In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology…

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Home My Books Browse ▾ Recommendations Choice Awards Genres Giveaways New Releases Lists Explore News & Interviews Loading... Community ▾ Groups Quotes Ask the Author People Sign in Join Jump to ratings and reviews Want to Read Buy on Amazon Rate this book In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology & the Survival of the Indian Nations Jerry Mander 4.25 555 ratings 49 reviews Want to Read Buy on Amazon Rate this book a Genres Nonfiction Technology Philosophy History Sociology Native American Politics ...more 458 pages, Paperback First published January 1, 1991 Book details & editions Loading... Loading... About the author Jerry Mander 28 books 77 followers Follow Follow Ratings & Reviews What do you think? Rate this book Write a Review Friends & Following Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book! Community Reviews 4.25 555 ratings 49 reviews 5 stars 277 (49%) 4 stars 178 (32%) 3 stars 71 (12%) 2 stars 19 (3%) 1 star 10 (1%) Search review text Filters Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews Bjorn Sorensen 137 reviews 12 followers Follow Follow December 26, 2010 Might be my favorite book, one of those titles that always stay with you. It does an excellent job of articulating so many of the feelings many of us have had regarding the decimation of native peoples over what has just been a few centuries. Without guilt trips or a lot of generalizations, author Jerry Mander highlights how so many tribes were wiped out, their best features of self-government that current nation-states could consider, and how roughly a billion native peoples are thriving in the world today without usually making the evening news. One concept from the book that I remember is that of consensus - how everyone in a tribe must agree with a new policy before it's implemented. It takes a lot more time to get laws enacted, but then there's been a lot of discussion that has involved all, and a lot of solidarity and energy when a new idea is put in place. Plus you don't always have 0-49% against what you're doing, like in our majority-rules society. I'm sure I laughed even harder during a scene about consensus in an African tribe in "The Poisonwood Bible", which I had read shortly after this book. Mander highlights that in many native tribes the leaders are those who are best at facilitating discussion vs. those with the most verve or riches. In one scene, some European explorers were trying to tell a tribal chief in Brazil to move his tribe to another territory. The European group wanted to take over the land that the tribe was on. The chief replied "if I just told my tribe what to do, I wouldn't be their leader." Mander estimates that most wars fought today are to remove tribes from their land in order to get at the natural resources. He explains the potential dangers of a lot of our modern technology. One of the best features of the book, other than the thorough research and being way ahead of its time, is that the author does so much traveling to visit tribes and see first-hand how they operate. I greatly appreciated the ride. I will NEVER forget this book. It encourages empathy, action and open-mindedness in the face of centuries of violence and hopelessness. national-and-international-affairs 16 likes 3 comments Like Comment Mark 154 reviews 25 followers Follow Follow April 27, 2008 One of those books that pull so many things together and do it in a lucid, understandable fashion... I kept finding myself saying “Yes! That is exactly what the problem is!” and then continuing on to a new nugget of wisdom. One of the best sections of the book is a listing of the underlying and structural reasons that corporations are damaging to society and to the earth. As one might guess, the profit motive ranks right up there, but there are other business that are profit driven that don’t wreak the same amount of havoc – it all lies in the structure of the corporation. non-fiction 5 likes Like Comment Linda Branham 1,832 reviews 30 followers Follow Follow March 23, 2010 U guess I need to add a new shelf This was written in 1991 but is still very relevant today. It is about the effects of technology on us as a people. He also discusses the plight on the Native American in our world of technology... how we have destroyed their culture, their connection with the land in believing "our" way to be superior. In reality living in balance with all of nature is preferable than the nightmare that we have created non-fiction 5 likes Like Comment Abner Rosenweig 206 reviews 26 followers Follow Follow July 18, 2016 It takes courage to read books like this, books that crash through our common assumptions about the world and allow us to see society from a critical perspective. It takes courage because sometimes these books reveal the ugly side of the world. The side that you don't want to see and that, once seen, can't be unseen. At 25 years old, "In the Absence of the Sacred" is more relevant than ever. Mander speaks for peace, justice, nature, love, health, the long-term survival of humanity, and a critical deliberation of values, all of which have been silenced in the name of profit and technological progress. TWO BOOKS IN ONE Mander was originally writing two separate books--one, a critique of our unquestioned acceptance of technology and progress, and a second on the destruction of native values. Ultimately he realized that these two issues were connected. He saw a clash of values, where one way of life was being systematically destroyed in favor of another. And that maybe the way of life that's winning, through force, isn't the better way. I wish these two critiques were more seamlessly integrated, and that the transition between the two parts of the book was smoother and better rationalized. But while this would have improved the reading experience, the value of the criticism is the same. DELIBERATION OF TECH Mander’s call for the careful deliberation of how technology will be applied in society and a thorough examination of its potential consequences, particularly on a holistic level (not just how it will improve the end user's lifestyle), is important. Toffler recommended something similar in "Future Shock." It would be wonderful to deliberate over and regulate emerging tech. Can it be done? Can we ever put the genie back in the bottle? Will humans ever be mature enough to have power but not use it, or to carefully control how we use it? Certainly not in a society of late-stage capitalism where regulation is out the window and profit-driven corporations run the show. Mander’s notion that our inability to critically evaluate technology in the best interests of the people and the planet may be our ultimate downfall is powerful and disquieting. BLANKET CONDEMNATIONS Mander condemns certain technologies categorically. I don't think this is fair. Just because they aren't being used responsibly now, like television, doesn't mean they couldn't ever be. For example, Mander wholly rejects space as a noble destination for humanity. I disagree. I think it would be an outstanding achievement for humanity to be born from the earth and to move into the stars and to explore the vast unknown abyss. Mander bundles space with everything that's bad in the technological narrative, and I don't think this has to be the case. I think we could live in a sustainable, just society, and explore space, too. Earth is our home, but it won't be around forever. There are many natural existential risks all around us—super volcanos, asteroids, climate change (this happens naturally, too), pandemics--I'd like to see humanity grow up and take control of our own destiny. I'd like to see us transcend our total vulnerability to the earth's capriciousness. Just as civilization deserves a hefty helping of criticism, it's important not to swing too far to the other side of the pendulum and idealize nature as a loving mother. Nature doesn't love us and it will wipe us out if we overstay our welcome. RESTLESS READING ABOUT THE NATIVES The section on native Americans is tragic, yet it is also one of the most boring parts of the book. It devolves into journalistic reporting of Mander's personal adventures with native peoples and plods on with a slow, dry historical recapitulation of how the natives lost their world. Most of us have heard this story before. We know how awful it was and another long, boring account of the atrocities isn't necessarily helpful. GLOBALIZATION Beyond his writing on Native Americans, however, Mander goes into the organized, systematic, global attack on native people, and I found this shocking and riveting. Industrial civilization is a bona fide monster. It doesn't care about the earth or the indigenous populations of the world. It steals and murders and wrecks the land, and it leaves entire nations leveled, violated, poor, and powerless. Mander gets the reader up to speed on the atrocities of economic globalization. Reading this section, you come to realize that these attacks on native populations are not sporadic. They are a coordinated effort on the part of the western market economy to take by force resources, nature, and the lifeblood of the native people, moving them around like cattle, leaving them to die after laying waste to their societies, or just slaughtering them en masse. It's brutality on a grand scale, mechanized savagery, a side of life you'll never see on corporate TV. The monster of globalization devours everything in its path. LORD OF THE FLIES In the light of this monstrous force of globalization, you wonder: is technology the real villain? Or is it something more sinister? An ideology of savagery. A brutal disregard for human life and the living systems of the planet. A ravenous ego that serves only itself. Technology, I suggest, is only instrumental in a positivist, mechanistic, materialist paradigm that desiccates the human spirit. The title of the book is "Absence of the Sacred," yet ironically Mander never gets around to defining the sacred and describing why it's valuable. He never discusses Weber's idea of disenchantment, for example, which one would expect to be featured here. In sum, this is a provocative book that pulls back the curtain on a great deal of injustice, inhumanity, and thoughtless action in the name of progress. I’m not certain that it always gets directly at the root of the problem, but it makes you doubt the fundamental values of modern society and leaves you with a strong conviction that, whatever the right track may be, we’re not on it. 3 likes Like Comment jeremy 1,218 reviews 324 followers Follow Follow November 26, 2007 jerry mander is an engrossing writer, his evidence well-researched and convincing. this book is important because it not only upends many of the fallacies regarding the "neutrality" of technologies, but because it also demonstrates the effect these technologies have had (are having) on indigenous cultures. his warning is an emphatic one, entreating us to return to the more authentic values still practiced by an ever-decreasing number of people around the globe. gen-nonfiction 3 likes Like Comment Kate Lawrence Author 1 book 30 followers Follow Follow November 9, 2022 Although over 30 years old, Mander's book still resonates. I sought it out because I'd read in A Wild Idea that it had been strongly influential on Doug Tompkins, turning him from a successful capitalist into a successful conservationist. Although I don't think I'd want to live totally like indigenous peoples, they have a lot to teach us about community values and respect for nature. Surely there must be some middle ground between our overly technological and resource-extractive society, and a simpler life free from toxic individualism and exploitation. environment politics social-justice 2 likes Like Comment David Rush 431 reviews 39 followers Follow Follow December 1, 2018 I think I read this book 20 plus years ago, and I think I liked it then. But this time I could only get 50 pages into it. This time around it seemed like he had his views and then collected whatever data, anecdote or part of a conversation that backed up his view. In one sense that is cool, but he never really addressed any point that might detract from his thesis. Oh I think his thesis is that most technology is bad but he didn't really spell it out in the beginning so I may be wrong. But, the way he presented things bugged me. For instance he has 10 points to consider any new technology, and somebody (I am not sure who will decide this) figures out which technology will be allowed. And his starting point is to say people are really good at predicting the future, so this system of gatekeeper analysis will work for new inventions. As an example he found a bunch of predictions about the telephone that sound more or less true. But the thing is how do I know he didn't just ignore any predictions that turned out to be wrong? Plus the telephone, in concept, is a pretty easily defined device. Strangely in one part he says we are great at predicting the future of inventions and in another part he lampoons the over the top imaginings of the World's Fair future-worlds. Like I said, he may address some of this later but to throw things out there and not relatively quickly address the most obvious counter arguments seems disingenuous to me. Like he starts off by saying anyone would do anything to help a sick child, but then the rest of the chapter makes fun of modern ultra high tech doctors who love technology and pills more than their patients. He never comes back to the apparent contradiction. Then I started skimming, and there is a bunch of stuff about native American history, in my mind presented in a very haphazard fashion. But from what I could see he never really talks about how the respect for land and life can be applied in the modern world. Except we should reach a consensus among ourselves like the Hopi do. But in the section about the Hopi meeting he didn't say how we apply this to congress. The book seemed disjointed in that he starts off addressing technology but then there are big sections on indigenous people around the world and how screwed over they been. I get that. I agree. But from my scanning I never saw how he would tie it back into changing the world we live in now. There are some small victories related by today's native Americans but they seem so small compared to the way the world works, I just don't see what the point of the book is. BUT, I didn't read it all so take it for what it is worth. And that may be nothing. 2 likes Like Comment Lindsay 106 reviews 42 followers Follow Follow October 12, 2008 This book is divided into two parts: first, a critique of modern high-tech, global consumer culture (the book was written in 1991); and second, an in-depth look at the conflict between that culture and various traditional, indigenous ways of life around the globe. The first part extends Mander's essential premise from Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television --- that all technological innovations have social and political implications which should be evaluated along with each invention's purely mechanical uses --- to other inventions --- the car, the telephone and the computer being some of his examples --- and to technology in general. Probably the most astonishing revelation this part of the book held for me was that the ways in which a new invention will affect society are largely predictable, and that companies seeking to market a new product will often, if the product is revolutionary enough, commission reports on its likely social impacts! Mander quotes from such a report issued for the telephone, which turns out to be largely accurate. He then makes the argument that, since we already have reliable information (or the capacity to gather said information) on each innovation's potential impacts, what we ought to do is make such reports public and conduct public debates (actual, fully-accessible public debates, not just showpieces) on whether to adopt a given technology. Rather than restructuring our society around new inventions every ten years or so, we would pick and choose the inventions that would be adopted for widespread development and use based on how well they harmonized with our social values. 90s cultural-criticism indigenous ...more 2 likes 1 comment Like Comment Deeann 4 reviews Follow Follow November 26, 2008 This was just a lucky find in a used book store. The author formerly developed adverstising campaigns for national environmental organizations and works in the field of advertising. The book describes the history of technology from an objective point of view, the impact of modern technology on indigenous cultures worldwide and how technology has been used as a means to extract land and other resources from indigenous people. 2 likes Like Comment Simone 51 reviews Follow Follow October 30, 2009 Raises concerns about the pervasiveness of technology in the lives of Americans and the rest of the world; looks at traditional Native American ways of life and the effect that technology has had on their lifestyles and cultures; dispels some comfortable myths about what encroaching Western presence has actually accomplished for native peoples already in existence. 2 likes Like Comment Andrew Crisp 52 reviews 1 follower Follow Follow February 7, 2020 30 years past its publication date, it's striking simply for the number of early phenomenas that Mander was able to identify (hello, megatechnology world). In this particularly grim first portion of a new decade, his message is more important than ever. Thank you, Jerry, for being a voice in the wilderness of early 21st century life. 2 likes Like Comment Costacoralito 61 reviews Follow Follow April 13, 2010 An excellent view of what we must do to save the Earth. How we swindled Alaska away from the Native population while telling the world we were being fair and honest with them. Very dishonorable way to behave. 2 likes Like Comment Karen Mcswain 203 reviews 7 followers Follow Follow September 3, 2022 This is the most impactful book I’ve read all year - maybe ever. Although it was written over thirty years ago, it’s frighteningly relevant. If you think that the “good” in technology outweighs the “bad”, think again. READ THIS BOOK! 2 likes Like Comment keallelogram 89 reviews Follow Follow April 3, 2024 sort of weird book w/ a short attention span, meandering from one topic to the next without any direction. Starts with rants about technology, then there are some interesting facts about Native American societies in the middle, followed by chapters about how they’re still being screwed over 1 like Like Comment Zozulya 7 reviews 4 followers Follow Follow November 2, 2013 Author is very pessimistic and reactionary. His arguments are spatial and have no deal with life of my generation. 2 likes Like Comment Victoria Adams Author 1 book 7 followers Follow Follow November 10, 2012 I acquired this book at one of those delightful moments provided by a friend of mine. She was attending university at the time and, for my birthday, walked me into the university bookstore and said – pick something, anything. When these rare moments arrive I like to make sure that my selection is not necessarily something I would purchase browsing the shelves with my own budget. I will look for something intriguing, new to me, off my usual radar. I find such treasurers that way! Written in 1991 the book is an amazing critique of the place technology “owns” in our day to day lives. Mander discusses just how much it permeates our very existence and homogenizes much of humanity into some large mass of consumerism. This is not, however, a book about ditching technology. What Mander does try to do is introduce a bit of thought into the choices we each make whether we, as an individual, are a consumer or a producer of the marvels of our age. Mander uses the aboriginal societies of a number of continents to show t