Within Chapter Two, Postman describes what he calls three stages of how society has dealt with technological advances: 1)tool-using, 2)technocracy, and 3)technopoly. Within a tool-using culture such as the Medieval Times, tools had two simple roles- “to solve specific and urgent problems of physical life… or to serve the symbolic world of art, politics, myth, ritual, and religion…” Therefore, they were not a disruption towards the culture, just assistants. However, as cultures started to become more dependant upon these tools, there was a cultural shift towards a technocracy. Postman described technocracy as tools/technology “playing a central role in thought –world of culture” (28). Thus, inventors such as Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler, who although not intentionally, caused a major shift towards a heavy reliance upon these objects versus reliance upon God. In other words, one could say it was the first time a separation of moral and intellectual values occurred within society.
In defense of technological advances and their positive affect upon society, why does it seem as though Postman is against the furtherance of one’s mind for the better of the world? If one does not use the gifts given to us by God, we are not following His will. Yet, Postman mentions the separation of moral and intellectual values within the technocracy era- if it wasn’t for this, would we be where we are today?
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Good post, Beth. Postman will drive you a little nuts with his technophile approach and the purpose of his book seems to be, partly, antagonistic to a user of technology. I don't know if he can connect or correlate the separation of moral and intellectual values to the technocracy era. As we will study through this course, there can be a ton of confounding variables that cannot be controlled for. Technology certainly falls into this category for our generation!
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