In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology & the Survival of the Indian Nations

by Jerry Mander

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Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Politics, Native American

458 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Bjorn Sorensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Linda Branham · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Deeann · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Abner Rosenweig · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[David Rush · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Andrew Crisp · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Costacoralito · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Karen Mcswain · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Zozulya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author is very pessimistic and reactionary. His arguments are spatial and have no deal with life of my generation.

[Victoria Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 that in the slower paced world, people tend to make decisions based on what the impact will be on future generations. What will be the cost in resources, sustainability, survival and the opportunity for enjoyment of the world around us? He does not, to my recollection, try to say we should ditch all technology. What he does try to say is that more thought should be put into the consequences of our renovations and discoveries before they become common issue and possible problems.

Let’s take a known problem, something that there is not much controversy about: toxic waste. For decades we have fought in court rooms, on barren fields, hospital rooms and community centers to try to get manufacturing and production companies to take more responsibility for the waste they generate. The price in human suffering runs deep before someone, somewhere finally decides enough is enough and then the cost of cleanup, litigation, loss of viability and even livelihoods, becomes such a burden that nearly any advantage gained by the original thought process is destroyed. Yes money is made, perhaps mountains of money. But money is also lost. Companies go bankrupt; people lose jobs, health and life.

Mander proposes that we try a different approach. Instead of dealing with the consequences after that fact; try to anticipate the consequence before hand and weigh the benefits of a particular development or technology against its true costs. Paper diapers are probably a marvelous convenience, but where do they all go when they are used? There are some moves to use our volcanoes as rather efficient garbage dumps, but do we know what the impact of that might really be?

Throughout the book Mander addresses some of the beliefs and customs of various aboriginal peoples around the world. Even pointing out that as efficient and earth friendly as thermal heat may be, in Hawaii it is an offense to the Hawaiian people as an affront to Pele, their main goddess. The system works well, however, in Iceland. The point is we should be listening to those who have managed to lead sustainable lifestyles for millennium and combine their wisdom with our ever increasing knowledge.

I did not get the impression that Mander wanted us all to return to loin cloths and some mythological pre-industrial Eden. Nor did I get the impression that he was recommending that we should shun advances in medicine, science or technology. What I took away from the book is that as rational beings with the capability of reason, we should take into account the full impact of our activities before we commit to a course of action. Our point of view should be to treasure our resources, to count our home “sacred” in some form or other and to seek sustainability. Avoid becoming an automated consumer, buying whatever is the latest and greatest. Instead, try to build a life around conscientious choices for things which enrich your life; including some of our most advanced technology. Learn to know the difference and choose.

[keallelogram · Rating 2 out of 5]

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

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been trying to avoid books that are over 10 years old since things are changing so fast but this one is still better than most of the newer stuff I've read. One thing older books have going for them at least is that the writers didn't have to worry as much about using some stupid gimmick to make played out ideas more novel. Frankly, in the last 23 years the arguments haven't really gotten much better than this. The word games have just gotten more sophisticated (in the sense that sophistication has more to do with using ambiguous language so you can bullshit your way out of any criticism than with precision in sharing ideas). Now we're not allowed to use words like "stewardship", "resources" and even "sustainability" according to a lot of these people. It drives me nuts! With this book I'm not totally confident in some of the statistics he uses considering that it's a little outdated, and he considers solar electricity a democratic technic, which it's absolutely not, but the general ideas I definitely agree with. A lot of the arguments I don't even think were necessary to make his points. If making something requires the forced removal of indigenous people, exploiting workers, polluting the environment, torturing lab animals and drawing down resources at an unsustainable rate then shouldn't we be able to just stop there? It bothers me how much time and energy is spent fighting over the psychological effects of using things that we all know shouldn't even be created in the first place. I guess I can't blame him for that though. The only other thing he said that sounded totally wrong to me was a line about beaver hunting where he claims 50-100 beavers can be caught from a single lodge. Not too big a deal but I have to question some of his sources. He mentions people like Graham Hancock, Riane Eisler and Marshall Sahlins, who are also known for sort of being on the right track but not really using the most reliable information. Ignoring little issues like that though I did like this one.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Absence of the Sacred is of the great socio/political/psychological/ecological books of our times. Mander's fierce intellect cuts through our worship of technology and belief and goes to the bone of what sustains us.

Mander makes it clear that technology will not only NOT save the world but is in fact destroying the world. The realities of what we have lost as a civilization are incalculable -- most of our land is polluted, 90% of our big fish are extinct, 40% of all living species are gone, water the most precious of all resources is disappearing everywhere. Mander lays bare the bones of the cartesian paradigm (mechanistic thinking) in a world on the fast track to mindless over consumption and disrespect for the very things that make life possible.

I love the comment from his publisher at the beginning of the book "Indians, smindians…" like who gives a damn anymore about Indians. Mander's fulgent analysis sheds light on the power of indigenous knowledge and wisdom and the profound connection to the land -- a connection that cannot be broken but only to our peril.

Mander goes out on a limb here considering the modern world is Like Icarus, hurtling mindlessly toward the sun ...in our desire for everything and the machinery and devices that are making it easier to digest the earth faster and faster…we have no connection to any of this…we are oblivious to our core instincts, that's how far we have drifted from our ability to sense and understand the intangible values of the natural world...while our knowledge of food and other essentials is neither valued or appreciated.

We have lost our sacred connection to the land and god help us if we can, at this late stage get it back.
Thank YOU Mander for a tome that tells it like it is.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most deeply moving books I've ever read -- and one that makes as much sense to me as any I've read. It will stay on my shelf forever. It's a criticism of the culture we've created. It encompasses so many things -- all the things that make up our living during this time on this planet: spirituality, philosophy, paradigm shift, environment, nature, indigenous people, alternative living, native American cultures, social criticism, technology... A book to be read over again from time to time.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book questioning technology/industrial culture and contrasting our civilization with that of Indian nations. East to read, personal, and wide in scope, a good book to start looking at technology and our society with.
Keep in mind Ward Churchill's criticisms about Mander's reliance on white sources over native ones.

[Braden Canfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that has influenced me greatly!

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished this book... and it was a mixed bag. Mander offers a thorough critique and rejection of the technological society and holds up the Native alternative as the solution. His tech critiques have many insights, but unfortunately, he suffers from a double fault of being overly negative about current technologies and romantic of prior technologies. Mander defends his consistently negative view of technology, one where technology is guilty until proven innocent, by pointing out that others are consistently positive with nothing negative to say. There is no real argument in defense of his romanticization of the past though. He can point out how much better things were back in the old days. Which leaves one suspiscious that Mander is only criticizing new technologies which weren't around when he was a boy. He is no Wendell Berry who seems like he wants to roll back the entire industrial project.

When Mander turns to the Indian alternative and current state, he is much better, though he still suffers from a romanticization of their lifestyle at points. I'm not sufficiently versed enough in Indian history or culture to offer any critique of Mander's work here. It strikes me as reasonable though given everything else I've read on the subject. Which means that the Indians are consistently misunderstood and screwed over by Westerners, a demoralizing reality.

This book should be read for the Indian alternative, but not for its critique of technology. I'm a fan of the radical critics of technology such as Jacques Ellul, Wendell Berry, Ivan Illich, and others. So I'm sympathetic to his conclusions, but even so I found his portrayal overly negative and a bit uncritical of technologies prior to his birth. There are a lot better tech critics out there who should be read instead, such as Wendell Berry, Neil Postman, Frank Mulder, or Andy Crouch.

[Joel Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some parts of this were really elevated and excellent. I think Mander's analysis of cultural problems arising from then recent technology was way more prescient than he could have possibly known. Moreover, his analysis about how the fundamental corporate structure is antithetical to our cherished societal values and goals is pithy and excellent, as is his acknowledgement that the "tech-will-save-us" crowd is even more naively romantic than the "let's go back to the stone age" crowd.

As for the sections of the book on Indians, I think Mander is mostly right, but perhaps a little too romantic. However, his summaries of the way corporate structures are tearing apart small communities all over the world was extremely sober and helpful. What the US did - is doing - to the pacific islands is a tragedy, and is the best example of Mander's thesis.

It's a book everyone ought to read. That it was written 30+ years ago only adds to its value. Most of what he said is worse now. And if you ask me, the global homogenization by corporations and G7s has done everything it can to make this world artless, sterile, and meaningless. Thankfully, there's still some art, grime, and meaning left.

[Dameon Launert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books. Jerry Mander critiques the technological worldview while simultaneously sharing an alternative worldview, that of indigenous peoples (without oversimplifying or overgeneralizing too much). This book facilitates a "paradigm shift".

In the Absence of the Sacred is easy to read, as if Mander was speaking directly to the reader in conversation.

I have only two minor points of contention. First, in a few places Mander refers to "the time of Christ," which seems odd, since he is apparently no fan of the Church. It would have been more appropriate and accurate to instead write "beginning of the Common Era" or something similar.

Second, he calls indigenous peoples Indians throughout the book. Mander surely knew this was not an accurate description, even though the misnomer persists, and I have to wonder why he didn't take the opportunity to set the record straight and use correct terminology.

[Michaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is more relevant than ever, though it was published in 1991. A former ad man, Mander doesn't so much generate new ideas as collect and repackage challenges to techno-capitalist hegemony in compelling and understandable ways. He questions the accepted dogma that (a) technological advancements improve people's lives, (b) technological solutions can solve the problems generated by technology, and (c) indigenous peoples are "backwards" when they resist western political structures and the privatization/seizure of their lands and resources. He collates a long list of indigenous struggles happening at that time, and provides a directory of ways to support them. Many of the organizations he lists are extant, such as Cultural Survival (https://www.culturalsurvival.org/).

[Sven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book if you are interested in justice, native peoples, American history, capitalism, alternative thinking about technology and the the future.

This book is someone dated, but still very relevant, especially with Standing Rock in recent news.

Warning: be prepared to change your thinking about many things!

[Jayalakshmi Jayaraman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind blowing...

[Robin Turtle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book that gives food for thought. Everyone should read this!

[Bud Theisen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mander's book is as relevant as ever!

[Andrew Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

EPIC.