ABSTRACT
The connection between science and technology and value-laden ideology is carefully unveiled by Alvin Gouldner's analysis. As one surveys the values, institutions, and people of America, it is not difficult to see the centrality of science and technology to the economic and social forces of society. The technocratic consciousness becomes meaningfully relevant to the everyday life of ordinary citizens through the value of materialism, and the loyalty of ordinary citizens is cemented to the technocratic system through technologically based gratifications, that is to say, "consumerism". An antagonistic relationship between technocratic consciousness and dying is spawned and the ultimate goal of the technological management of dying becomes the defeat of death. Death may be seen as the ultimate force of annihilation, but perhaps even more meaningful to the proponents of the human potential movement is the process of dying. The modern dying process largely leaves the individual to his or her own resources in coping with the realities of dying.
