Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

1958

Abstract

One of the major factors of the contemporary social world is industrialization. Recent industrial developments have moved in two major directions. First, there has been a tremendous increase in technological innovation, reaching the stage which we call automation. The machines which we have developed are doing their work only too well, including some tasks which we had long though could be done only by human hands and heads. Not only the blue-collar worker but also the white-collar worker seems to be faced with the possibility of technological unemployment. [excerpt]

Comments

This is a part of Section XIX: An Analysis of the Contemporary World's Search for Meaning. The Contemporary Civilization page lists all additional sections of Ideas and Institutions of Western Man, as well as the Table of Contents for both volumes.

More About Contemporary Civilization:

From 1947 through 1969, all first-year Gettysburg College students took a two-semester course called Contemporary Civilization. The course was developed at President Henry W.A. Hanson’s request with the goal of “introducing the student to the backgrounds of contemporary social problems through the major concepts, ideals, hopes and motivations of western culture since the Middle Ages.”

Gettysburg College professors from the history, philosophy, and religion departments developed a textbook for the course. The first edition, published in 1955, was called An Introduction to Contemporary Civilization and Its Problems. A second edition, retitled Ideas and Institutions of Western Man, was published in 1958 and 1960. It is this second edition that we include here. The copy we digitized is from the Gary T. Hawbaker ’66 Collection and the marginalia are his.

COinS