Technopoly
Neil Postman’s Technopoly represents a time of people wanting to become inventors to improve production and quality of products. This era was known as the progressive era. This relates to Brave New World in that they both come up with ways to improve efficiency of production. They both also use their technology to make the quality of their products better, such as Brave New World engineering and altering their people’s mental capacity to do specific jobs whether it be for a simple job such as pulling a lever or a tough job requiring a great amount of knowledge. Efficiency was also created around this time because of the progressive era when people were encouraged to invent products. This was when Ford created the assembly line which is worshiped and regarded highly by the people in Brave New World. Fredrick Winslow Taylor fits into this discussion because he was a mechanical engineer from the United States that wanted to improve industrial effectiveness. He is thought of as the founder of scientific management. He was on of the scholar leaders of the efficiency movement, and his ideas were widely viewed as greatly influential on the progressive era. Technopoly is defined by postman as a “totalitarian technocracy” this forces the submission of everything to the ruler of technique and technology. Technocracy goes right along with the progressive era because of its encouragement to invent and to acquire new knowledge. This is what Francis Bacon advocated. “Technocracy gave us the idea of progress” this was said on page 45 it represents the thoughts of what could be done using it. “Technocracy filled the air with the promise of new freedoms and new forms of social organization”. Humans could acquire knowledge to help improve the world, which would eventually lead to inventions and progress.
