The Coming of Post-Industrial Society

I'm going to sidestep your question of whether the information revolution has changed the nature of the "good life," and point out that your description of Bell as a "conservative in culture" clarifies some of what seemed so cloudy in The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. Bell's fleeting discussion of the "sixties" cultural events--so in the foreground of American life circa 1973--is somewhat startling with hindsight. After all, the '60s was the decade standing between the last hurrah of an industrial age (the '50s), and the ascendance of a service-centered economy in the '70s (with all the doubts that came along with it--like Japanese manufacturing eroding the foundation of the American economy; an assessment that reflected suspicion of an economy's ability to thrive on building services rather than things). As an early indicator of what the post-industrial world might look like (Woodstock 1999?), the '60s would have been a good decade for Bell to examine in this book. Yet he's far more interested in, say, 1860, and the goings-on inside Karl's head, than what was happening on some upstate New York farm. Your description of Bell's cultural conservatism makes me wonder whether his decision to ignore the cultural effects of post-industrial society had to do with his personal distaste for the "counterculture" hippie freaknik thing I've seen in old newsreels.

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It's an unfortunate omission because it's precisely this cultural "information revolution" that has changed our world and defined our post-industrial society--the same information revolution that allowed amplified music to be synchronized with lights using "feedback" (i.e. information about the system) to produce a psychedelic experience. Or the information embedded on plastic films that allowed 8-track tapes to alter the way one experienced a day on the beach. The entire '60s thing was a product of an information revolution--one that initially empowered everyday people to personalize their media diet, eroding the principle of mass experiences through media, and enhancing tribal impulses to identify with your clique. By not discussing these aspects of the "post-industrial society," Bell left us with a book whose value is more for what it says about the 19^th century than about the 21^st. Bell's basically best on Marx, and if that's of interest to you in 1999, then you'll enjoy reading The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.

Jim--I'm told by Judith that this is to be our last installment on this book. It's been lovely corresponding with you. I hope you've been writing your messages from the beach ... Next time around, we'll see if we can discern how the information revolution may have "changed the nature of the good life," as you put it, for better or worse.

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