Postman, Technopoly, Chapter 1 WCC 301: Some Key Quotes

Postman, Technopoly, Chapter 1
WCC 301
David M. DiQuattro
August 25, 2016
Some Key Quotes:

Technology is not neutral
That is why Thamus is concerned not with what people will write; he is concerned that people
will write. (7)
Once a technology is admitted, it plays out its hand; it does what it is designed to do. Our task
is to understand what that design is—that is to say, when we admit a new technology to the
culture, we must do so with our eyes wide open. (7)
Technology and ideology

...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, to amplify one sense or skill or
attitude more loudly than another. This is what Marshall McLuhan meant by his famous
aphorism “The medium is the message.” (13-14)
Technogical change is ecological

Technological change is neither additive nor subtractive. It is ecological. (18)
A new technology does not add or subtract something, it changes everything. (18)
A preacher who confines himself to considering how a medium can increase his audience will miss
the significant question: In what sense do new media alter what is meant by religion, by church,
even by God? (19)
Chapter outline, and comments key quotes

1. Judgment of Thamus
(a) Comment on the particular case - how does the example show that tech is not neutral - merely
recollection, not memory. Technologies do things
(b) Postman points out that Thamus only sees the negative in this case, whereas we have to see both.
i. This is to help him escape the charge of being a Luddite
ii. But then he talks about the ’one-eyed prophets’ - the pushers who only see what tech does
and not what it undoes
iii. Freud invoked as someone who is fairly dire but still gives tech its due
1
A. But interesting insight in Freud: If train travel wasn’t invented, my son would never have
moved away, and I would not need the phone to reach him.
(c) Technologies are not neutral
i. Thamus takes this for granted
ii. Use of any technology largely determined by structure of the technology
A. Key Quotes:
That is why Thamus is concerned not with what people will write; he is concerned
that people will write (7).
Once a technology is admitted, it plays out its hand; it does what it is designed to
do. Our task is to understand what that design is—that is to say, when we admit a
new technology to the culture, we must do so with our eyes wide open (7).
Regarding Admittance into a culture, it is worth asking how this is possible - we seem to be in a
culture that once it is developed it will come in and play out its hand, whatever the reservations
of the observant.
iii. Radical technologies create new definitions of old terms (8).
A. Example of Wisdom being redefined by print is a compelling one. How does the general
claim strike them
2. Technologies and Knowledge monopolies (9ff.)
(a) Intriguing examples of the old knowledge monopolists rejoicing over the new tech that will make
them obsolete
i. Teachers and television, blacksmiths and the car
ii. The rewards put forward to the losers
A. Computers will help them balance a checkbook more effectively - but all these advantages
are helping get on in the winner’s world (an example of meat before the dog that he
invokes at the end of the chapter)
But discreetly they neglect to say from whose point of view the efficiency is warranted
or what might be its costs (11)
iii. Not a conspiracy here. “A culture conspiring against itself” (12).
3. Technological change and ideology (actually connected to k monopolies, but important enough to
set off)
(a) Hard to predict the winners cuz changes are subtle - especially the ideological ones
His comment on grading and how peculiar it is. It’s even more peculiar that we don’t find
it peculiar. The ideological dimension is hidden
...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, to amplify one sense or
skill or attitude more loudly than another. This is what Marshall McLuhan meant
by his famous aphorism “The medium is the message.” (13-14)
(b) Unpredictability of change
2
i. The clock
Fascinating example. Fascinating example of media and ideology - no such thought as we’ll do
this at the same time as that, then everyone will come together again at exactly...
ii. Printing press
4. New technologies compete with old
(c) Schools and the truce between gregariousness of oral and introspection of written word
Breaking the truce with a computer
5. Technological Change is ecological
(d) Non-ecological questions are diversionary. Preacher can we reach more people by television
(e) The meat in front of the dog
i. McLuhan used the image to critique ‘technology is just a tool’
Great Quote about the preacher
A preacher who confines himself to considering how a medium can increase his audience will
miss the significant question: In what sense do new media alter what is meant by religion,
by church, even by God? (19)

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Postman, Technopoly, Chapter 1

August 25, 2016

Some Key Quotes:

Technology and ideology

Technogical change is ecological

Chapter outline, and comments key quotes

2. Technologies and Knowledge monopolies (9ff.)

4. New technologies compete with old

5. Technological Change is ecological

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