1. Invisible Technologies
Language as Technopoly
Dilip Barad
An Advanced National Workshop in
General Semantics
Baroda, Gujarat (India)
28-30 Jan., 2013
www.dilipbarad.com
www.dilipbarad.blogspot.in
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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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2. Whose body language speaks of self-confidence?
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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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3. With which colour-pencil is the cat on the
cup drawn?
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4. Let us check general knowledge:
• What is Jawaharlal Nehru’s son’s name?
• ‘Save The Girl Child’
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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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6. Do you believe in racism?
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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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7. What’s wrong with answers?
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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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8. “I’m sure, We’ll enjoy working
together”.
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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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9. The language in conversation leads wife
to believe . . .
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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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10. Why she thought what she thought?
See, how language conditions our world view!
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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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12. 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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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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13. 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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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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14. 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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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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15. Deeply integrated ideological agenda of language
• A special effort and training are required to
detect its presence.
• 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.
(General Semantics helps us.)
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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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16. 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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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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17. 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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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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18. 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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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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19. 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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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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20. 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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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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21. 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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23. 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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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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24. 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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An Advanced National Workshop in General
Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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25. 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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Semantics: 28-30 Jan. 2013
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It is context that gives meaning – not the language. Communication happens because of context – and aprior understanding of the words – words are predefined and its predefinition gives meaning.
