Question

What did Neil Postman mean by writing that language, as a technology, is our most powerful ideological instrument? And why is this relevant to media literacy?

Answer 1

Postman delivers a splendid investigation of the principal changes occurring in western culture. In Technopoly, his attention is on the inconspicuous and not really unobtrusive effect of innovation on our way of life, following its advancement to the contemporary "technopoly", or imposing business model of intensity that innovation has in our general public.

Section 1 – The Judgment of Thamus

Postman utilizes an anecdote about worry over the selection of writing in the old world to call attention to that innovation is both a gift and a weight. Innovation brings principal change, which leaves us with not simply the old reality in addition to another innovation, yet another reality. It changes the profoundly inserted propensities for thought, and makes new originations of what is genuine. For instance, the clock was created to stamp the accepted hours in religious communities, however before long came to direct urban life and generation. This is a type of environmental change, whereby new advancements adjust the structure of our inclinations (what we consider), the character of our images (the thoughts, pictures, and language we think with), and the idea of our locale (where our musings create).

From Tools to Technocracy

Here Postman affirms that innovation makes the manners by which individuals see reality. It shapes life. He depicts "instrument utilizing societies," in which apparatuses are utilized to take care of commonsense issues or to serve the universe of expressions of the human experience, legislative issues, or strict life … yet they don't assault the poise or honesty of the current culture. Religious standards or some otherworldly framework or different administers the way of life (this is, I assume, how Christians might want to live in our present reality .

Conversely, in a technocracy, instruments assume a focal job in the idea universe of the way of life. They assault the way of life and offer to turn into the way of life. The clock, the print machine, and the telescope are the three advancements Postman uses to outline the impact of new innovations on world view, making a division among good and scholarly qualities. For example, he follows the improvements in space science from Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo to Newton, and clarifies how Bacon was the first to truly comprehend the impact of science and development on society and culture. Bacon is the person who contended that the objective of science is human advancement (not, state, the greatness of God or the journey for comprehension). He was, says Postman, the main man of technocracy . Accordingly, the "origination of God's structure absolutely lost a lot of its capacity and significance.

From Technocracy to Technopoly

Postman starts this part asking when technocracy flourished. He proposes different potential dates: 1765, and the innovation of the steam motor by James Watt; 1776, and the distribution of Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith; or 1780, and the advancement of more than twenty industrial facilities by Richard Arkwright. By 1806, the power loom was being used, implying that there was never again any requirement for talented specialists in the material business. By 1850, the machine-instrument industry had developed, which means sensational new headways in industrialization … creation upon innovation. The possibility of development itself was significant. The way that creation was conceivable implied that issues could be tackled, and the "how" of development dominated the "why" of innovation. The capacity to do it was all that made a difference. Objectivity, effectiveness, ability, institutionalization, estimation, and progress turned into the characteristic, expected, and unchallenged objectives of innovation and advancement. A related consequence of this move was an adjustment in the view of people, from offspring of God to customers of produces. Some questioned this on good or philosophical grounds; others would have liked to make a common perfect world amidst industrialization; still others reacted by machine breaking and different fights we know them as Luddites. Regardless of these complaints, technocracy developed apace, and changed the material world–it reduced class, expanded independence, accelerated time, crumbled separation, and sustained the thought of progress as the new reality. Interestingly, it subjected religion, family, and custom (without a doubt, religion does give the possibility to a scrutinize of technocracy, a posing of the inquiry "why?

Technopoly goes above and beyond than technocracy, killing any clashing or challenging perspectives, rendering them superfluous by reclassifying words (and ideas) like religion, workmanship, family, or governmental issues.

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