“Technology is a friend, but mostly a dangerous enemy that intrudes into a culture changing everything while destroying the vital sources of our humanity.”

-Neil Postman

Neil Postman is the chair of the Department of Culture and Communications and professor of media ecology at New York University. Postman graduated with a B.S. from SUNY Freedonia, a M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia.

Postman argues that “traditional education can create a rapport between student and teacher that is conducive to learning: radio,, movies, television, computers are all useful to teach us, but they are not a substitute for what has to happen between a teacher and a student for us to claim education has occurred.”

Neil Postman has written a 18 books, one of which is Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992). In Technopoly (by this he means “progress without limits” “rights without responsibilities” “technology without cost” and a moral center replaced by efficiency, interest and economic advance), Postman states that “with the exception of the electric light, there has never been a technology that better exemplifies Marshall McLuhan’s aphorism “the medium is the message” The computer is almost all process, there are, for example, no great computers, as there are great writers, painters, or musicians. This is, too me, a perfect indication of Postman’s philosophies. What about the wonder of great programs, there are many powerful learning devices on the computer......
Postman classifies cultures into three categories: tool-using, technologies, and technopolies. He contends that all three are currently found somewhere on the planet although the tool-using culture is disappearing.

The upside to Postman’s rants is that he forces us to think about technology and its costs versus the benefit, in addition, he forces us to ask many questions about the use of technology.

Publications

The End of Education

Technopoly

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Conscientious Objections

The Disappearance of Childhood

Teaching as aSubversive Activity (with Charles Weingartner)