In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations [Hardcover]

At base, what the author is really arguing for is a return to greater personal responsibility through the restoration of more traditional attitudes and values about our connection to the wider community and to an ethic of social responsibility. To the degree we allow ourselves to continue to be isolated and segregated from the community and its human-oriented interests, the more we play into the hands of forces that wish to fragment this orientation in order to better control resources, social patterns, and participation in the global economy by more forcefully orienting us toward lives as material consumers. Indeed, Mander argues, every aspect of the so-called "New World Order" is designed to acquaint and socialize us into adopting a new orientation that defines citizenship ever more exclusively as enthusiastic consumerism.

If Mander sometimes seems a bit shrill and even romantic in his approach, urging us to return to more traditional orientations in small human communities, moving toward more sustainable lifestyles, he counters by reminding us that having the degree of faith evident in contemporary society regarding the outcome of the hell-bent thrust toward economic globalism is also quite a romantic orientation, especially given our almost medieval understanding of just what this new technologically-oriented corporate-ascendant society would look like, or what it would be like to have to live in a world where corporate economic imperatives significantly influence every aspect of our lives. Given the events of the last year with Enron, Tyko, Global Crossing, and other corporate conglomerates, who can have much faith in either their vision or their integrity? Thousands lost their life savings due to nothing less than unbridled corporate greed! This is hardly the pedigree one wants to recommend for our collective futures. We would do well to heed his warning and to each become much better informed. This book can help! Enjoy!

Jerry Mander writes extensively about how technology has failed to keep its promise of utopia, and the dangers presented by unrestricted megatechnology, the current situation of some of the world's indigenous peoples, and how we may be saved by heeding what we are so quickly destroying. The first half of the book is a wake-up call to the dangers of our unrestrained acceptance of technology, and the second half is sort of a Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee for the present day. HIGHLY recommended.

While Mander is sometimes pretty heavy-handed with his arguments, he challenges a lot of assumptions in a straight-forward, deliberate, compelling way that ultimately led me to make some concrete changes in my life. Can't promise that for everyone-- but if you've a gut feeling that says the way we live as a country is a little nuts, this book may help confirm your suspicions. It also manages to offer a few solutions.