I have read a few books that have significantly shifted my view of the world. Some of these books are prestigious--like Plato’s The Republic and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird--and some less so--for example, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. In the past few months, I have added Technopoly by Neil Postman to that list. While this text may not be the most well-known of Postman’s novels, the ideas and arguments he presents within it are in some ways more disturbing than those in the more famous Amusing Ourselves to Death. In short, Postman (1992) argues that “We are currently surrounded by throngs of . . . one-eyed prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo” (p. 5). Though
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However, the information we have and the means by which we attain itsaid information is slowly but clearly altering the way we think. In his landmark book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman focuses on how a culture rich in the media of television actively prevents us from engaging in meaningful conversations with each other and with the theorists of the past. When our culture shifted from a primarily print-based culture to an image-based culture, the demands placed upon us by that culture changed as well. In a print-based culture, the reader is required to “follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to contrast assertions, to connect on generalization to another” (Postman, 1985, pg. 51). By contrast, an image-based culture makes no such demands and requires no such sustained thought. In fact, the image-based culture we live in now does not even require us to remain still. We can watch movies and look at pictures anywhere and at anytime by accessing our phones. When we think about television, Postman (1985) writes that “You can only photograph a particular fragment of the here-and-now--a cliff of a certain terrain, in a certain condition of light; a wave at a moment in time, from a particular point of view...such larger abstractions as truth, honor, love, falsehood cannot be talked about in the lexicon of pictures” (pg. 72). And this, of course, is the problem: images are a statement. Writing is an invitation for discussion. What Postman (1985) takes issue with the most is what, as educators, should concern us the most as well: “The photograph lacks syntax, which deprives it of a capacity to argue with the world…[and] all understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears”
However, the information we have and the means by which we attain itsaid information is slowly but clearly altering the way we think. In his landmark book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman focuses on how a culture rich in the media of television actively prevents us from engaging in meaningful conversations with each other and with the theorists of the past. When our culture shifted from a primarily print-based culture to an image-based culture, the demands placed upon us by that culture changed as well. In a print-based culture, the reader is required to “follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to contrast assertions, to connect on generalization to another” (Postman, 1985, pg. 51). By contrast, an image-based culture makes no such demands and requires no such sustained thought. In fact, the image-based culture we live in now does not even require us to remain still. We can watch movies and look at pictures anywhere and at anytime by accessing our phones. When we think about television, Postman (1985) writes that “You can only photograph a particular fragment of the here-and-now--a cliff of a certain terrain, in a certain condition of light; a wave at a moment in time, from a particular point of view...such larger abstractions as truth, honor, love, falsehood cannot be talked about in the lexicon of pictures” (pg. 72). And this, of course, is the problem: images are a statement. Writing is an invitation for discussion. What Postman (1985) takes issue with the most is what, as educators, should concern us the most as well: “The photograph lacks syntax, which deprives it of a capacity to argue with the world…[and] all understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears”