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The private future: causes and consequences of community collapse in the West
"The Private Future, a book of social prophecy, published in 1973, provides evidence of how penetrating Pawley's vision could be. He foresaw a society with ever greater technical means of communication becoming paradoxically more insular and dysfunctional. Reading his description of what we now recognise as an iPod-plugged web surfer you have to remind yourself that it was written on an Olympia typewriter long before the advent of the word processor or the mobile phone."[Taken from Martin Pawley's obituary in The Guardian (]
- GenresSociologyNonfiction
217 pages, Loose Leaf
Published January 1, 1974
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April 8, 2013
This is the first of the books I have set myself to read in my challenge to read this year all the books I read up to 1977 that I still own in their original edition.
Forty years has not been kind to it. I shall write a longer review when I have time...
The longer review:
When Martin Pawley died in 2008, obituaries were quick to latch onto the seeming far-sightedness of The Private Future. This book of "social prophecy", The Guardian said, provided evidence of "how penetrating Pawley's vision could be". It was, for The Independent "one of his prescient books". Published in hardback in 1973, the paperback edition of 1974 has emblazoned on the front cover, "With all the force of FUTURE SHOCK" in an attempt to ride the coat tails of Toffler's publishing wonder, a serious book of cultural analysis that became an international best-seller. The paperback of Pawley's book was soon remaindered, however; I picked it up in a bargain bin at Woolworth's in 1976 or so.
The book contends that individuals in Western culture are becoming more private. People are becoming islands unto themselves as family and community broke down. What was the cause of this breakdown? Here, the book becomes less prescient, and instead fits into a general pattern of cultural analysis of the fifties and sixties. Among the causes are, of course, consumerism, and the rise of popular culture and the media that carried that culture – cinema, television and radio. "Can these shoals of anonymous commuters," he wonders, "fed on sports reports and salacious advertising really be called communities? Are these thinly populated, fenced-off brick boxes really the homes of families? Do ten or twenty million of them amount to a society? Surely not." (p.8) The tenor is very 1970s: "shoals of anonymous commuters", "fenced off brick boxes", "sports reports and salacious advertising" – against popular culture, against space, light and suburban homes for the masses, and reducing people to anonymous "shoals".
Although The Guardian might regard Pawley as "prescient", his critique is of the extant society, the future he foresaw was very much his now. The conditions for the private future were already there – the future would merely bring further privatisation and the withering of community. This is not a vision for now. As Pawley notes "The conditions of life have changed dramatically over the last thirty years... " (p.16). And the society these changes have brought about – in which families have become smaller as children leave home and elders move to retirement homes or nursing homes, in which there are no connections with shop assistants, because " with modern objects like fridges and freezers, [there is] no need to visit shops as often" – is the society Pawley is describing in the 1970s.
The book itself is rather slim, 200 pages in the paperback edition, and is more polemic than penetrating analysis. There is no bibliographic information, and few references to other sociologists or hard data; the book stands or falls on the basis of Pawley's insights, rather than evidence adduced from other sources. The books rambles somewhat – for example, because of the concentration on consumerism as a facet of privatisation, there is anti-capitalist rant, yet this somehow feels shoe-horned into the argument. The book is also sometimes contradictory – for example, you might wonder if Pawley desires the private future, rather than being against it. And is he for or against freedom and emancipation? You would think he would be for both things. Yet he rails against the washing machines and fridges that enable women more free time (and thus to work and to become politically involved) because they do not require somebody (usually, in the 1960s, a wife) to visit shops, or otherwise be involved in the community.
How prescient, then, was Pawley? How penetrating was his vision? Interestingly, both The Guardian and The Independent were making their comments after Pawley's death in 2008. Who could have foreseen then quite the power of the social networks now? It was easy to concentrate on headphones and the Walkman and iPod, and see them as symbols of self-sufficiency, of inwardness, of privatisation. And yet, even then, we were already 30 years on from Pawley's books. Some elements of it might have been true. Yet the idea that there were no longer communities, families or other social groupings seems a little misplaced. Certainly, some types of community might have declined – trades unions certainly, the nuclear family to an extent – yet, even in the mid-2000s, other communities had developed, some internet-based (chatrooms, newsgroups), some around media and popular culture (people sharing discussions at work about television programs), some around formal and informal groupings in the real world (membership of the National Trust, for example). With more leisure time (because of those fridges and washing machines) came more time to appreciate nature, or history, or architecture, and to develop local communities based around these pursuits.
All of the above are, I feel, still true. Technology, capitalism, the individualist drive within us, the desire for freedom and liberation might well lead to the decline of some forms of community, but these things also lead to the growth of new communities and the re-organisation of others. The drive to feel part of a community, to be shaped by a community, to take part in community is still there within us, and is now partly driven by social media. Yes, this media is currently divisive, but it enables the creation of communities and cultures that shape and are shaped by us. Yes, it creates echo chambers, but what are these but the reflections of particular communities that still exist "out there" IRL, as we used to say. And, yes, we might interact in private with the devices that enable these communities, as private individuals. But community still exists in these new forms, through these media, just as family continues to exist in new, if smaller, forms.
Reading The Private Future forty years on is not, then, to rediscover a hidden classic that explains the world as it is now. It is a book that attempted to explain some aspects of the world as it was then, a book that seemed unsure if it wanted to stop the process it foresaw or celebrate it. It is, however, in its own, dated, way, an interesting read. It is now a history of the way some aspects of the world once were, and might have become – a retro what-if for a world that quickly changed after the book was written to become something else, somewhere else with different people in it. If you are interested in sociology, cultural studies, history or politics, and find this book second-hand, pick it up. You might find yourself intrigued by what it is was saying about the private then.
Forty years has not been kind to it. I shall write a longer review when I have time...
The longer review:
When Martin Pawley died in 2008, obituaries were quick to latch onto the seeming far-sightedness of The Private Future. This book of "social prophecy", The Guardian said, provided evidence of "how penetrating Pawley's vision could be". It was, for The Independent "one of his prescient books". Published in hardback in 1973, the paperback edition of 1974 has emblazoned on the front cover, "With all the force of FUTURE SHOCK" in an attempt to ride the coat tails of Toffler's publishing wonder, a serious book of cultural analysis that became an international best-seller. The paperback of Pawley's book was soon remaindered, however; I picked it up in a bargain bin at Woolworth's in 1976 or so.
The book contends that individuals in Western culture are becoming more private. People are becoming islands unto themselves as family and community broke down. What was the cause of this breakdown? Here, the book becomes less prescient, and instead fits into a general pattern of cultural analysis of the fifties and sixties. Among the causes are, of course, consumerism, and the rise of popular culture and the media that carried that culture – cinema, television and radio. "Can these shoals of anonymous commuters," he wonders, "fed on sports reports and salacious advertising really be called communities? Are these thinly populated, fenced-off brick boxes really the homes of families? Do ten or twenty million of them amount to a society? Surely not." (p.8) The tenor is very 1970s: "shoals of anonymous commuters", "fenced off brick boxes", "sports reports and salacious advertising" – against popular culture, against space, light and suburban homes for the masses, and reducing people to anonymous "shoals".
Although The Guardian might regard Pawley as "prescient", his critique is of the extant society, the future he foresaw was very much his now. The conditions for the private future were already there – the future would merely bring further privatisation and the withering of community. This is not a vision for now. As Pawley notes "The conditions of life have changed dramatically over the last thirty years... " (p.16). And the society these changes have brought about – in which families have become smaller as children leave home and elders move to retirement homes or nursing homes, in which there are no connections with shop assistants, because " with modern objects like fridges and freezers, [there is] no need to visit shops as often" – is the society Pawley is describing in the 1970s.
The book itself is rather slim, 200 pages in the paperback edition, and is more polemic than penetrating analysis. There is no bibliographic information, and few references to other sociologists or hard data; the book stands or falls on the basis of Pawley's insights, rather than evidence adduced from other sources. The books rambles somewhat – for example, because of the concentration on consumerism as a facet of privatisation, there is anti-capitalist rant, yet this somehow feels shoe-horned into the argument. The book is also sometimes contradictory – for example, you might wonder if Pawley desires the private future, rather than being against it. And is he for or against freedom and emancipation? You would think he would be for both things. Yet he rails against the washing machines and fridges that enable women more free time (and thus to work and to become politically involved) because they do not require somebody (usually, in the 1960s, a wife) to visit shops, or otherwise be involved in the community.
How prescient, then, was Pawley? How penetrating was his vision? Interestingly, both The Guardian and The Independent were making their comments after Pawley's death in 2008. Who could have foreseen then quite the power of the social networks now? It was easy to concentrate on headphones and the Walkman and iPod, and see them as symbols of self-sufficiency, of inwardness, of privatisation. And yet, even then, we were already 30 years on from Pawley's books. Some elements of it might have been true. Yet the idea that there were no longer communities, families or other social groupings seems a little misplaced. Certainly, some types of community might have declined – trades unions certainly, the nuclear family to an extent – yet, even in the mid-2000s, other communities had developed, some internet-based (chatrooms, newsgroups), some around media and popular culture (people sharing discussions at work about television programs), some around formal and informal groupings in the real world (membership of the National Trust, for example). With more leisure time (because of those fridges and washing machines) came more time to appreciate nature, or history, or architecture, and to develop local communities based around these pursuits.
All of the above are, I feel, still true. Technology, capitalism, the individualist drive within us, the desire for freedom and liberation might well lead to the decline of some forms of community, but these things also lead to the growth of new communities and the re-organisation of others. The drive to feel part of a community, to be shaped by a community, to take part in community is still there within us, and is now partly driven by social media. Yes, this media is currently divisive, but it enables the creation of communities and cultures that shape and are shaped by us. Yes, it creates echo chambers, but what are these but the reflections of particular communities that still exist "out there" IRL, as we used to say. And, yes, we might interact in private with the devices that enable these communities, as private individuals. But community still exists in these new forms, through these media, just as family continues to exist in new, if smaller, forms.
Reading The Private Future forty years on is not, then, to rediscover a hidden classic that explains the world as it is now. It is a book that attempted to explain some aspects of the world as it was then, a book that seemed unsure if it wanted to stop the process it foresaw or celebrate it. It is, however, in its own, dated, way, an interesting read. It is now a history of the way some aspects of the world once were, and might have become – a retro what-if for a world that quickly changed after the book was written to become something else, somewhere else with different people in it. If you are interested in sociology, cultural studies, history or politics, and find this book second-hand, pick it up. You might find yourself intrigued by what it is was saying about the private then.
January 18, 2023
I’m surprised this book hasn’t found some sort of resurgence nowadays as its main idea is very applicable to today’s burning world. I’m sure if the author had lived into pandemic times he would have written a sequel. It was an easy enough read as these types of books (mostly ideas, references/examples & footnotes) go. I found the main idea interesting, but the author saves any panache for a few paragraphs in the final two chapters. The only real barriers to enjoying or understanding it are time, it was first published in 1974, and the author was a British person thus he used the examples he knew well though he brought in examples from the U.S. as well especially when it comes to the subject of the Vietnam war.
The main idea of the book is that modern convenience and media allow individuals to indulge in the romanticized idea of selfish individual exclusion exacerbated by consumer culture fueled by capitalism and weaponized by those in power by way of moralization and encouraging the fall of individuals into fantasy, in the book referred to as secondary reality. Boy, if Martin Pawley could see the Western World now: conglomeration of massive world spanning media companies into a dominating handful, social media bubbles, money hoarding as a substitution for morality, organized conspiracy theory cults, individuals demanding rights to weapons and social viciousness without consequence while deliberately ignoring and even mocking the human rights of their compatriots. I wonder how much of that he could’ve guessed as he passed in the early 2000s. I would really like to read a book contemporizing the ideas in The Private Future.
I do have a few favorite passages I would like to share though.
The triumph of mass media as the purveyors of secondary reality reflects the refusal of the people of the West to accept the implications of the collapse of community. The fragmentation of society is a reality, but the priceless distraction of erotic and sensory fantasy products and services conceals it. … Today the true descendent of Rimbaud’s “I” who is “someone else” is not the poet living on welfare or the student revolutionary, but the worker offering his life to a meaningless job because it pays off in the fantasy reward of the endless consumer dream. … Consumer society has become a form of barter for dreams, and nothing in it is more surrealistic than the practice of work itself: no one more dedicated to the relentless servicing of his “other self” than the worker. Compared to any consumer the artist has become a monk, the revolutionary a fakir lying on a bed of nails. (pg.186)
Maybe employers, corporations, and billionaires should take note: Pay your workers well so they can survive easily and stay distracted with the “fruits of culture” i.e., mass media, intoxicants, self-pleasure. The former quote best encapsulates the core of this book’s main idea. Even the thing needed to sustain a community at its foundational level, work, plays into the fragmentation of society into isolated individualism under capitalism and the pressures of technological advancement.
In the summer of 1969 at the apogee of the festival movement, half a million young people gathered at Woodstock, New York, and constituted briefly the tenth largest city in the United States. This counter-culture army – as large as the force sent by Napoleon to conquer Russia – survived for only a few days, supplied in the main by the helicopters and trucks of its establishment enemies, whose security forces had been overwhelmed by the unexpected numbers. At the height of this unprecedented event the Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman seized a microphone to announce that the festival was meaningless as long as the manager of MC5 (a Detroit rock band) was still in jail on a marijuana charge. This logical attempt to draw the attention of the army to the more serious issues that confronted it was summarily dealt with. The guitarist Pete Townsend beat him off the stage with his instrument[.] (pg.202)
Pretty much the stewardship of the Boomers in a nutshell in my opinion.
Yeah, I liked this book, I definitely enjoyed its ideas, I even took a bit of enjoyment in its view from the early 1970’s with a few concerns that have already passed by a long time ago. Would I recommend this one? Yeah, I would, the fragmentation of society through insulated selfish individualism that it explores is still very relevant today. These ideas are due for a direct update (if works like this already exist, I’ll be looking for them). So, to conclude, here is a quote from the last paragraph of the book (the same one quoted on the front of the dustjacket of my copy no less).
Alone in a centrally heated, air-conditioned capsule, drugged, fed with music and erotic imagery, the parts of his consciousness separated into components that reach everywhere and nowhere, the private citizen of the future will have become one with the end of effort and the triumph of sensation divorced from action. When the barbarians arrive they will find him, like some ancient Greek sage, lost in contemplation, terrified yet fearless, listening to himself. (pg.211)
It sort of reminds me of completely immersive virtual reality and leads me to question who exactly are those “barbarians”. I mean, when have you ever known corporations, power mongers, banks, and governments to stop short of complete domination of the world? Well, that’s a depressing note to end on.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews