Hyperculture: The Human Cost of Speed

by Stephen Bertman

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 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.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 1998

About the author

Stephen Bertman received his doctorate in Greek and Latin Literature from Columbia University, and holds additional degrees in Classics from New York University and in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis. Dr. Bertman has published extensively in the field of ancient Mediterranean civilization. In addition to articles and chapters on Classical and Near Eastern history and though, his books include Art and the Romans, Doorways through Time: The Romance of Archaeology and the Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. He has also explored the callenges of contemporary civilization in Hyperculture: The Human Cost of Speed and Cultural Amnesia: America's Future and the Crisis of Memory.

As a teacher, writer, educational consultant, and public speaker, Dr. Bertman has dedicated his life to bridging the world of past and present. Stephen Bertman lives with his wife, Elaine, in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

(Taken from The Eight Pillars of Greek Wisdom)

Reviews

[B. Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

a secular prophetic book that speaks volumes to our modern-western generation. Beautifully, intelligently, wistfully, and smartly written. good especially after (or before) a "the world is flat" read.

[Toby Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing in the last years of the previous millennium, Stephen Bertman frets over the acceleration of human lifestyles. Nothing much good can come of it, he ventures; indeed, the book's quick and pithy epigraph can save you the bother of reading the rest (which, after all, is a slow process): "No man in a hurry is quite civilised".

But it's worth reading the rest. While Bertman comes across on occasions as curmudgeonly, irritable, irascible, impatient, and something of a cultural snob, he has, in spite or because of all that, marshalled an argument that, twenty five years on, indicates that he read the runes horribly accurately, which is to say, darkly.

Try this: "More and more as a result, commercial expediency may come to dictate political decisions. From the days of the most ancient empires, imperialistic ambition shaped foreign policy. But in the future, it may increasingly determine domestic policy as well, as a nation's agenda is set less by the ideals of its own people than by the pragmatic needs of transnational corporations, and the parties and politicians, they finance ... Such international policies have wide moral implications, for the more the globe is dominated by materialism and opportunism, the more world civilisation will spiritually decline. Business, after all, pledges its highest allegiance to profit. But a culture that takes that as its highest principle will be poor indeed."

Materially (temporarily) wealthy; morally bankrupt.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Life would be wonderful is people had the life of Bertman: get a full wage for coming twice a week to the University, some times go to fancy hotels to talk about the latest discoveries in a literature that has been dead for two thousand years. Oh, the value and the progress generated by the leeches like Bertman!

Only, in real life, there has to be an underclass that has to work overtime to support the Betman leeches, and all their doctoral nephews as well.

In a twisted way, it is fascinating to see what delusions holds the mind of a man who has never worked a day in his worthless life. A man who thinks that his cheap wine at the evening gala at the Polish Cultural Institute is the same as the the baker waking up at 4AM every day, and only slightly less than a miner's life.

[Amy Wass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascination thoughts on the impacts of the cultural value of speed and how it permeates all layers of life and society. I resonate with the warnings to pay attention to how the pressure for fast-paced, productivity impacts humanity, relationships and the structures we create to hold up the drive for faster and more.