Neil Postman's Technopoly: The Judgement Of Thamus

Neil Postman begins his article, The Judgement of Thamus. In his book Technopoly (1992), with an excerpt from Plato's Phaedrus describing how the Upper Egyptian king Thamus responds to the god Theuth's invention of writing and his description of it as "a sure receipt for memory and wisdom" (p.4). Thamus states that the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of its worth and he believes that writing will lead to recollection and the conceit of wisdom. I find it interesting that Thamus does not see the benefits that will accrue from writing, but only the deficits. The author uses this short story to show similarities with the world today. The main point that he is trying to get across is that every technology has both good and bad effects within a society. "We are currently surrounded by throngs of zealous Theuths, one-eyed prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo" (p.5). Postman goes on to criticize Thamus for only looking at the downsides of writing and not thinking about the potential benefits to writing, that he in turn tends to

However, the vigilance should be focused on directing society through a path that keeps to the middle of the road. Indeed, we need to question the effect that new technologies will have on our culture and society. Although I enjoyed The Judgment of Thamus, I found Postman's pessimism to be a bit too severe. The doom and gloom prophesies rarely happen and the benefits of new technologies often outweigh the deficits. Even when the negative effects are more severe, the best path is to try to find the unseen benefits, since the technology can never be put back in the box. I hope that we always have individuals like Neil Postman and others to warn us of potential hazards, but they should be read with a sense of