- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Greenwood Press (30 April 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0275962059
- ISBN-13: 978-0275962050
- Product Dimensions: 2.4 x 1.7 x 0.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,881,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
"If you don't have as much time to read as you wish you had, you must buy this book. Sit down, read it slowly, carefully, and thoughtfully, and discuss it with those you live, love, and work with. Professor Bertman has his hand on the dangerously rapid pulse of a society spinning wildly out of control and rushing perilously away from the values, rituals, sacredness, and simple joys essential to health and healing. Unless we heed his carefully researched warnings about the risks of our mass hyperactivity, we may end up dying before we have ever fully lived."-Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. Author, The Heart's Code
Product Description
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. 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, Avlin Toffler identified a psychobiological disease he called "future shock" caused by "too much change in too short a time". Now Bertman diagnoses an even more serious condition, "hyperculture", 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 "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 widsom 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.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Dr. Stephen Bertman, a Classicist, from the University of Windsor in Canada has shone light upon the affliction of modern culture. The speed at which we travel through our daily lives is exposed for what it is able to do. The centripital force that rips at the very fabric of society is examined from the micro to the macro and it is quite alarming to see that what we take for granted is actually part of what damages us. Technology moves faster and faster which pushes the human ability to cope with life to the limits. Culture as we know it is being changed before our eyes and it moves so quickly that we do not have time to adapt. The simplicity of a family gathering is no longer something that the power of now allows us to enjoy, but it pushes us to only live in a superficial realm. At the end there are some sound suggestions to what one is able to do to control the speed at which one travels through daily life. A must read if you are serious about learning how to navigate this constantly changing world. I have not only read the book, but have had the good experience of being a past student of this professor. He lives what he imparts in the book and in the lecture hall. The heights that I have aspired to have been in part due to his teachings. Currently I am working on a PhD in Classics.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
This book IS required reading for all Americans.
11 Oct 1999
Format:Hardcover
Bertman gives us a rare blend of deep historical understanding and clarity of view of our own times. Page after page, recognition chimes go off. He has said what we have all felt in our moments of doubt about the breakneck speed of our own lives and the lives of our neighbors. I am recommending this book to all my friends and acquaintances who have any questions at all about why it is we have so much more stuff and so little satisfaction. People all over the country, who are struggling in so many ways to cope or drop out, should find help in this book.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
The power of now is the current disease which afflicts us.
22 Oct 1998
Format:Hardcover
Dr. Stephen Bertman, a Classicist, from the University of Windsor in Canada has shone light upon the affliction of modern culture. The speed at which we travel through our daily lives is exposed for what it is able to do. The centripital force that rips at the very fabric of society is examined from the micro to the macro and it is quite alarming to see that what we take for granted is actually part of what damages us. Technology moves faster and faster which pushes the human ability to cope with life to the limits. Culture as we know it is being changed before our eyes and it moves so quickly that we do not have time to adapt. The simplicity of a family gathering is no longer something that the power of now allows us to enjoy, but it pushes us to only live in a superficial realm. At the end there are some sound suggestions to what one is able to do to control the speed at which one travels through daily life. A must read if you are serious about learning how to navigate this constantly changing world. I have not only read the book, but have had the good experience of being a past student of this professor. He lives what he imparts in the book and in the lecture hall. The heights that I have aspired to have been in part due to his teachings. Currently I am working on a PhD in Classics.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
If you think there are problems in the world, you're not alone.
24 Feb 2008
Format:Hardcover
First let me say: This book is AMAZING. I highlight important passages that I want to remember for later, and I have done a lot of highlighting in this book. There are a lot of things that I find wrong with the world in general and people in particular, and this book hits every single topic I've ever thought about and many that I haven't. It gives the reasons why our society is changing and changing faster than ever before. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the myriad of choices at the supermarket, or wondered why some people get so mad when they have to wait in line for 5 minutes, or can't understand the populace's obsession with the newest gadget, you need to read this book. Hyperculture has made me more aware of things I haven't thought about and why I do what I do. I have shared this book with my family and friends, and I feel that I've helped them by getting them to think about why they do what they do too.
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