Language as Technopoly: Invisible Technologies

11/04/2023 An Advanced National Workshop in General Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013

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Invisible TechnologiesLanguage as Technopoly

Dilip BaradAn Advanced National Workshop in

General SemanticsBaroda, Gujarat (India)2 8 - 3 0 J a n . , 2 0 1 3

www.dilipbarad.comwww.dilipbarad.blogspot.in

http://www.dilipbarad.com/

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Whose body language speaks of self-confidence?


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With which colour-pencil is the cat on the cup drawn?


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Let us check general knowledge:

• What is Jawaharlal Nehru’s son’s name?

• ‘ S a v e T h e G i r l C h i l d ’


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Ideal Indian Woman


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Do you believe in racism?


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What’s wrong with answers?


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“I’m sure, We’ll enjoy working together”.


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The language in conversation leads wife to believe . . .


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Why she thought what she thought?See, how language conditions our world view!


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Let’s view this advertisement. We are supposed to identify the product - Fire crackers - Courier service – anti-roach spray - Gas Cylinder – Save Fuel

- Save Environment – match box –– old age woes Click or copy / paste to view video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=w9qIssi2WuA


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Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

• - is a book by Neil Postman published in 1992 that describes the development and characteristics of a "technopoly".

• He defines a technopoly as a society in which technology is deified, meaning “the culture seeks its authorisation in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology”.

• It is characterised by a surplus of information generated by technology, which technological tools are in turn employed to cope with, in order to provide direction and purpose for society and individuals.


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Invisible Technologies – Neil Postman

• If we define ideology as a set of assumptions of which we are barely conscious but which nonetheless directs our efforts to give shape and coherence to the world, then our most powerful ideological instrument is the technology of language itself.

• Language is pure ideology.


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Language as ideology: Grammar its tool

• Divide world into subjects and objects (binary oppositions)

• Instructs us about time, space and numbers, and forms our ideas of how we stand in relation to nature and to each other – mirage of meaning!

• English grammar – subject always acts – verbs are their actions – and objects are acted upon

• Aggressive grammar – made to think world as malignant rather than benign – pushing and attacking one other.


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Deeply integrated ideological agenda of language

• A special effort and training are required to detect its presence. (General Semantics helps us.)

• Unlike television or the computer, language appears to be not an extension of our power but simply a natural expression of who and what we are.

• This is the great secret of language: Because it comes from inside us, we believe it to be a direct, unedited, unbiased, apolitical expression of how the world really is.

• Machine is outside of us – easy to see its functioning – but Language! Difficult to detect its mechanism.


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No Petrol / Diesel Day – 14th Feb

• Fight against Govt’s policy to liberalize price of Crude oil.

• Ecological reasons – Save the Environment!• Ambush marketing of Valentine’s Day!• Cultural attack?• How does a culture-shock matter in an era of

Globalization?


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Neil Postman questions ‘Question’

• Should we celebrate ‘Save the Girl Child’ on 14th Feb or 14th Nov?

• The form of question even block us from seeing solutions to problems that become visible through a different question.

• Questions are like computers or televisions or stethoscopes or lie detectors, in that they are mechanisms that give direction to our thoughts, generate new ideas, venerate old ones, expose facts, or hide them.


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Example of ‘questioning’

• Structure of any question is as devoid of neutrality as is its content.

• The form of a question may ease our way or pose obstacles. Or, when even slightly altered, it may generate antithetical answers:

• Two priests asking Pope if it was permissible to smoke and pray, at the same time.

• Priest 1: “Is it permissible to DRINK while PRAYING?’• Priest 2: “Is it permissible to PRAY while DRINKING?”


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Word controls our worldview

• “. . . although all observers may be confronted by the same physical evidence in the form of experiential data and although they may be capable of ‘externally similar acts of observation’ . . . A person’s ‘picture of the universe’ or ‘view of the world’ differs as a function of the particular language or languages that person knows.” (Qtd. Penny Lee in Bruce Kodish’s What We Do With Language – What It Does With Us.


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The Interpretive Communities & the Context– Stanley Fish

• ‘A speaker is never not in a context. We are never not in a situation . . . No sentence is ever apprehended independently of some or other illocutionary forces”. (Stanley Fish qtd. W. Ray – V.S. Seturaman. Introduction. Contemporary Criticism)

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Mr. A (tom, dick and harry) married Ms. B (jill, jane and julie).

• So and so Minister married some Beautician.• Amitabh married Rekha.• Katrina married Ranbir• Salman married Daisy• Sania married Shaoib.

• Khan hits ‘om run!


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Let us conclude with this video Click or copy/paste this link to view video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA


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Conclusion

• The technopoly of Camera – a machine - in this video does not allow us to comprehend the ‘truth’, the ‘reality’.

• Similarly, there are several invisible technologies – which Postman considers as ‘mechanisms that act like machine but are not normally thought as a part of Technopoly’s repertoire.

• Neil Postman calls for an attention to them (i.e. technologies in disguise) precisely because they are so often overlooked!


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To conclude, I make two statements…

• Language does not communicate…• Language is used to ‘condition’ mind

(identity), not to communicate…

• If you do not agree with me, the first statement is true…

• If you agree, second is true…


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Finally,

• To be effective communicator in 21st Century we should have two characteristics:

• One, while communicating keep all our senses open (including common sense), so that none can exploit and subjugate us, esp. political language.

• Second, learn the skills to use language to voice the unheard voices.


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Language as Technopoly: Invisible Technologies