Technopoly: A Confliction with Tradition

Technology trumps tradition, at least according to Neil Postman's book, Technopoly. You see, tradition, by definition, does not change. And in a world where technology improves rapidly, where the desire for the newest technologies never goes away, tradition quickly becomes outdated. Technology as a part of society "...does not make [traditions] illegal. It does not make them immoral. It does not even make them unpopular. It makes them invisible and therefore irrelevan" (Postman 48). Postman's describes a society ruled by technology as a "technopoly," and compares it to the world of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (more on that later). Throughout the chapter I am examining, Postman describes a transition from a technocracy - an uneasy balance between technological innovation and tradition - to a full-blown technopoly. Postman envisions this as the future of the world, and this transition well describes the backstory of the society in Brave New World. In the novel, there is little to no desire for religion, art, politics, privacy, and intelligence. Postman's analysis of the history of the technopoly helps provide insight into Huxley's vision of the future, as if Postman were providing a timeline of Huxley's novel. Whether or not the future will unfold into something akin to Brave New World remains to be seen. However, Postman's look at the history of technology's rise suggests a continuing trend towards a technology-run world. Whereas Huxley cites Henry Ford's influence as the rise of the technopoly in Brave New World, Postman credits Frederick W. Taylor's The Principle of Scientific Management as the beginnings of America's technopoly. Well, a documentation of it, anyway. In the book, the outline of the technopoly is set and defined. This technopoly, Postman claims, is already in place in America, and soon will become a worldwide standard. Personally I disagree; I think we are still in a technocary. And yet, with the way the world is progressing, a technopoly seems inevitable.