A new year, but the challenges and dilemmas tumble forward with us. An important theme in my notes last year was the sense that we are disorientated and that there is a pressing need to reorientate ourselves. How to do so when we are so lost and confused? The sky is dark, it is unclear which way is north, how to orientate?
One of the main practices I have been developing is thinking through and thinking with. Finding conversation partners and guides, present and past, who can assist with finding our bearings. In terms of reckoning with the reckless dash forward to all things digital, Neil Postman persists as one of the most insightful and worthwhile people to think alongside. There have been many articles and posts around the theme of ‘Neil Postman was right’, and you will understand why if you read Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) or Technopoly (1992). Not only are these books brutally prescient, they are wonderfully written and are highly recommended.
I have been returning to Postman for a chapter I am currently writing and have again appreciated engaging with his work. Towards the end of his life, Postman gave a brief talk entitled, ‘Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change’, in which he offered a summary of some of the conclusions he had reached from his research and reflection on these issues. He judged that, ‘we have been willing to shape our lives to fit the requirements of technology, not the requirements of culture. This is a form of stupidity, especially in an age of vast technological change.’ By this measure, we have only become more stupid in the intervening decades.
I will save the more detailed engagement with Postman for my book, here are excerpts from his talk that cover his five ideas about technological change. The full version is available here.
First idea
The first idea is that all technological change is a trade-off. I like to call it a Faustian bargain. Technology giveth and technology taketh away. This means that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The disadvantage may exceed in importance the advantage, or the advantage may well be worth the cost. Now, this may seem to be a rather obvious idea, but you would be surprised at how many people believe that new technologies are unmixed blessings.
Perhaps the best way I can express this idea is to say that the question, “What will a new technology do?” is no more important than the question, “What will a new technology undo?” Indeed, the latter question is more important, precisely because it is asked so infrequently.
Second idea
This leads to the second idea, which is that the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. This means that every new technology benefits some and harms others. There are even some who are not affected at all.
The questions, then, that are never far from the mind of a person who is knowledgeable about technological change are these: Who specifically benefits from the development of a new technology? Which groups, what type of person, what kind of industry will be favored? And, of course, which groups of people will thereby be harmed?
And now, of course, the winners speak constantly of the Age of Information, always implying that the more information we have, the better we will be in solving significant problems— not only personal ones but large-scale social problems, as well. But how true is this? If there are children starving in the world—and there are—it is not because of insufficient information. We have known for a long time how to produce enough food to feed every child on the planet. How is it that we let so many of them starve? If there is violence on our streets, it is not because we have insufficient information. If women are abused, if divorce and pornography and mental illness are increasing, none of it has anything to do with insufficient information. I dare say it is because something else is missing, and I don’t think I have to tell this audience what it is. Who knows? This age of information may turn out to be a curse if we are blinded by it so that we cannot see truly where our problems lie. That is why it is always necessary for us to ask of those who speak enthusiastically of computer technology, why do you do this? What interests do you represent? To whom are you hoping to give power? From whom will you be withholding power?
Third idea
Here is the third. Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas. These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a somewhat abstract nature. But this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical consequences. Perhaps you are familiar with the old adage that says: To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We may extend that truism: To a person with a pencil, everything looks like a sentence. To a person with a TV camera, everything looks like an image. To a person with a computer, everything looks like data.
The writing person favors logical organization and systematic analysis, not proverbs. The telegraphic person values speed, not introspection. The television person values immediacy, not history. And computer people, what shall we say of them? Perhaps we can say that the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom. Indeed, in the computer age, the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether.
The third idea, then, is that every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards.
Fourth idea
Here is the fourth idea: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. … A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America plus television. Television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so on.
That is why we must be cautious about technological innovation. The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible. That is also why we must be suspicious of capitalists. Capitalists are by definition not only personal risk takers but, more to the point, cultural risk takers. The most creative and daring of them hope to exploit new technologies to the fullest, and do not much care what traditions are overthrown in the process or whether or not a culture is prepared to function without such traditions.
Fifth idea
I come now to the fifth and final idea, which is that media tend to become mythic. I use this word in the sense in which it was used by the French literary critic, Roland Barthes. He used the word “myth” to refer to a common tendency to think of our technological creations as if they were God-given, as if they were a part of the natural order of things… When a technology become mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control.
The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God’s plan but a product of human creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of what it does for us and to us.
There are many uncertainties and unknowns as to what this year and the near future might contain, but one thing we can be confident in expecting is that digital technologies will continue their unchecked advance over our lifeworld. Given that governments and corporations have largely abdicated much sense of responsibility and restraint in managing these changes, it increases the need for us to sharpen our critical faculties and follow Postman’s advice to consider what different technologies do and undo. He rightly judged, ‘I do not think these are academic or esoteric ideas. They are to the sort of things everyone who is concerned with cultural stability and balance should know’. As we move towards deepening cultural instability and greater imbalances, these ideas only become more important to comprehend and to incorporate into our thinking and acting.
あけましておめでとうございます。