of learning, and how it happens, instead using the language of mechanistic production. In terms of English teaching, there could be no more irrelevant idea than efficiency. And I recently read a commentator in the Irish media stating that AI will help people learn faster. More on ‘slowness’ in learning in my previous comments on Thomas Newkirk’s book The Art of Slow Reading.
But the historical Luddites were neither childish nor naïve. They were people trying desperately to preserve whatever rights, privileges, laws, and customs had given them justice in the older world-view. ‘Luddite’ is a word thrown lazily at those who question the tech-boosters. Kyle Chayka:
Today, the word “Luddite” is used as an insult to anyone resistant to technological innovation; it suggests ignoramuses, sticks in the mud, obstacles to progress. But a new book by the journalist and author Brian Merchant, titled Blood in the Machine, argues that Luddism stood not against technology per se but for the rights of workers above the inequitable profitability of machines.
The assumptions of the thought-world of Technopoly. These include the beliefs that the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment; that in fact human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value; and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts. / The idea that thinking could be anything other than subjective…
The idea that technique of any kind can do our thinking for us … is among the basic principles of Technopoly. / There you go: AI in a nutshell. Little could be more disastrous for those of us teaching English to teenagers.
How comforting it must have been to have a priest explain the meaning of the death of a loved one, of an accident, or of a piece of good fortune. To live in a world in which there were no random events—in which everything was, in theory, comprehensible; in which every act of nature was infused with meaning—is an irreplaceable gift of theology. / There is a new replacement theology, which provides a comforting illusion of meaning. This idea struck me while teaching The Crucible, as I am right now again after a few years. There must be an explanation for the girls’ behaviour, and ‘witchcraft’ rushes in to provide this in a world where everything has a religious explanation. See the podcast Hysterical for a fascinating exploration of this in the contemporary world.
Attend any conference on telecommunications or computer technology, and you will be attending a celebration of innovative machinery that generates, stores, and distributes more information, more conveniently, at greater speeds than ever before. To the question “What problem does the information solve?” the answer is usually “How to generate, store, and distribute more information, more conveniently, at greater speeds than ever before.” / Another vital question for us now. In the classroom, we should always ask, ‘What problem does AI solve in English teaching/learning?’
In Technopoly, we are driven to fill our lives with the quest to “access” information. For what purpose or with what limitations, it is not for us to ask; and we are not accustomed to asking, since the problem is unprecedented. The world has never before been confronted with information glut and has hardly had time to reflect on its consequences. / Some interesting thinkers are reflecting right now on the current glut. I put together a list of those I am finding helpful. I single out
in The Convivial Society as particularly level-headed and thoughtful. Here is his 2011 post (in his old blog) on Technopoly:while traditional theologies which governed tool-using cultures are displaced in a technocracy, in a Technolopy a governing ideology in the mode of theology is reintroduced to order society. The function of theology has not been eradicated, it has just been reconfigured, which rather reminds me of a Dylan tune:
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Western culture had more than two hundred years to accustom itself to the new information conditions created by the press. It developed new institutions, such as the school and representative government. It developed new conceptions of knowledge and intelligence, and a heightened respect for reason and privacy. / How much time did it have to accustom itself to online technology? And there have been only just over two years to adjust to widely-available AI: our Department of Education has gone headlong into treating it as being in the same category as citable sources.
The milieu in which Technopoly flourishes is one in which the tie between information and human purpose has been severed. / As educators, we can’t give up on this: human purpose has to remain at the core of what we do. Partly in response to the Trump election and the horror in Gaza and Ukraine, I wrote What Can English Teachers Do?
Technopoly wishes to solve, once and for all, the dilemmas of subjectivity. In. culture in which the machine, with its impersonal and endlessly repeatable operations, is a controlling metaphor and considered to be the instrument of progress, subjectivity becomes profoundly unacceptable. Diversity, complexity and ambiguity of human judgment are enemies of technique. / So English, whose arena is diversity, complexity and ambiguity, is the very opposite of the machine.
We proceed under the assumption that information is our friend, believing that cultures may suffer grievously from a lack of information, which, of course, they do. It is only now beginning to be understood that cultures may also suffer grievously from information glut, information without meaning, information without control mechanisms. / There’s our ‘friend’ Iago again. And so many people think that education is about ‘information’ rather than ‘meaning’: we’re filling the little pitchers. They’re the people all who think that ‘rote learning’ is a thing in English teaching.
Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state of mind. It consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology. / In deification we see the allusion to the way technology has become a form of theology.
Most of those quotations are from the first half of Technopoly. The final chapter is ‘The Loving Resistance Fighter’, and Postman describes the qualities of such ‘fighters’ who he hopes will aid the US to survive its Ozymandias-like hubris and technological promiscuity. The directions technology has taken in recent years would have seriously tested such hope if Postman had still been with us. But at least he is still here in his books, and in the wisdom they contain. And, below, here he is again in two videos:
Great book and great post, Julian. Thanks for this. Another one to add to my list of Postman favorites to revisit.
Great book. I first read it in the late 90s when I was studying humanities. Postman knew, it seems, exactly what was coming for us.