Summary of chapters 2 and 3 of Neil Postman’s Technopoly

Human cultures are defined in important ways by the technologies they use. According

to Neil Postman, we can divide human cultures into three types: tool-using cultures,

technocracies, and technopolies. In tool-using cultures, technology, though important, is not

preeminent; rather, its uses are directed by the culture’s system of belief system and the

institutions in which that system is embodied. True, from time to time a technological

innovation will prove so powerful as to upset the traditional, institutionalized order (as in the

example Postman gives: the invention of the stirrup). However, these innovations are the

exception, not the rule. As a rule, culture is fundamentally traditional in a tool-using society.

In technocracies, by contrast, technological innovation actively competes with, even vies

to replace, the culture’s traditions. Postman invokes the example of Renaissance-era scientist

Francis Bacon, who held that cultural institutions ought to be reoriented to support the scientific

enterprise, so that the latter could continually improve the lot of humankind. In a technocracy,

then, cultural tradition and technological innovation face each other in a stand-off. Cultural

tradition draws its authority from its capacity to provide a philosophical or religious grounding

for our lives; technology, from its capacity to improve our material conditions. But the two

cannot work together, Postman maintains, for tradition and innovation are antithetical.

According to Postman, technology eventually wins this showdown, and the result is

technopoly, i.e., “totalitarian technocracy.” In a technopoly, all cultural practices are

subordinated to the demands of technological innovation, which no longer seeks to serve the

good of humankind but instead seeks only to perpetuate itself. In short, technology is no longer

a tool but becomes an end in itself; its continuous growth and development, the ultimate good.

In a technopoly, technology is sovereign over us.