Not as brilliant as Amusing Ourselves to Death but still a provocative wake-up call for Western society. Postman's contention is that our civilisation has moved through several stages: from being tool-users (where our technology assisted us in our purpose as humans) to technopoly, when we start being shaped by and submissive to it. Technology here inevitably includes TV, computers, phones etc - but also, exam grades, time and motion studies, and statistics.
It's not hard to see his point (it's assumed these days that some homework will be done using the internet - but a recent piece of homework required a biography of a 'celebrity'. Celebrity details being ephemeral and fleeting, this practically demanded use of the internet; indeed left me wondering if it was 'celebrity', rather than someone who had done something useful, because it fits what children are generally prepared to do: use the internet. In other words: was the homework chosen to facilitate the technology more than the child's education?). The mobile phone (still a distant idea when this book was published) is a blindingly obvious example.
Postman's point, as always, is not to turn one's back on technology, but to evaluate it and return it to the status of tool. The terrifying thought, that is manifestly true, is that technology has altered our worldview, our thought processes, what we deem to be important - and we never really noticed it happening. His cry is to resist the trivialisation of the past that technopoly brings, regain context and analysis and resist the surrender.
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