Hyperculture: The Human Cost of Speed

Bertman, Stephen

ISBN 10: 0275962059 / ISBN 13: 9780275962050

Edité par Praeger, 1998

The book is in good condition with all pages and cover intact, including the dust jacket if originally issued. The spine may show light wear. Pages may contain some notes or highlighting, and there might be a "From the library of" label. Boxed set packaging, shrink wrap, or included media like CDs may be missing. N° de réf. du vendeur BSM.12FIZ

Synopsis :

The rampant illnesses of our society—including the disintegration of the family, the degradation of the environment, unlimited commercialism, and unrelenting stress—are familiar to us all. For the first time, Stephen Bertman attempts to explain these disparate, overwhelmingly negative phenomena with a single, unifying principle: that the accelerated pace of American society is eroding the essence of our most fundamental values. In 1970, Alvin Toffler identified a psycho-biological disease he called future shock caused by too much change in too short a time. Now Bertman daringly diagnoses an even more serious condition, hyperculture, a chronic warping of morals and ethics caused by America's addiction to speed. The treatment, he argues in this book, will require nothing less than a drastic slowdown—we must reassert control over the technologies that now dominate us in order to insure a humane future for our children and ourselves.

We live, according to Bertman, in a society ruled by the power of now, a power that gives us instant gratification even as it demands our instantaneous obedience. As a result, we have adapted our lives and values to match the speed-of-light electronic technologies that surround us. But, in so doing, we have paid a high price in spirit and mind. Cut off from the wisdom of the past and too rushed to consider the consequences of our actions, we are caught up in a culture of sensationalism and transience in which the very definitions of personal identity and democracy are being transformed. Hyperculture dares to suggest that the cure for our condition lies not in an information superhighway or third wave information revolution, but in the radical and painful process of decelerating our lives enough to reclaim them. It is a daunting challenge, to be sure, but one on which our happiness and even our survival depend.

À propos de l'auteur: Stephen Bertman, PhD, is professor of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Civilizations at Canada's University of Windsor. He is the author of Art and the Romans (1975), The Conflict of Generations in Ancient Greece and Rome (1976), Doorways Through Time: The Romance of Archaeology (1986), and the forthcoming Cultural Amnesia (Praeger). An educational consultant and nationally recognized speaker, he resides in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : Hyperculture: The Human Cost of Speed
Éditeur : Praeger
Date d'édition : 1998
Reliure : Couverture rigide
Etat : good