Postman's "The Judgement of Thamus"

In the chapter "The Judgement of Thamus" from Neil Postman's Techopoly, the author uses the tale of King Thamus found in Plato's Phaedrus to frame his arguments about the effects of technology on people. While he says that Thamus is in error when he finds only fault with the technology of writing, and that he would be remiss if he only considered the negative effects of technology without the positive, the author's tone in this reading reveals that he has a very pessimistic view of the impact technology has on mankind.

One of the main claims that Postman makes in this piece is that technology is not inherently good or bad. Instead, he claims that the impact of technologies depends on how they are used, and that the "uses made of any technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself" (32). I mostly agree with this claim, because all technologies have limitations that will ultimately influence how they are used, and technologies that offer specific improvements over previous iterations can encourage users to focus on those areas. The clearest example of this for me is with weapons. Weapons are a technology that are designed to hurt people, but whether they are used for defending oneself or attacking another is entirely up to the user. Postman believes that we should strive to understand the potential effects of new technology before embracing them.

Another main theme of Postman's writing is that new technologies subvert old knowledge, often by changing who has access to it. He gives an example of how Gutenberg's invention of the printing press made it possible for families to own their own Bible (as opposed to hearing it at church), and that this made "each Christian his own theologian" (37), meaning they could interpret the Bible in their own way, in ways that could be in opposition to the official interpretation given by the Church. He states that "new technologies compete with old ones—for time, for attention, for money, for prestige, but mostly for dominance of their world-view" (37), and while I do agree that there is conflict inherent in technological advances, I also believe that technologies can give new insights into older ones. Following what Postman has said about technology being a blessing and a burden, we can say that new interpretations of the Bible would introduce critical analysis of it, which is a fundamental human skill.

There are a lot of things that Postman says that I disagree with, though I do so with a bit of reservation, not knowing when this was published. Easily the most disagreeable thing in this piece is his mockery of teachers that support new technologies, calling it "perverse" that they would celebrate something that "may bring a gradual end to [their] careers" (34). According to Postman, teachers are heavily invested in the printed material as the source for learning, and to support anything else is foolish, but I have to challenge this idea. Teachers have been around since long before the invention of writing, and I believe that many teachers will be able to adapt to new technologies and find new ways to use them, so the idea that teachers will lose jobs with the advent of the television and computer seems unrealistic.

Postman also states that while computer technology has benefited large organizations "like the armed forces or airline companies or banks" (34), he also believes that it has been a burden to the masses, claiming that "they are more easily tracked and controlled" and that "they are inundated by junk mail" (34). This is where the piece really shows its age, because the benefits of computer technology to the masses are more than he could have ever imagined, and many of the complains he brings up (such as the one about junk mail) have largely been solved. However, computer technology has made the private information of people easier to access, but that is more the result of harmless negligence on there part.