Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

by Neil Postman

In 1959, Sir Charles Snow published The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, which was both the title and the subject of the Rede Lecture he had given earlier at Cambridge University. The lecture was intended to illuminate what Sir Charles saw as a great problem of our age—the opposition of art and science, or, more precisely, the implacable hostility between literary intellectuals (sometimes called humanists) and physical scientists. The publication of the book caused a small rumble among academics (let us say, a 2.3 on the Richter Scale), not least because Snow came down so firmly on the side of the scientists, giving humanists ample reason and openings for sharp, funny, and nasty ripostes. But the controversy did not last long, and the book quickly faded from view. For good reason. Sir Charles had posed the wrong question, given the wrong argument, and therefore offered an irrelevant answer. Humanists and scientists have no quarrel, at least none that is of sufficient interest to most people. Nonetheless, to Snow must go some considerable credit for noticing that there are two cultures, that they are in fierce opposition to each other, and that it is necessary for a great debate to ensue about the matter.