Robopaths

About the Book

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.

About the Author

Lewis Yablonsky grew up in Newark, New Jersey. He served in the Navy during WWII. He graduated from Rutgers University and later received a Ph.D. in Sociology and Criminology from New York University in 1958. Dr. Yablonsky has taught sociology and criminology at the University of Massachusetts, Columbia, Harvard, and UCLA. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Criminology at California State University-Northridge. He has lectured, taught, and consulted throughout the world on social issues. Among his 20 published books in the U.S. and Europe are The Violent Gang (1962), Synanon: The Tunnel Back (1965), The Hippie Trip (1968), Criminology (2000), Gangs in Court (2008) and The Emotional Meaning of Money and The Extra-Sex Factor published by IUniverse in 2009.