PREFACE<br > HIS BOOK is concerned with an invisible dis-ease， an affliction<br > of the spirit， which has been ravaging humanity in recent<br >times without surcease and virtually without resistance， and which<br >has now reached epidemic proportions in the Western world. The<br >contagion is unknown to science and unrecognized by medicine (psy-<br >chiatry aside); yet its wasting symptoms are plain for all to see and its<br >lethal effects are everywhere on display. It neither kills outright nor<br >inflicts apparent physical harm， yet the extent of its destructive toll is<br >already greater than that of any war， plague， famine， or natural<br >calamity on record--and its potential damage to the quality of<br >human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation.<br >For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the "Fifth<br >Horseman of the Apocalypse." Its more conventional name， of<br >course， is dehumanization.<br > The present represents a preliminary inquiry into various of the<br >symptoms， sources， products and side-effects of dehumanization in<br >the modern world--with primary reference to America， where the con-<br >dition is apparently most pervasive and where the evidence of its dev-<br >astation is most readily available. Our purpose is the modest one of<br >providing， not a complete etiology and certainly not a sure cure，<br >but a tentative diagnosis of the "dehuman syndrome" and a report on<br >the extent of its proliferation. It should be emphasized that this is not<br >an encyclopedia of all that ails our civilization--of the sum total of its<br >discontents. Far from it. We have chosen to be selective rather than<br > xi<br >