Technopoly

Lori Yvette Fernandez Lopez

3 Oct 2011

AP Literature

Technopolies

In his piece, Technopoly, Neil Postman divides human existence into 3 sections. The ancient world was one in which humans used tools for basic survival. During Sir Frances Bacon’s lifetime, Postman claims, that the Technocracy came into existence. In this period technology and tools were both used and accepted though they fought a battle between themselves. Unlike the technocracy in which man and machine coexisted, technopolies describe the total takeover of man by machines. As Postman claims “in America, a collective fervor for invention took hold of the masses” ushering in the technopoly. In the world of the technopoly, which Postman agrees with Huxley, began at the turn of the 20^th century with Ford’s perfection of the assembly line and creation of the automobile. In the age of the technopoly man is so dependent upon technology, it rules us, controls our lives. This is true in the modern age where we are glued to our cell phones and computers as well as in the fictional world of Huxley’s Brave New World. In Brave New World our beliefs as they are now have ceased to exist, ushered out by the advent of technology. People no longer conceive children, but rather use scientific advances to grow and control fetuses from “conception” to “birth.” In the novel, the most prevalent for of transportation seems to be aviation (helicopters, etc.) rather than walking, biking, or riding as was dominant in technocracies. Rather than turning to home and family for happiness and comfort they turn to soma.

Postman cites Fredrick Taylor’s book, The Principles of Scientific Management as the “first explicit and formal outlines of the assumptions of the thought-world of Technopoly.” In my interpretation, this means that Taylor’s book is the first outline of the basic fundamentals of a technopolistic nation/world. In this way, his piece has similar import to that of Adam Smith’s book on the basic functions and characteristics of capitalism—a system already in existence though unpublished. 

Though Postman claims that our world as well as the world in Huxley’s novel are both Technopolies, our worlds are vastly different. We still retain some elements of our traditions (religion, childbirth, chastity, sobriety), however, they have eschewed their past as irrelevant since the Technopoly has essentially eliminated all other aspects and ways of living as seen through the differentiated culture between the New World and the Savage World.