The Technopoly Theory

Accoring to Neil Postman's Technocracy to Technopoly, "[The United States] is a young Technoploly." (Postman 48). So what is a Technopoly? Well before you can understand what a Technopoly is you must know what a Technocracy is. "In a technocracy- that is, a society only loosely controlled by social custom and religious tradition and driven by the impulse to invent" (Postman 41). Postman argues that America was a technocracy in the 1900's when a multitude of inventions were created. America as a whole seemed to be fuelled by the idea of inventing new technologies. A Technopoly is the totaltarian version of a technocracy; where the impulse to progress has completely driven out social customs and religion. Postman beleives that Fredrik Winslow Taylor is the father of the technopoly theory. Postman makes reference to Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Manegement: "These include the beleifs that the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency" (Postman 51). At the expotential that technology is developing in America, I beleive, that Postman's beleif that the United States is at an infant stage of a technopoly is not far from the truth. However, religion and tradition are still prevailant and strong in America.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World embodies Postman's idea of a technoploly. The people of brave new world serve the machine and their philosophy is based off of progress and efficiency. Postman beleives that a technocracy and technopoly looks at people as consumers rather than citizens. This concept is also reflected in Brave New World; the people, through hypnopaedia, are taught to constantly consume. Also, the way the people of the new world look at death shows how they themselves beleive they are purely consumers. They don't fear death or even wonder about death but see themselves as components to the "machine" that is the world as a whole, continuing to progress further and further. Everyone is breeded to perform a specific job to keep the machine running.The use of soma reflects the focus on efficiency, the people are trained to take soma whenever an unpleasent feeling arises; this will keep them permenantly in a good mood so that they aren't distracted or prevented from working. Many of Postman's components to his "technopoly" are based off of Huxly's book. "Technopoly eliminates alternatives to itself precisley the way Aldous Huxley outlined in Brave New World." (Postman 48). By this he means that the new world does not completely prevent an alternative way of thinking, as compared to 1984, but makes it completely invisable, the people couldnt even think of a different way of living even if they tried, as shown when Bernard is in a helicopter flying over the ocean trying to look for the words for wanting something more in life than just serving the machine.