Top Invention of the 19th Century? Invention.

In Chapter Three of Technopoly, Postman looks at how we shifted from being a Technocracy into a Technopoly: what precipitated it, and what it changed. Prior to the machine, we were a society that made with tools. There were small shops that made artifacts by hand, and we lived as humans.

With the advent of machined mills in the 19th Century and Taylor’s work in the early 20th Century,  man moved toward being subservient to machine. As Postman puts it, a calculator never makes mistakes, the careless human does. If we could only be machine-like, then our lives would be more productive and efficient. From a Technopolist viewpoint, our lives would be better if we were more like our machines.

While I think this is all very interesting, I want to focus on a point that he makes which is more fundamental and perhaps a little easier to overlook: the greatest invention of the 19th Century was invention.

With an explosion that has never ceased, from the light bulb, telegraph, telephone, computer and on, we live in an era that is filled with invention. We are so surrounded by it that we often see it as common place. Right now I’m watching and reading articles on “tablet wars” which started with the Apple iPad. As other manufacturers jump in and adapt, we’re seeing a technological arms race that is redefining interfaces and media for us…but we mostly see the shiny screens and the technical specifications.

I think Postman is right. Ideologically, we’ve come to expect and, consequently, need invention. It’s probably something we wouldn’t think about unless it suddenly disappeared. Our machines help us invent better machines. The cycle is exhilarating, but it is also vicious. Invention is one of the cornerstones of a technopoly. I think I know where Postman is going with it, but we’ll have to wait and see for now.

In the meantime, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying screen printing. It’s been theraputic to print, work with chemicals, get ink under my nails and not stare at a laptop screen.

Technopoly: Chapter One

I have finally opened the cover of my first big read for my thesis research: Technopoly by Neil Postman. A few years ago I read his book Amusing Ourselves to Death which, I my opinion, was a very good read. There are overlapping concepts between to two, but the focus of this book is the critical examination of technology and how it changes all of life for both good and bad.

That is a point that Postman is adamant within the first couple pages. Technology changes everything for both good and bad. Yet his primary concern, so far, is that this dichotomy is not carefully considered. He illustrates this concept with an excerpt from Plato’s writings where Socrates is telling a story. In the story a wise Egyptian king is commenting on inventions. When the inventor reveals writing to him, he is dismayed and says that it will unleash all manner of error into the world. People will no longer have memory, they will merely recollect. Wisdom will be confused with knowledge, and knowledge that is obtained will be assimilated without proper instruction. Yet the king is not truly wise, according to Plato, for he failed to see the benefits that writing would, and has, created.

Right now I am very concerned with my own thinking as I understand Postman’s perspective which he put into writing in the early 1990’s. His view on computers, for example, is without an understanding of how the Internet has reconnected loner computer users. He sees the computer as a burden to the common man with its only real application in business. Hindsight is 20/20, so it is simplistic for me to discount his arguments based on his inability to divine the future. I bring this up because it makes me realize that technology very much redefines life. This would is entirely different from Postman’s but there are truths that remain. That area of truth is where meaning lies.

Finally, he discusses why it is about “ecology.” He creates an analogy where caterpillars are removed from from an ecological system. What you are left with is not simply the same system sans-caterpillars. The system itself is fundamentally different due to their absence; everything else in the system must adjust to the change. The same is true for society and technology. Here we have “media ecology.”