Theodore Roszak
Theodore Roszak was a prominent social critic and author known for his exploration of the relationship between technology and society. His most influential work, *The Making of a Counter Culture*, published in 1969, introduced the term "counterculture" and analyzed the youth's dissent in America and other industrialized nations during the 1960s. Roszak challenged the notion of equating human thought processes with the computational functions of machines, arguing that such beliefs could lead to misunderstandings about societal development. He later expanded on these ideas in *The Cult of Information*, critiquing the scientific view of the mind. Throughout his career, Roszak emphasized the distinction between ideas and information, advocating for a more nuanced education that promotes this understanding. His fiction, including novels like *Bugs* and *Flicker*, often illustrated the potential dangers of technology. An accomplished academic, he held teaching positions at several universities and was involved in ecological and social discourse. Roszak's contributions earned him various accolades, including a Guggenheim fellowship and a James Tiptree, Jr. literary award for his work addressing gender issues.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Theodore Roszak
Author
- Born: 1933
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Died: 2011
Biography
Theodore Roszak is best known as a social critic whose ideas challenge the role of technology in society. His analysis of the counterculture of the 1960’s is reflected in his most famous work, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition, which was published in 1969. The book was hailed as an important guide to understanding the dissent among the youth in America as well as among the youth in other industrialized societies. In this work, he introduced the term counterculture, which became a common descriptor of young people who challenge what society considers normal.
Roszak’s resistance to the practice of using science to explain all natural forces led to his emphasis on the need to consider other experiences to balance one’s view. Roszak wrote both nonfiction and fiction contrasting the human mind’s thought processes with the computational processes of machines. He believed that the two processes are not only quite different from each other, but also that the belief that they are alike is dangerous to the understanding of the development of society. His later book, The Cult of Information, published twenty-six years after The Making of a Counter Culture, continues his attack on the scientific view of the mind as an advanced computer.
Roszak’s contribution to education was his differentiation between ideas and information. He insisted that the two are very different, and students must be educated to know this difference in order to advance society. Roszak developed fictional works based on his ideas. His novels became famous for his creative plots that demonstrate the dangers of technology. Among his most inventive works are Bugs, Dreamwatcher, and Flicker—an indictment against the subliminal messages in movies.
Roszak earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1955 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University three years later. He taught history at Stanford University from 1959 to 1963. He left the United States for London to edit Peace News for one year and to teach at an experimental post-secondary school in the latter part of the decade. He taught at Stanford and the University of British Columbia before beginning a longtime career as a professor of history at California State University in Hayward, where he was also director of the Ecopsychology Institute.
In 1971, Roszak was granted a Guggenheim fellowship. He wrote and spoke on social and ecological matters. Twenty-five years of work on a Mary Shelley project resulted in The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, which won the James Tiptree, Jr., literary award for work that extends understanding of gender issues, marking the first time that a book written by a man won the award. Roszak also earned two nominations for the National Book Award.