The private future; causes and consequences of community collapse in the West.

The mindset to Pawley's prepackaged processed pseudo-sociology is apocalyptic futurethink: a little Packard, a little Riesman, Marcuse, Joe McGinnis, Rolling Stone, not forgetting Time and a smattering of sensational ""human interest"" items culled from metropolitan dailies on both sides of the Atlantic. ""Western society is on the brink of collapse"" (what, again?) and the one-and-only cause is technology ""which is evolving more and more into a pattern of socially atomizing appliances."" The ""privatization of the individual"" in his automobile and home is reinforced by the ""secondary reality"" of television, newspapers, advertisements. Pawley's neo-biblical pronouncements are shored up by pettifogging statistics, facts and references bent out of shape to support his thesis. When he declares the SST the logical successor to the medieval cathedral for uniting the community, or rehashes the 1972 election debacle without noting the extenuating criminal circumstances, his credibility becomes inoperative. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.