by Neil Postman
1992 Vintage Books, division of Random House, NY
20010523
author is chair of the department of communication arts and sciences as the new york university
p7 interpretation of Plato’s Phaedrus "once a technology is admitted it plays out its hand
freud p39 "if there had been no railway to conquer distances, my child would never have left his native town and I should need no telephone to hear his voice"
skill displacement
perhaps the existence of Plato’s Phaedrus is a partial explanation of what Jacques Ellul refered to on p29 of "Technological Society" when he stated "the Greeks were suspicious of technology"
p13 the first instance of grading students’ papers occurred at cambridge University in 1792 at the suggestion of a tutor named William Farish, ... that qualitative value should be assigned to human thought ...
intended purpose of an invention is often quite different than its eventual use
estrangement from nature