Neil Postman's Technopoly

The World State: The Ultimate Technopoly

Technopoly: “The submission of all forms of culture life to the sovereignty of technique and technology.” (Technopoly Postman) This is the definition of Neil Postman’s idea of a “technopoly.”  In other words it means that everything that humans do they have found the best and most efficient way to do it with the latest and constantly mounting technology.  This idea is can even be seen in today’s modern world and Postman describes how the world has moved from a technocracy to a technopoly.  A technocracy is the stage before a technopoly and this transition occurred around the early twentieth century.  “The citizens of a technocracy knew that science and technology did not provide philosophy by which to live, and they clung to the philosophies of their fathers.” and the end of this technocracy is seen mostly when Fredrick Wilson Taylor describes how humans are inefficient and that they should be made more efficient through machines and technology. (Technopoly Postman) Taylor came up with the idea that started the technopoly and this idea is one of the central points of a technopoly.  This idea is also the central point of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  Brave New World is essentially a perfect technopoly.  Is follows that main ideas that everything has become as efficient as possible through the help of technology.  They even went as far as to engineer humans to be the most efficient at the job which they are predestined to do.  They way they did this is through the use of new technologies which also plays a vital role in a technopoly.  Neil Postman’s  theory of a technopoly is the best description of what the human race in the World State is trying to achieve.