The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness

by Peter L. Berger, Brigitte Berger, Hansfried Kellner

Berger, Berger, and Kellner seek to explain the social nature of the processes of modernization and the hegemony of ideas and ways of thinking that constitute the modern outlook.

Genres: Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Social

258 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 1973

About the author

Peter L. Berger was an internationally renowned sociologist, and the founder of Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. He was born in Vienna and came to the U.S. in his late teens. He had a master's degree and a doctorate from the New School for Social Research in New York. After two years in the United States Army, he taught at the University of Georgia and the University of North Carolina before going to the Hartford Seminary Foundation as an Assistant Professor in Social Ethics.

In 1992, Peter Berger was awarded the Manes Sperber Prize, presented by the Austrian government for significant contributions to culture. He was the author of many books, among them The Social Construction of Reality, The Homeless Mind, and Questions of Faith.

Reviews

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a massive disappointment. For some reason I had thought that this was one of Berger's main works, continuing in the footsteps of The Social Construction of Reality. A couple of relevant insights aside--Berger's reprinted essay on honour is the best part of the book--the book is clunky, so unlike Berger's own writing. The chapters which clearly are his, on the other hand, are at best well-written diatribes against 'youth culture'. It would be ironic if it wasn't so sad, how Berger never forgets to mention how social science is value-free, but then goes on to write a chapter which is best described as counter-1968 rage. Ah well.

[Toni C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Homeless mind" could work as a keynote to Berger and Luckmann's classic "The Social Construction of Reality", but it is no doubt an amazing one. Written almost 50 years ago, it might be like outdated, and to some extent it is. However, that assertion would not do justice to this very interesting book and the currency of many of its arguments and ideas. It seems to me that what other more recent authors like Bauman have said about the transformations induced by Modernity was already at here. Highly recommendable.

[Daniel Clemence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modernity has created a world filled with disconnected individuals. Peter Berger's The Homeless Mind originally written in 1973 is a book which looks at how modernity creates conditions that are alienating to people. This Berger argues it is particularly true in the developing countries of the world.

There are multiple different ways that people deal with the alienation of the modern world including pluralisation of values, emphasis of honour. In the developing world, Berger argues that countries adopt a position of modernising whilst keeping social structures the same.

The book does well at explaining the alienation found in capitalist societies of the early 1970s. There is a part of this book that almost predicts the rise of communitarianism versus liberal debate that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. This is especially true in the Chapter 8 Modernity and Its Discontents when it argues that individuals reject individualism by supporting the return to collectivism.

A thought-provoking book.

[Toby Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laborious but essential reading. Where the Social Construction of Reality trips along with elan, the Homeless Mind trudges on doggedly. It carries a burden. The burden is the impulse to explore humankind's deepening 'homelessness' - the result of which, as we now well know, is a period of history that has engendered "its own nostalgias - nostalgias, that is, for a condition of 'being at home' in society, with oneself and, ultimately, in the universe."

The nostalgias prove inadequate to the task of combatting the pervasive influences of technological production, on the one hand, and bureaucracy, on the other, which, taken together, give rise to the peculiarities of modern consciousness. Arising from these tensions, we experience a symbolic universe that is a "loosely assembled and far from stable constellation of reality definitions. Often it [is] grossly lacking in logical consistency."

What's to be done? Not a lot.

"... once established, modern consciousness is rather hard to get rid of. Its definitions of reality and its psychological consequences are dragged along even into the rebellions against it, providing the ironic spectacle of an assault on modernity by people whose consciousness presupposes the same modernity … These limits are imposed institutionally by the simple fact that short of unspeakable catastrophe, contemporary society cannot divest itself of its technological or bureaucratic structures in toto ... As we have tried to show, this fact has implications for consciousness as well as for the external order of institutions: if we are 'stuck with' technology and bureaucracy, we are also 'stuck with' those structures of consciousness that are intrinsic to these processes."

Bleak, but barring something spectacular, probably accurate.

[Eliezer Sneiderman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually enjoy Peter Berger's work. This one is interesting. But, it feels dated.

[William Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fascinating, I enjoyed exploring their take on the mind whilst preparing to write my book

[Ella Nixon]

Recommended by McGhilchrist

[Femina Sagita Borualogo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book told me about the importance of bureaucracy. It is about modern life when we done soemthing systemized. However, in Indonesia, bureaucracy meant corruption, collusion, nepotism... What's wrong in Indonesia?

[Maryanne]

The Homeless MInd 10202007 Modernization and Consciousness by Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger, Hansfried Kellner
I enjoyed it!