Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Mixing provocative insights and oft-heard criticism, cultural critic Postman ( Conscientious Objections ) defines the U.S. as an emerging "technopoly," a society in which machines and technology are deified to a near-totalitarian degree. Technopoly elevates experts to "priestly" status, whether in economics or in child-rearing; it maintains a bureaucracy to control the flow of information; it likens human beings to computers in reductionist fashion, misapplies statistics in IQ tests and public opinion polls, and uses advertising to "devour the psyches of consumers" through symbolic manipulation. In medicine, technopoly is evident in doctors who aggressively overuse machines and X-rays.