In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death chronicles our transformation into a Technopol...
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Jul 18, 2007
Dan
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This book is about how technology affects our society and culture. Specifically, this book is about how Technology negatively affects our society and culture. Postman is very one sided and hardly even pays lip service to any contradictory interpretations than his own.
I read this book very quickly, in one sitting, finishing the book in an afternoon. I don't remember his whole argument. However, when I finished I remember being dissatisfied with Postman's arguments, thinking he was More...
I read this book very quickly, in one sitting, finishing the book in an afternoon. I don't remember his whole argument. However, when I finished I remember being dissatisfied with Postman's arguments, thinking he was More...
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Dec 23, 2010
Ryan
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A technopoly is a world dominated and ruled by technological morals, like speed and efficiency. Postman says that modern America is a technopoly, and he also says that it is bad because it creates a fragmented culture. For instance, technology today gives us the ability to have massive amounts of information, but, he says, this information is unsorted and we have no way of distinguishing what is good or bad about it because what is good is that we can communicate more and faster.
Postma More...
Postma More...
Mar 10, 2007
Mehdi
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The book is about the phylosophy of tecnology and has fresh ideas about the education program. It criticizes the trends in technology and science and warns that it may cause many harms to our world and human being. Many people believe that Postman was(he passed away)a radical critique. I think sometimes we need some radical ideas to moderate a trend and Postman successfully achieved this goal in the book.
He tries to change your mind radically an you may resist. But it is worth reading.
He tries to change your mind radically an you may resist. But it is worth reading.
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Jan 16, 2012
Jordan
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There are some good ideas in this book, but only incidentally so- Postman himself delivers almost nothing of merit. Postman tends to come across as a curmudgeon in his writing, but in Amusing Ourselves to Death, he presented a reasonable, fairly robust argument that felt supported by evidence. Even when he was opining, his position was plausible. In Technopoly, he fails to develop a convincing hierarchy of technological development.
Postman never admits as much, but across his books h More...
Postman never admits as much, but across his books h More...
Jul 21, 2010
Trevor
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A large part of this is just stating what I would take to be pretty much the obvious. No ‘new technology’ is ever fully positive or fully negative. I can’t remember where I heard recently that an environment that has rabbits added to it is not, say, the Australian bush with rabbits, but actually a new environment. Technology does much the same thing with the human environment. The 1950s were not really just the 1940s with television added and the 2000s weren’t just the 1980s with the interne
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Aug 09, 2007
Sara
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This book is interesting, to say the least. Since this book was written a while ago, it is interesting to see what predictions seem to be taking place and which are utter crap. I give it such a high rating because I am a firm believer that it is important that we keep a skeptical eye raised at our new technologies, when we bring them in with enthusiasm. It is not very realistic, but it makes you think.
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Jan 29, 2012
Manuela
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There are definitely some interesting questions brought up in this book, e.g.:
* Do we need symbols, and if yes, is the information overflow society really draining most of them from their meaning?
* Does information need limitation, and if, how?
* is quantification/rationalization bad?
Also, the proposed education system in the last chapter is interesting. With only a few exceptions -- notably, the introduction of a semantics course that explains the fundamental princi More...
* Do we need symbols, and if yes, is the information overflow society really draining most of them from their meaning?
* Does information need limitation, and if, how?
* is quantification/rationalization bad?
Also, the proposed education system in the last chapter is interesting. With only a few exceptions -- notably, the introduction of a semantics course that explains the fundamental princi More...
Oct 15, 2009
Nathanael
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Technopoly tells us that technology has an inherent viewpoint, a 'take' on reality. That's obvious. More unsettling is that Postman argues we adopt the viewpoint of the technology we use. For example, by naively citing social science we adopt Scientism--a scarily amoral view of reality. Postman's Technopoly is a negative description of modern American society--wholly taken into technological development, wholly sapped of social mores and the traditions that uphold them. Religion and liberal educ
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May 28, 2007
Beth
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Another book about the danger of trusting too fully in technology. Postman's argument encourages us to keep those low-tech ideas and solutions that still work (better) and view technology with reason, looking for that which truly benefits us as humans, rather than embracing technology that degrades us. (For similar writing, read Wendell Berry also.)
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Jun 04, 2008
Rob
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This is my favorite Postman book so far. It was thought provoking to the point that it makes me question the use of the 5 star system on this site. I liked the scope of this book more than that of Amusing Ourselves To Death. There was more emphasis on our cultural ideologies and less on imagined historical ideals.
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Feb 14, 2011
Dina
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Even though it was published in the early 90's, before technology would really be past the point of no return, Technopoly remains incredibly relevant today. Although our problems are no longer just the over use of computers in classrooms, but quick Internet searches filling in where well researched papers used to be, Postman makes a number of very convincing arguments for the things we give up as we relinquish control and thought to technologies. I found his ideas resonating in mind soon after I
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Aug 05, 2011
Kerith
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As usual, Postman made me think, and not just while I was reading the book. I took the thinking with me right out into the world. This book was frightening, distressing, yet at times it made me snort at the idiosyncrasies of this society.
I like Postman because he pulls no punches, yet he loves this country and he knows how to find the good in the things he is criticizing. From writing, to printing, telegraphy, photography, all the way up to computers -- he writes about how we have changed from t More...
I like Postman because he pulls no punches, yet he loves this country and he knows how to find the good in the things he is criticizing. From writing, to printing, telegraphy, photography, all the way up to computers -- he writes about how we have changed from t More...
Jun 15, 2009
Kevin
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How ironic it seems to me, that here I sit ignoring just about all the lessons of this book as I give Technopoly, the treatise by Neal Postman, an arbitrary rating of four or five stars. Of what use is the information in a star rating to anyone? Bloody none. What is this star rating, then? It's nonsense and noise, the same sort of nonsense and noise that we call data, or news; true or false, we have no choice but to accept it.
Postman turns a skeptic eye here to our notions of progress, obs More...
Postman turns a skeptic eye here to our notions of progress, obs More...
Sep 11, 2007
Maura
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Will make you reassess the role that technology should play in our lives and whether or not we truly have control over it.
Dec 04, 2008
Emma
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Neil Postman was, apparently, a big deal. Upon starting his 1992 book Technopoly I learned that he had died in 2003, which makes the negative parts of this review feel vaguely like I'm speaking ill of the dead. Sorry, Mr. Postman.
Anyway, Technopoly takes the idea behind Aldous Huxley's dystopic novel Brave New World very seriously. Unlike 1984, Huxley's novel imagined a world where we are ruined by what we love, not what we fear. (This idea crops up again in Scott Westerfeld's novel More...
Anyway, Technopoly takes the idea behind Aldous Huxley's dystopic novel Brave New World very seriously. Unlike 1984, Huxley's novel imagined a world where we are ruined by what we love, not what we fear. (This idea crops up again in Scott Westerfeld's novel More...
Jul 31, 2007
M
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A great read for those that hate technology or at least are suspicious of it. However the conclusions in the last chapter are weak.
Technopoly is totalitarian Technocracy. Technology remains powerful whilst all other ideologies have weakened. Invisible technology is a powerful and subversive force with an ideological bias that does not necessarily have humanity as its priority. Technology is the main cultural force. Ideas are embedded in computers (within the medium).
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Technopoly is totalitarian Technocracy. Technology remains powerful whilst all other ideologies have weakened. Invisible technology is a powerful and subversive force with an ideological bias that does not necessarily have humanity as its priority. Technology is the main cultural force. Ideas are embedded in computers (within the medium).
More...
Oct 01, 2011
Jennifer
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Somewhat of a reiteration of the points raised in Postman's classic Amusing Ourselves To Death, Technopoly goes so far as to quote its earlier version line-for-line in places. Still, there's an interesting expansion on some themes here, as well as Postman's intriguing suggestions for a curriculum intended to combat the culture's decontextualization of information. A solid read, but not the classic its predecessor was.
Jan 05, 2011
Matt
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An academic read from a 20th Century pioneer of Media and Communications Theory. Approach it as an academic effort and then apply to your own particular discipline. Worth perseverance (I'm only half way through)
A favorite idea from the book is that new media or channels are rarely just additive in nature. They are more like evolutionary events that leave an ecosystem forever changed, just as with the natural ecosystems.
A favorite idea from the book is that new media or channels are rarely just additive in nature. They are more like evolutionary events that leave an ecosystem forever changed, just as with the natural ecosystems.
Jun 13, 2008
Ruth
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I found this book on my shelf and realized I had only read half of it about 15 year ago, and, obsessive/compulsive person that I am, felt the need to read the whole thing again. It was written in 93, I think, before the internet really exploded, and it is a critique of our unthinking subservience to technology. I can tell from my notes in the margins that I was really excited about this book in 1993 but this time I found it kind of irrationally nostalgic in a lot of places. I mostly agree wit
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Feb 06, 2012
Greg
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The late Neil Postman’s book, Technopoly, is a sobering assessment of a technologically obsessed American culture. The fact that the book was presciently published in 1992, long before the Internet became ubiquitous, is alarming. Don’t be fooled though, Postman isn’t a pure Luddite and this isn’t a book that is anti-technology. Perhaps the best way of putting it is that Postman harbors a sense of digital ambivalence. Like Postman, I don’t necessarily condemn the technologies themselves per s
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May 08, 2011
Dawn
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This is an extremely interesting view of how our past and current technology has and is affecting our culture, countries, and world. The author starts at the printing press and continues to the current global media and describes the affects, good and bad, that technology has had upon us. Whether you agree with his views or not, this is a fasinating look at how our perceptions and attitudes have changed with our advances.
Jul 21, 2009
Thaddeus
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One of the five most influential books I have ever read. The overarching lesson I learned is that every technology has a bias. The difficulty lies in determining what that bias might be, and what the consequences of that bias are. When I first read it, the internet did not exist. Even so, it is more relevant today.
Aug 20, 2010
Gordon
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Postman is a bit of a Luddite, but this book makes us consider what we give up for what we get in this world. His first chapter on the embrace of the written word and what we lost by doing it is thought-provoking. Those who wish to read The Disappearance of Childhood should start with this book.
Jul 29, 2010
blackness
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one of my favorite books. This dude was challenging technology/culture/intellectual issues back before the internet. His ideas ring extremely true today. Very thought provoking if you can even get your mind around the idea that EVERY advance in technology might not possibly be good.
Mar 21, 2009
Poiema
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If you've read other Neil Postman books, this one will be somewhat redundant. I think he makes his point best in _Amusing Ourselves to Death_, and if I were to recommend just one of Postman's books, that would be the place to start. This one is not without merit, however.
Apr 20, 2008
Sandra
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Although this book was written in the early 90's it's message is still if not even more appropriate today. Postman follows the history and emergence of technology in our lives. I wouldn't say he's a Luddite and that he hates technology. This book is meant more as a call for society to be critical and detached from technology. The technopoly for which this book is titled is described as a state of culture in which there is a deification of technology.
I've definitely taken Postman' More...
I've definitely taken Postman' More...
Apr 06, 2011
Stacey
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It has been a while since I have read a philosophical book... this one didn't quite convince me of its premise. That a society dominated but technology is essentially bad &/or has to be carefully scrutinized and more thoroughly examined as to not lose oneself in the evils of our advancements. I find that hard to believe- yet I understand and appreciate the argument. I more so appreciated his critical review & definition of the scientific method & what it means to be a scientist amidst all of the
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Apr 07, 2011
Widgets
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Not a design book, but most definitely required reading. A fantastic critique of what 'technology' is and — more importantly — what happens when we blindly accept all technology as good, or even necessary. I learned a great deal reading this book...
Feb 11, 2011
Александър
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Историята на "спора" между науката и религията, и последствията от победата на първата. Много интелигентен език.
May 05, 2009
Ian
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This is not necessarily an angry attack on technology, but a great survey of how it shapes our lives and our thinking, often without us knowing it...to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
