Resisting the Grip of Technopoly

Taking a stand for humanity with Neil Postman:

I am not a Luddite, but the older I get, and the more I see how our humanity is being erased in this machine age, in this era of technology, and in this time where transhumanism is being promoted as the way forward, the more I feel a bit more at one with the Luddites of old.

One indication of this is the fact that this is now my 58^th article found in my “Transhumanism and AI” section. The first piece I wrote in this section was back in 2005. And increasingly I am dealing with these themes. It is just another battle front that we have to be aware of.

Of course many have spoken and written about this. One author I am turning to with greater frequency in recent times is Neil Postman (1931-2003). The American author and cultural critic penned some twenty books, perhaps his most well-known volume being Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Penguin, 1985, 2006).

But just as important is his Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Vintage Books, 1992, 1993). I have written before about him and this important volume: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/05/27/in-praise-of-secular-prophets/

See also this piece: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/06/25/ai-machines-and-humanity/

Here I revisit it once more. Since I shared some key quotes from the book in some of my earlier pieces, I will here just stick to a few quotes of his from the book’s Introduction and concluding chapter. Early on he says this:

[M]ost people believe that technology is a staunch friend. There are two reasons for this. First, technology is a friend. It makes life easier, cleaner, and longer. Can anyone ask more of a friend? Second, because of its lengthy, intimate, and inevitable relationship with culture, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most people are inclined to give because its gifts are truly bountiful. But, of course, there is a dark side to this friend. Its gifts are not without a heavy cost. Stated in the most dramatic terms, the accusation can be made that the uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without a moral foundation. It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living. Technology, in sum, is both friend and enemy.

 

This book attempts to describe when, how, and why technology became a particularly dangerous enemy. The case has been argued many times before by authors of great learning and conviction—in our own time by Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Herbert Read, Arnold Gehlen, Ivan Illich, to name a few…. (xii)

And given that I also have a section of this website devoted to “Resistance theory” – with some 140 articles – I especially found appealing his last chapter titled “The Loving Resistance Fighter”. Here he discusses what can be done. It begins:

Anyone who practices the art of cultural criticism must endure being asked, What is the solution to the problems you describe? Critics almost never appreciate this question, since, in most cases, they are entirely satisfied with themselves for having posed the problems and, in any event, are rarely skilled in formulating practical suggestions about anything. This is why they became cultural critics. (p. 181)

He seeks to rectify this. He continues:

As I see it, a reasonable response (hardly a solution) to the problem of living in a developing Technopoly can be divided into two parts: what the individual can do irrespective of what the culture is doing; and what the culture can do irrespective of what any individual is doing. Beginning with the matter of individual response, I must say at once that I have no intention of providing a “how to” list in the manner of the “experts” I ridiculed in chapter five, on our “broken defenses.” No one is an expert on how to live a life. I can, however, offer a Talmudic-like principle that seems to me an effective guide for those who wish to defend themselves against the worst effects of the American Technopoly. It is this: You must try to be a loving resistance fighter. That is the doctrine, as Hillel might say. Here is the commentary: By “loving,” I mean that, in spite of the confusion, errors, and stupidities you see around you, you must always keep close to your heart the narratives and symbols that once made the United States the hope of the world and that may yet have enough vitality to do so again. You may find it helpful to remember that, when the Chinese students in Tianamen Square gave expression to their impulse to democracy, they fashioned a papier-mache model, for the whole world to see, of the Statue of Liberty. Not a statue of Karl Marx, not the Eiffel Tower, not Buckingham Palace. The Statue of Liberty. It is impossible to say how moved Americans were by this event. But one is compelled to ask, Is there an American soul so dead that it could not generate a murmur (if not a cheer) of satisfaction for this use of a once-resonant symbol? Is there an American soul so shrouded in cynicism and malaise created by Technopoly’s emptiness that it failed to be stirred by the students reading aloud from the works of Thomas Jefferson in the streets of Prague in 1989? (p. 182)

Postman lists attributes of the resistance fighter:

Those who resist the American Technopoly are people

 

-who pay no attention to a poll unless they know what questions were asked, and why;

-who refuse to accept efficiency as the pre-eminent goal of human relations;

-who have freed themselves from the belief in the magical powers of numbers, do not regard calculation as an adequate substitute for judgment, or precision as a synonym for truth;

-who refuse to allow psychology or any “social science” to pre-empt the language and thought of common sense;

-who are, at least, suspicious of the idea of progress, and who do not confuse information with understanding;

-who do not regard the aged as irrelevant;

-who take seriously the meaning of family loyalty and honor, and -who, when they “reach out and touch someone,” expect that person to be in the same room;

-who take the great narratives of religion seriously and who do not believe that science is the only system of thought capable of producing truth;

-who know the difference between the sacred and the profane, and who do not wink at tradition for modernity’s sake;

-who admire technological ingenuity but do not think it represents the highest possible form of human achievement. (pp. 183-184)

He looks at the role of education in this process. But it must be a certain type of education:

In consideration of the disintegrative power of Technopoly, perhaps the most important contribution schools can make to the education of our youth is to give them a sense of coherence in their studies, a sense of purpose, meaning, and interconnectedness in what they learn. Modern secular education is failing not because it doesn’t teach who Ginger Rogers, Norman Mailer, and a thousand other people are but because it has no moral, social, or intellectual center. There is no set of ideas or attitudes that permeates all parts of the curriculum. The curriculum is not, in fact, a “course of study” at all but a meaningless hodgepodge of subjects. It does not even put forward a clear vision of what constitutes an educated person, unless it is a person who possesses “skills.” In other words, a technocrat’s ideal—a person with no commitment and no point of view but with plenty of marketable skills. (pp. 185-186)

Postman offers this as the chapter’s – and book’s – final paragraph:

To summarize: I am proposing, as a beginning, a curriculum in which all subjects are presented as a stage in humanity’s historical development; in which the philosophies of science, of history, of language, of technology, and of religion are taught; and in which there is a strong emphasis on classical forms of artistic expression. This is a curriculum that goes “back to the basics,” but not quite in the way the technocrats mean it. And it is most certainly in opposition to the spirit of Technopoly. I have no illusion that such an education program can bring a halt to the thrust of a technological thought-world. But perhaps it will help to begin and sustain a serious conversation that will allow us to distance ourselves from that thought-world, and then criticize and modify it. Which is the hope of my book as well. (pp. 198-199)

All this may not be a full panacea to what ails us, but at least he was asking the right questions and urging us to slow down a bit to see where modern technology is taking us. In my own small way, I am happy to add my own voice to his, and that of others.

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