The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness

In The Homeless Mind, Berger, Berger, and Kellner try to introduce the reader to the concepts of modernization and its problems, and set forth a model that attempts to explain how modernization takes place. Their stated hope is that the reader, after understanding how modernization occurs and the problems it brings about, will be better equipped to deal with modernization and to formulate methods of remedying its problems. Here, the concentration will be upon the explanations given by the authors on the actual processes of modernization and the problems that then arise. The main ideas presented by Berger, Berger, and Kellner can be somewhat summarized by the following: modernization processes, mainly technological production and bureaucracy, are giving individuals feelings of anxiety and confusion by introducing them to varied viewpoints, so those individuals try to lower this cognitive dissonance by adopting separate thought processes for public and private life. This action, along with other facets of modernization, remove from the individual the feeling of belonging and increase feelings of isolation, therefore bringing about a feeling of psychological homelessness. Many methods of attempting to resist modernization are intrinsically paradoxical, and thus this situation of homelessness resulting from modernity has no easy solutions. This albeit lengthy summary is nevertheless incomplete; the authors advance so many ideas that are important to their line of reasoning that it is virtually impossible to present them all in a few short sentences. On the other hand, many ideas mentioned in the above summary are so complex that the authors have coined specific words that attempt to cover literally paragraphs of information; such terms are certainly "loaded words" in a very literal sense.

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