Robopaths: People as Machines

The robopaths are the people who pull the triggers at My Lai, Kent State, and Attica, make policy in Washington, and live next door. Dehumanized by regimentation, bureaucratization, and indiscriminate violence, they are growing more numerous in today's society. In this searing book, Lewis Yablonsky sees them as the outcome of the struggle between humanity and its technological servants-whether computers, automobiles, or H-bombs. Like Charles Reich and Alvin Toffler, Yablonsky doesn't claim to have any ultimate answers. But he does believe that clues have been offered by various group approaches to human interaction, such as Synanon, psychodrama, and the hippie counterculture. These clues may point the way to the refashioning of our plastic society-a refashioning that will make people both more human and more humane.