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Title: Turning Away from Technology: A New Vision for the 21st Century by Stephanie Mills, Theodore Roszak ISBN: 0871569531 Publisher: Sierra Club Books Pub. Date: October, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.25
Rating: 1
Summary: Book filled with hippie philosophy!
Comment: If anything technology has been good for society . Before the dawn of technology we had no electricity, no computers and awfull healthcare. Typical hippie philosophy to attack thge western world and technology. If you are a hippie, commonist or other technology hating tree hugger, then you will love this book. If you have a sane mind and civilized disposition, then you will realize that this book is filled with garbage. Not Recommended.
Rating: 3
Summary: Turning Away from Individuality
Comment: For those puzzled by the motivations of anti-globalization protestors, this book provides insight into the beliefs that drive these movements. As is usual in discussions from within this movement, the participants in the conferences summarized by this book present an entire laundry list of things that they oppose. These contain the expected capitalism and nuclear power but also include, perhaps surprisingly for those outside of this movement other things including television, computers etc.
This extensive list of unacceptable technologies and systems confuses people who try to understand the mass protests which thereby seem unfocused an pointless. However reading this book shows that they all stem from a common root. This is a movement that is opposed to individuality. It has been created by people who find their identity in community. They see technology as Jacques Ellul saw 'technic' as creating the 'one best way' which destroys local communities and leaves the individual without a system of belief with which to structure his/her life. The long of things thy oppose from the WTO to globalization to television are all things which they see as antithetical to the community-derived beliefs which they see as the basis for any fulfilled life.
The book's subtitle is "A New Vision for the 21st Century.' The vision that these people have is not new. Indeed it is entirely conventional. They find meaning in their lives by the ability toi live within a comforting structure. In this they are very similar the 'family values' movement. Indeed the opposition that both of these movements have to television are based on the same root of damage to community. Both movements look to the community to define values. They prefer the legitimacy of traditional and shared beliefs to what they see as reckless and dangerous innovations that they fear will leave people rootless. This is most evident in the chapter 11 which discusses the role of woman and the effect of technology on that role. There is real discomfort in the description of the discussions about thuis topic with the difficulty in making feminism compatible with a belief in a strongly structured community. The participants use the jargon of feminism but as the editor points out the largest number of them support strongly defined gender roles. This is obviously incompatible with the goals of feminism which is a powerful political force and a strongly legitimizing set of beliefs for modern activists.
To see the lengths to which members of this movement can go to render these incompatible belief systems compatible, I recommend the book 'Gender' by Ivan Illich. 'Gender' is not a deep book by any means nor does it provide any significant set of facts or analysis. Rather it is interesting in the lengths that Illich goes to try to show that culturally-defined gender roles are not what they seem when the come from traditional communities. Illich tries to declare that whit is black if it comes from traditional communities and fails in a very spectacular way.
The book is a summary of the contributions to conference discussions. With this, it cannot be the lear development of any one set of ideas. It does give an overview of the points of view of many of the thinkers in the movement. However it is more of a book for sampling than fro deep study. It is a collection of extemporaneous remarks and the drifting focus of a conversation. The book 'Liquid Modernity' by Zygmund Baumann is a much better description of the ideas that technology is depriving people of structure that gives meaning. An interesting counter- by Paul Levinson argument to can be found in the book 'Soft Edge' which argues that community and technology are co-evolutionary and that any technology that is dehumanizing cannot succeed. It will hinder the community that created it and will thus be eliminated by selection.
This book is interesting as a sampler to discover the concerns of the people, in this movement. In this, it is well worth reading. However it is not a book of scholarship or even of clearly expressed ides. It is more of a collective rant - a cry of anger and despair at forces these people see as challenging their defining beliefs. For clear analysis and insight one has to go elsewhere. Ellul, Postman and others can provide an analysis based on the ideas presented here in a much more lucid coherent and cogent way.
This book is worth reading for anyone who wishes to understand the motivations of the anti- globalization protests. However it is as unfocussed and full of anger as that movement is. It is worth reading not for its ostensible content but as a witness to the attitudes and belief that drive that content.
Rating: 1
Summary: This books was too high tech for me
Comment: As a true Luddite, I refuse to recognize the technology of printing and book-making. How many trees have to die before we stop printing books? Books, and this is a book make no mistake about that, have helped us to lose our cultural identities by subverting the art of storytelling.
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Title: Pentagon Of Power : The Myth Of The Machine, Vol. II by Lewis Mumford ISBN: 0156716100 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: March, 1974 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology by Langdon Winner ISBN: 0226902110 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: January, 1988 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium by Albert Borgmann ISBN: 0226066231 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: November, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Technics & Civilization by Lewis Mumford ISBN: 015688254X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul ISBN: 0394703901 Publisher: Random House (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1967 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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