Postman is NOT a Luddite

This article submitted by Jlaubscher@milbank.com on 4/4/97.

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Thoughts:

I can't say enough good about this book. I give it away as a gift as soon as I buy another copy.
Many of the comments about Technopoly appear to be negative, that Postman is bitter and dislikes
technology. But from the first page, Postman's idea is that technologies--including WORDS themselves--
are not inherently bad, but that they change the way in which we relate to and conceive of the world.
The discourse regarding the Internet (see Clinton's State of the Union speech or an MCI commercial)
has only raised my respect for Postman's ideas. Access to the Internet is not going to make children
educated and the internet is not utopia a la MCI. Instead it is merely a tool to be used to certain
ends. Unfortunately, as Postman is so keenly aware, our culture sees technology as an end in itself,
rather than using and shaping technology to serve the values that we should prize and pay only lip
service to--namely discourse and rapport, that is, looking in another's eyes and trying to figure out what is
important and trying to determing what another human being believes and why.

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