← Back to Concept Indextechnocracy
A social form in which industrial society is organized around rationalization, planning, and efficiency, representing a less visible but formidable opponent to youth-led radicalism.
3 chapters across 2 books
Chapter I TECHNOCRACY’S CHILDREN The struggle of the generations is one of the obvious con- stants of human affairs. One stands in peril of some presump- tion, therefore, to suggest that the rivalry between young and adult in Western society during the current decade is uniquely critical. And yet it is mecessary to risk such pre- sumption if one is not to lose sight of our most important contemporary source of radical dissent and cultural imnova- tion. For better or worse, most of what is presently happening that is new, provocative, and engaging in politics, education, the arts, social relations (love, courtship, family, community), is the creation either of youth who are profoundly, even fanatically, alienated from the parental generation, or of those who address themselves primarily to the young. It is at the level of youth that significant social criticism now looks for a responsive hearing as, more and more, it grows to be the common expectation that the young should be those who act, who make things happen, who take the risks, who gen- erally provide the ginger. It would be of interest in its own right that the age-old process of generational disaffiliation should now be transformed from a peripheral experience in the life of the individual and the family into a major lever of radical social change. But if one believes, as I do, that ‘the alienated young are giving shape to something that looks like the saving vision our endangered civilization requires, then there is no avoiding the need to understand and to educate them in what they are about. The reference of this book is primarily to America, but it is headline news that generational antagonism has achievedThis chapter analyzes the generational conflict in Western societies during the 1960s, emphasizing the unique and critical role of youth as radical dissenters and cultural innovators alienated from their parents' generation. Roszak contrasts American youth's approach to radicalism with that of European youth, highlighting the former's focus on combating the technocracy—a dominant social form characterized by bureaucratic rationalization and industrial organization—beyond traditional political struggles. The chapter argues that the alienation of youth has transformed generational disaffiliation into a major lever for radical social change, necessitating a deeper understanding and education of this emerging counterculture.
Chapter VII THE MYTH OF OBJECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS If the preceding chapters have served their purpose, they will have shown how some of the leading mentors of our youth- ful counter culture have, in a variety of ways, called into question the validity of the conventional scientific world view, and in so doing have set about undermining the foundations of the technocracy. The object of these final chapters will be to summarize and, hopefully, give some comprehensive shape to this still embryonic critique of the dominant culture, in the hope that the thoughts offered here will help to sharpen what I take to be the most promising elements involved in the youthful dissent of our day. If there is one especially striking feature of the new radi- calism we have been surveying, it is the cleavage that exists between it and the radicalism of previous generations where the subjects of science and technology are concerned. To the older collectivist ideologies, which were as given to the value of industrial expansion as the capitalist class enemy, the con- nection between totalitarian control and science was not ap- parent. Science was almost invariably seen as an undisputed social good, because it had become so intimately related in the popular mind (though not often in ways clearly umder- stood) to the technological progress that promised. security and affluence. It was not foreseen even by gifted social critics that the impersonal, large-scale social processes to which tech- nological progress gives rise—in economics, in politics, in | education, in every aspect of life—generate their own charac- “teristic problems. When the general public finds itself en- meshed in a gargantuan industrial apparatus which it ad-This chapter critiques the dominant technocratic culture by challenging the myth of objective consciousness, which posits that scientific knowledge is the only reliable form of knowledge due to its supposed objectivity. Roszak argues that this myth underpins the technocracy's power and expert authority, while ignoring the subjective, personal, and non-intellective modes of consciousness that the youthful counterculture values. He highlights the circular logic that legitimizes technocratic expertise and calls for a deeper understanding of education and knowledge beyond administrative and scientific orthodoxies.
PART VIThis chapter chronicles the first twenty-five years of the Space Age, focusing on the Apollo missions and the geopolitical and cultural implications of space exploration during the Cold War. It highlights the technological triumphs of the United States, the Soviet Union's parallel efforts, and the broader hopes and fears attached to spaceflight, emphasizing the dual nature of space as both a realm of peaceful scientific achievement and a domain of political competition. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the limitations of technology to fundamentally alter human nature or international politics.