Neil Postman conference held in Denver, Colorado on March 28, 1998
Hello, Your Eminences and Excellency, ladies and gentlemen.
- The theme of this conference.
- “New Technologies and the Human Person: Communicating Faith in the New Millennium.
- ” obviously suggests that he is concerned about what might happen to faith in the new millennium and should in fact worry about it.
- In addition to our computers.
- Which are about to suffer a nervous breakdown in anticipation of 2000.
- There are many frantic rumors about the 21st century and how it will present us with unique problems that we know very little about.
- But for which.
- Nevertheless.
- We are supposed to prepare carefully.
- Does everyone seem to care?entrepreneurs.
- Politicians.
- Educators and also theologians.
At the risk of sounding condescending, can I try to calm everyone’s mind? I doubt that the 21st century presents us with more astonishing, confusing, or complex problems than we face in this century, or in the 19th, 18th, 17th, or for that matter, the many centuries before. But for those who are too nervous for the millennium, I can give you some good advice on how to deal with it right away. The advice comes from people we can trust and whose power of thought, arguably, surpasses that of President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, or even Bill Gates. Here’s what Henry David Thoreau told us: “All of our inventions are just improved means for unimproved ends. ” This is what Goethe told us: “Every day you have to try to listen to a little song, read a good poem, see a beautiful image and, if possible, speak wise words. Socrates told us: “Life is not worth living without examination. ” Hillel the Elder told us: “What is hateful to you, do not do to another. And this is the prophet Micah: What does the Lord ask of you: that you do justice, that you love mercy and walk humbly with your God? And I could say, if we had time, (although you know it very well) what Jesus, Isaiah, Muhammad, Spinoza and Shakespare told us. It is all the same: there is no escape from ourselves. The human dilemma is what it has always been, and it is an illusion to believe that the technological changes of our time have rendered the wisdom of the times and wisdom irrelevant.
However, having said that, I know perfectly well that because we live in the technological age, we have particular problems that Jesus, Hillel, Socrates and Miqueas did not have and those who could not speak, I do not have the wisdom to say what we say. you have to face in such problems, so my contribution should be limited to some things we need to know to solve the problems. I call my presentation Five Things we Need to Know About Technological Change. I base these ideas on my thirty years of study. of the history of technological change, but I don’t think they’re academic or esoteric ideas, this is the kind of thing anyone who cares about cultural stability and balance should know, and I offer them in the hope that they will find them useful. when you consider the effects of technology on our faith.
The first idea is that any technological change is a commitment [?], I like to call it a fake market. Technology gave and technology took. This means that for every advantage offered by a technology, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The disadvantage may be greater than the advantage, or the benefit may well be worth the cost. Now, this may seem like an obvious idea, but you’d be surprised how many people think new technologies only have positives. Just think of the enthusiasm with which most people approach their understanding of computers. Ask anyone who understands computers to talk about them and they will see that they will continuously and continuously improve the wonders of computers. You will also find that in most cases, you will completely forget to mention any risk to computers. This is a dangerous imbalance, because the greater the wonders of a technology, the greater its negative consequences. .
Think of the car that, with all its obvious advantages, has poisoned our air, suffocated our cities and degraded the beauty of our natural landscape. Or you may think about the paradox of medical technology that provides incredible cures, but at the same time it is a proven cause of certain diseases and disabilities, and has played an important role in reducing doctors’ diagnostic skills. It is also good to remember that despite all the intellectual and social benefits brought by the mobile press, its costs were equally monumental. The mobile press gave prose to the Western world, but turned poetry into a form of exotic and elitist communication. He gave us inductive science, but reduced religious sensitivity to an extravagant form of superstition. The press has given us a modern conception of the meaning of a nation, but in doing so, it has turned patriotism into a sordid, if not deadly, emotion. Can it even be said that printing the Bible in vernacular languages gave the impression that God was English, German, or French?that is, the press reduced God to the dimensions of a local ruler.
Perhaps the best way to express this idea is by asking the question: “What will the new technology do?”, It is no more important than the question “What will cancel the new technology?”In fact, the last question is more important, precisely One could say, then, that a sophisticated perspective on technological change involves being skeptical of the utopian and mesian visions of those who have no sense of history or the precarious balances on which culture depends. It’s up to me, I would forbid anyone to talk about new information technologies unless the person can prove that they know something about the social and physical effects of the alphabet, the mechanical clock, the mobile press and the telegraph. . In other words, know something about the costs of big technologies.
So the number one idea is that culture always pays the price of technology.
This leads to the second idea, that is, that the pros and cons of new technologies are never evenly distributed among the population, meaning that each new technology benefits and harms each other, there are still some that are not affected under any circumstances. the case of the mobile press in the sixteenth century, which according to Martin Luther was “the highest and most extreme act of God’s grace, through which the service of the Gospel is pursued”. By putting the word of God on every Christian’s table, the mass production of books has weakened the authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and accelerated the dissolution of the Holy See. Protestants at the time rejoiced in such development. The Catholics were angry and confused. Because I am Jewish, if I had lived at the time, I probably wouldn’t mind one way or another, because no matter if a massacre was inspired by Martin Luther or Pope Leo X, some win, some lose, some stay where they were.
Let’s take another example, television, although here I must add that in the case of television there are very few who are not really affected, in the United States, where television has been consolidated more deeply than anywhere else, there are many people who find it a blessing, not to mention those who have had well-paid careers and television gratification as executives , technicians, directors, journalists and presenters. On the other hand, and in the long run, television can end the careers of teachers, since the school is an invention of the mobile press and must remain or fall into the question of the importance of the printed word in the future. There is no chance, of course, that television will disappear, but teachers who are excited about their Presence always reminds me of the turn-of-the-century blacksmiths [20] who not only rent the car, but also believe that their business will improve. We know your business hasn’t improved with the car; the car made them obsolete, as perhaps a smart blacksmith noticed.
The questions, then, that are never far from the mind of a person who knows technological change, are: who specifically benefits from the development of a new technology?, what groups, what kind of people, what kind of industry will be promoted?And, of course, which groups of people will be affected?
Definitely, these questions should be in our minds when we think about computer technology. There is no doubt that the computer has been and will continue to be beneficial for large-scale organizations such as the military, airlines, banks or tax collection institutions. And it is equally clear that the computer is now indispensable for the best researchers in physics and other natural sciences. But at what level has computer technology benefited the masses?For steelworkers, fruit and vegetable owners, car mechanics, musicians, bakers, masons, dentists and even theologians, and most of those whose lives the computer now enters?These people have made their private affairs more accessible to powerful institutions. They are now more easily monitored and controlled; are subject to closer examination and are increasingly baffled by the decisions made about them. They come down more than ever to simple digital objects. They’re buried by spam. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political institutions.
In short, these people are the losers of the great computer revolution. The winners, which also include computer companies, multinational corporations and the nation-state, will of course encourage the losers to pursue computer technology. This is how the winners act, and then at first they told the losers that with personal computers the average person can better manage their financial life, stay on top of income, and make more logical shopping lists. And then they were told that computers would allow them to vote at home, shop at home, have all the entertainment they need at home, and then make community life unnecessary. And now, of course, the winners are constantly talking about the Information Age, which always implies that the more information we have, the better we will solve important problems. not just personal problems, but also large-scale social problems. But to what extent is this true? If there are hungry children in the world? and there? it is not for lack of information. We have long known how to produce food to feed all the children on the planet. So how can so many of them starve? If there is violence in our streets, it is not due to lack of information. If women are abused, if divorce, pornography, and mental illness are on the rise, none of this has to do with insufficient information. I dare say it’s because something else is missing, and I don’t think I have to tell this audience what it is. Who knows? This information age can turn into a curse if it blinds us so that we can’t really see where our problems lie. That is why it is always necessary for us to ask those who speak enthusiastically about IT, why are they doing this? What interests does it represent? Who do you hope to hold accountable? How much power will you retain?
I do not intend to refer to him offensively; each with their own sinister motives. I’m just saying that because technology favors one another and harms others, these are questions that should always be asked. And the second idea is that there are always winners and losers in technological change.
Here’s the third one. Each technology integrates a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas, that are often hidden from view because they are somewhat abstract in nature, but that should not mean that they have no practical consequences.
You may be familiar with the old saying: To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We can develop this cliché: to a person with a pencil, everything looks like a sentence. To a person with a camera, everything looks like an image. To a person with a computer, everything looks like data. I don’t think we should take these words literally. But what catches our attention is that all technology has a loss. Like language itself, it predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and achievements. In a culture without writing, human memory is of the utmost importance, as are the sayings, sayings, and songs that contain oral wisdom accumulated over centuries. That is why Solomon was considered the wisest man of all. In 1 Kings, we are told that he knew 3,000 proverbs. But in a culture of writing, such feats of memory are considered a waste of time and proverbs are simply unnecessary quirks. The person who owns the writing favors logical organization and systematic analysis, not sayings. The person holding the telegram appreciates speed, not introspection. The person who owns the television appreciates the urgency, not the story. What about the people who own the computer? Perhaps we can say that the person who owns the computer values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom. In fact, in the age of computers, the concept of wisdom can completely disappear.
The third idea, then, is that each technology has a philosophy that is a certain expression in how technology makes people use their minds, in what makes us do with our bodies, in the way it encodes the world, in which our senses are amplified. her, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies she ignores. This idea is the sum and substance of what the great Catholic prophet, Marshall McLuhan, meant when he coined the famous phrase: “The medium is the message. “
Here is the fourth idea: technological change is not additive; it’s eco-friendly. What if we put a drop of red dye in a glass of clean water beaker?Do we have clean water and a red dye stain? Of course not. We have a new color for every water molecule, that’s what I mean by ecological change. A new medium brings nothing; It changes everything. In the year 1500, after the invention of the mobile press, you had not the old Europe but the mobile press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America but television, television has given a new color to every political campaign, every home, every school, every church, every industry, etc.
That’s why we need to be careful about technological innovation. The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and mainly irreversible, so we must also distrust capitalists, who are by definition not only people who take personal risks, but, more specifically, people who take cultural risks. The most creative and daring hope to make the most of new technologies, and no matter what traditions are eliminated in the process, or if a culture is ready to function without these traditions, capitalists are, in short, radical. In America, have our most important radicals always been capitalists?Men like Bell, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Sarnoff, Goldwyn. These men erased the 19th century and created the 20th century, so I don’t know why capitalists. are considered conservative This may be because they tend to wear black suits and grey ties.
I hope you understand that by saying all this I am not in any way defending socialism. I’m just saying that the capitalists must be monitored and disciplined. Indeed, they speak of family, marriage, piety, and honor, but if allowed to explore new technologies to their full economic potential, they can undo the institutions that make such ideas possible. And here I must give just two examples of this point, taken from the American encounter with technology. The first concerns education. Who, we may ask, has had the greatest impact on American education during this century [20]? If you think of John Dewey or any other educational philosopher, I must say that you are completely wrong. The biggest shock was made by silent men in gray suits in a New York suburb called Princeton, New Jersey. There, they developed and promoted technology known as standard tests, such as the IQ, SAT, and GRE tests. Their tests redefined what we mean by learning and led us to reorganize the program to accommodate testing.
A second example is our policy. It is now clear that people who have the most radical effect on American politics today are not political ideologians or long-haired student protesters and copies of Karl Marx under their arm. Radicals who have changed the nature of politics in the United States are black-dressed and grey-tie entrepreneurs who run the great television industry in the United States; they do not intend to turn political discourse into a form of entertainment; they have no intention of making it impossible for an obese person to run for a senior position They did not intend to reduce the political campaign to a 30-second television commercial. All they were trying to do was turn the TV into a huge sleepless ATM. They are not concerned about destroying the strong political discourse in the process.
I now come to the fifth and final idea, which is that the media tends to become mythical. I use this word in the sense used by the French literary critic Roland Barthes. Did you use the word? It refers to a common tendency to think of our technological creations as if they were given by God, as if they were part of the natural order of things. On one occasion, I asked my students if they knew when the alphabet was invented. They were surprised by the question. It was as if I had asked them when clouds and trees were invented; they believed that the alphabet was not something that had been invented, it just exists. This is the case for many products of human culture, but none is more coherent than that of technology: cars, airplanes, television, movies, newspapers . . . have achieved mythical status because they are perceived as gifts of nature and not as artifacts produced in a specific political and historical context.
When a technology becomes mythical, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is and is therefore not easily susceptible to change or control. If you suggest to the average U. S. citizen that the television broadcast does not start before 5 p. m. and they end at 11 at night, or that you propose that there are no television commercials, he will think that the idea is ridiculous, but not because he does not agree with his cultural program, he will think it is ridiculous because he assumes that you are proposing that something of nature can be changed; as if he were suggesting that the sun rise at 10 a. m. instead of 6 a. m.
Whenever I think of the ability of technology to become mythical, I recall an observation made by Pope John Paul II: “Science can cleanse religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify the science of idolatry and absolute falsehood. “
What I’m saying is that our enthusiasm for technology can become a form of idolatry and that our faith in its benefits can be an absolute lie. The best way to see technology is that of a foreign intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God’s plan, but a product of human creativity and insolence, and that its ability to do good and evil lies entirely in the human consciousness of what it does for us and for us.
Conclusion
So here are my five ideas about technological change. First, we always pay a price for technology; the higher the technology, the higher the price. Second, there are always winners and losers, and the winners always try to persuade the losers that they were the real winners. Third, epistemological, political or social bias is incorporated into all important technologies. prejudice is largely in our favor. Sometimes I don’t. The mobile press has destroyed the oral tradition; the telegraph destroys space; television humbled the word; computer, maybe it will degrade the life of the community. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it’s environmentally friendly, which means it changes everything and is therefore too important to leave to Bill Gates. Fifth, technology tends to become mythical; that is, it is perceived as part of the natural order of things and therefore tends more to control our lives than to be good to us.
If we had more time, I could bring other important elements about technological change, but I will reserve them for the time being and end this thinking: in the past we have experienced technological changes as if we were sleepwalkers, our implicit motto was “technology first” and we were ready to shape our lives to meet the demands of technology, not the demands of culture. It’s a form of stupidity, especially at a time of great technological change. We have to proceed with our eyes wide open to use the technology instead of being used by it.
[*]? All our inventions are only improved means for an un improved purpose. [N. de T. ]
[?] Commitment or commitment is an expression that defines a situation in which there is a conflict of choice. It is characterized by economic action aimed at solving one problem, but leads to another, forcing an election. This occurs when a good or service is abandoned to obtain a different good or service. [N. de T. ]
By: Neil Postman. Translated with permission. Original: 5 alerts about Neil Postman’s technological change. © Faithful Department. Website: MinistryFiel. com. br. All rights reserved. Translation: Alan Cristie?Translations.