Comments on

1 Comments on future SHOCKC. P. Snow: "Remarkable .. No one ought to have the nerve to pontificate on our presentworries without reading it."R. Buckminster Fuller: "Cogent .. brilliant .. I hope vast numbers will read Toffler'sbook."Betty Friedan: "Brilliant and true .. Should be read by anyone with the responsibility ofleading or participating in movements for change in America today."Marshall McLuhan: " future SHOCK .. is 'where it's at.'"Robert Rimmer, author of The Harrad Experiment: "A magnificent job .. Must reading."John Diebold: "For those who want to understand the social and psychologicalimplications of the technological revolution, this is an incomparable book."WALL STREET JOURNAL: "Explosive .. Brilliantly formulated."LONDON DAILY EXPRESS: "Alvin Toffler has sent something of a shock-wavethrough Western society.

2 "LE FIGARO: "The best study of our times that I know .. Of all the books that I have readin the last 20 years, it is by far the one that has taught me the most."THE TIMES OF INDIA: "To the elite .. who often get committed to age-old institutionsor material goals alone, let Toffler's future SHOCK be a lesson and a warning."MANCHESTER GUARDIAN: "An American book that will .. reshape our thinking evenmore radically than Galbraith's did in the 1950s .. The book is more than a book, and itwill do more than send reviewers raving .. It is a spectacular outcrop of a formidable,organized intellectual effort .. For the first time in history scientists are marrying theinsights of artists, poets, dramatists, and novelists to statistical analysis and operationalresearch.

3 The two cultures have met and are being merged. Alvin Toffler is one of thefirst exhilarating, liberating results."CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: "Packed with ideas, explanations, constructivesuggestions .. Revealing, exciting, encouraging, brilliant."NEWSWEEK: "In the risky business of social and cultural criticism, there appears anoccasional book that manages through some happy combination of accident andinsight to shape our perceptions of its times. One thinks of America in the 1950s, forexample, largely in terms of David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd and John KennethGalbraith's The Affluent Society, while Michael Harrington's The Other America helpedfocus the concerns of the early 1960s. And now Alvin Toffler's immensely readable yetdisquieting study may serve the same purpose for our own increasingly volatile world:even before reading the book, one is ready to acknowledge the point of the title that wesuffer from ' future shock.

4 '"This low-priced Bantam Bookhas been completely reset in a type facedesigned for easy reading, and was printedfrom new plates. It contains the completetext of the original hard-cover ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTEDFUTURE SHOCKA Bantam Book / published by arrangementwith Random House, HISTORYP ortions of this book first appeared, in slightlydifferent form, in HORIZON, REDBOOK, and PLAYBOYR andom House edition published July 19702nd printing ..August 19709th 19703rd printing ..September 197010th 19704th 197011th January 19715th printing ..September 197012th 19716th 197013th 19717th 197014th printing .. April 19718th 197015th printing .. April 1971 Literary Guild edition published 1970 Psychology Today edition published 1970 Bantam edition published August 19712nd printing3rd printingAll rights reserved under International andPan-American Copyright 1970 by Alvin book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, bymimeograph or any other means, without information address: Random House, Inc.

5 ,201 East 50th Street, New York, simultaneously in the United States and CanadaBantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc., a National General company. Itstrade-mark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a bantam, isregistered in the United States Patent Office and in other countries. Marca Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAFor Sam, Rose, Heidi and Karen,My closest links with time ..CONTENTSI ntroduction1 PART ONE: THE DEATH OF PERMANENCE7 Chapter 800th LIFETIME9 The Unprepared Visitor10 Break with the Past12 Chapter 2. THE ACCELERATIVE THRUST19 Time and Change20 Subterranean Cities22 The Technological Engine25 Knowledge as Fuel30 The Flow of Situations32 Chapter 3. THE PACE OF LIFE36 People of the Future37 Durational Expectancy42 The Concept of Transience44 PART TWO: TRANSIENCE49 Chapter 4.

6 THINGS: THE THROW-AWAY SOCIETY51 The Paper Wedding Gown52 The Missing Supermarket55 The Economics of Impermanence 56 The Portable Playground58 The Modular "Fun Palace"59 The Rental Revolution63 Temporary Needs67 The Fad Machine71 Chapter 5. PLACES: THE NEW NOMADS74 The 3,000,000-Mile Club75 Flamenco in Sweden77 Migration to the Future80 Suicides and Hitch-hikers83 The Mournful Movers87 The Homing Instinct89 The Demise of Geography91 Chapter 6. PEOPLE: THE MODULAR MAN95 The Cost of Involvement96 The Duration of Human Relationships99 The Hurry-up Welcome102 Friendships in the Future107 Monday-to-Friday Friends108 Recruits and Defectors111 Rent-a-Person114 How to Lose Friends116 How Many Friends?119 Training Children for Turnover 121 Chapter 7. ORGANIZATION: THE COMING AD-HOCRACY 124 Catholics, Cliques and Coffee Breaks126 The Organizational Upheaval 128 The New Ad-hocracy132 The Collapse of Hierarchy137 Beyond Bureaucracy142 Chapter 8.

7 INFORMATION: THE KINETIC IMAGE152 Twiggy and the K-Mesons155 The Freudian Wave158A Blizzard of Best Sellers161 The Engineered Message162 Mozart on the Run166 The Semi-literate Shakespeare 169 Art: Cubists and Kineticists173 The Neural Investment177 PART THREE: NOVELTY183 Chapter 9. THE SCIENTIFIC TRAJECTORY185 The New Atlantis188 Sunlight and Personality191 The Voice of the Dolphin193 The Biological Factory194 The Pre-designed Body197 The Transient Organ205 The Cyborgs among Us209 The Denial of Change215 Chapter 10. THE EXPERIENCE MAKERS219 The Psychic Cake-Mix221"Serving Wenches" in the Sky224 Experiential Industries226 Simulated Environments228 Live Environments230 The Economics of Sanity234 Chapter 11. THE FRACTURED FAMILY238 The Mystique of Motherhood 239 The Streamlined Family241 Bio-Parents and Pro-Parents243 Communes and Homosexual Daddies245 The Odds Against Love249 Temporary Marriage251 Marriage Trajectories253 The Demands of Freedom256 PART FOUR: DIVERSITY261 Chapter 12.

8 THE ORIGINS OF OVERCHOICE263 Design-a-Mustang 264 Computers and Classrooms270"Drag Queen" Movies276 Chapter 13. A SURFEIT Of SUBCULTS284 Scientists and Stockbrokers286 The Fun Specialists288 The Youth Ghetto290 Marital Tribes293 Hippies, Incorporated294 Tribal Turnover296 The Ignoble Savage299 Chapter 14. A DIVERSITY OF LIFE STYLES303 Motorcyclists and Intellectuals 305 Style-Setters and Mini-Heroes308 Life-Style Factories309 The Power of Style312A Superabundance of Selves316 The Free Society321 PART FIVE: THE LIMITS OF ADAPTABILITY323 Chapter 15. future SHOCK: THE PHYSICAL DIMENSION 325 Life Change and Illness327 Response to Novelty334 The Adaptive Reaction337 Chapter 16. future SHOCK: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSION 343 The Overstimulated Individual 344 Bombardment of the Senses348 Information Overload350 Decision Stress355 Victims of future Shock358 The future -shocked Society365 PART SIX: STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL 369 Chapter 17.

9 COPING WITH TOMORROW371 Direct Coping374 Personal Stability Zones377 Situational Grouping383 Crisis Counseling385 Half-way Houses388 Enclaves of the Past390 Enclaves of the Future392 Global Space Pageants393 Chapter 18. EDUCATION IN THE future TENSE398 The Industrial Era School399 The New Educational Revolution402 The Organizational Attack405 Yesterday's Curriculum Today 409A Diversity of Data411A System of Skills413 The Strategy of Futureness418 Chapter 19. TAMING TECHNOLOGY428 Technological Backlash430 Selecting Cultural Styles432 Transistors and Sex437A Technology Ombudsman440 The Environmental Screen443 Chapter 20. THE STRATEGY OF SOCIAL FUTURISM446 The Death of Technocracy447 The Humanization of the Planner452 Time Horizons458 Anticipatory Democracy470 Acknowledgments488 Notes490 Bibliography522 Index541 INTRODUCTIONThis is a book about what happens to people when they are overwhelmed by change.

10 It isabout the ways in which we adapt or fail to adapt to the future . Much has been writtenabout the future . Yet, for the most part, books about the world to come sound a harsh metallicnote. These pages, by contrast, concern themselves with the "soft" or human side oftomorrow. Moreover, they concern themselves with the steps by which we are likely to reachtomorrow. They deal with common, everyday matters the products we buy and discard, theplaces we leave behind, the corporations we inhabit, the people who pass at an ever faster clipthrough our lives. The future of friendship and family life is probed. Strange new subculturesand life styles are investigated, along with an array of other subjects from politics andplaygrounds to skydiving and joins all these in the book as in life is the roaring current of change, a currentso powerful today that it overturns institutions, shifts our values and shrivels our is the process by which the future invades our lives, and it is important to look at itclosely, not merely from the grand perspectives of history, but also from the vantage point ofthe living, breathing individuals who experience acceleration of change in our time is, itself, an elemental force.