Future Shock

Future Shock

by Alvin Toffler  · 1 Jun 1984  · 286pp  · 94,017 words

Friedan: "Brilliant and true ... Should be read by anyone with the responsibility of leading 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

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easy reading, and was printed from new plates. It contains the complete text of the original hard-cover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED FUTURE SHOCK A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Random House, Inc. PRINTING HISTORY Portions of this book first appeared, in slightly different form, in HORIZON,

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, their anxieties about adaptation, their fears about the future. I came away from this experience with two disturbing convictions. First, it became clear that future shock is no longer a distantly potential danger, but a real sickness from which increasingly large numbers already suffer. This psycho-biological condition can be described

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of cultural lag, pointed out how social stresses arise out of the uneven rates of change in different sectors of society. The concept of future shock—and the theory of adaptation that derives from it—strongly suggests that there must be balance, not merely between rates of change in different sectors

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University B. Politicians identified with Position X shift, in the meantime, to Position Y. While a conscientious effort has been made during writing to update Future Shock, some of the facts presented are no doubt already obsolete. (This, of course, is true of many books, although authors don't like to

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to act out new roles, and confronts us with the danger of a new and powerfully upsetting psychological disease. This new disease can be called "future shock," and a knowledge of its sources and symptoms helps explain many things that otherwise defy rational analysis. THE UNPREPARED VISITOR The parallel term "culture

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breakdown in communication, a misreading of reality, an inability to cope. Yet culture shock is relatively mild in comparison with the much more serious malady, future shock. Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow

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floating violence already apparent in contemporary life are merely a foretaste of what may lie ahead unless we come to understand and treat this disease. Future shock is a time phenomenon, a product of the greatly accelerated rate of change in society. It arises from the superimposition of a new culture

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society, an entire generation— including its weakest, least intelligent, and most irrational members—suddenly transported into this new world. The result is mass disorientation, future shock on a grand scale. This is the prospect that man now faces. Change is avalanching upon our heads and most people are grotesquely unprepared to

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change should continue to accelerate up to the as-yet-unreached limits of human and institutional adaptability." To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before. He must search out totally new ways to anchor himself, for all

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is this fast through-put, combined with increasing newness and complexity in the environment, that strains the capacity to adapt and creates the danger of future shock. If we can show that our relationships with the outer world are, in fact, growing more and more transient, we have powerful evidence for

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faster and faster pace of daily life. They demand a new level of adaptability. And they set the stage for that potentially devastating social illness—future shock. Part Three: NOVELTY Chapter 9 THE SCIENTIFIC TRAJECTORY We are creating a new society. Not a changed society. Not an extended, larger-than-life

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of these three factors—transience, novelty and diversity—that sets the stage for the historic crisis of adaptation that is the subject of this book: future shock. Part Four: DIVERSITY Chapter 12 THE ORIGINS OF OVERCHOICE The Super-industrial Revolution will consign to the archives of ignorance most of what we

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of adaptation. We create an environment so ephemeral, unfamiliar and complex as to threaten millions with adaptive breakdown. This breakdown is future shock. Part Five: THE LIMITS OF ADAPTABILITY Chapter 15 FUTURE SHOCK: THE PHYSICAL DIMENSION Eons ago the shrinking seas cast millions of unwilling aquatic creatures onto the newly created beaches. Deprived of

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of men to demands they simply cannot tolerate. We run the high risk of throwing them into that peculiar state that I have called future shock. We may define future shock as the distress, both physical and psychological, that arises from an overload of the human organism's physical adaptive systems and its decision

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ignorance of each other's efforts, their work is elegantly compatible. Forming a distinct and exciting pattern, it provides solid underpinning for the concept of future shock. LIFE-CHANGE AND ILLNESS What actually happens to people when they are asked to change again and again? To understand the answer, we must

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a limited capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the consequence is future shock. Chapter 16 FUTURE SHOCK: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSION If future shock were a matter of physical illness alone, it might be easier to prevent and to treat. But future shock attacks the psyche as well. Just as the body cracks under the strain

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vandalism and undirected violence, the politics of nihilism and nostalgia, the sick apathy of millions—can all be understood better by recognizing their relationship to future shock. These forms of social irrationality may well reflect the deterioration of individual decision-making under conditions of environmental overstimulation. Psychophysiologists studying the impact of change

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the existence of what might be called an "adaptive range" below which and above which the individual's ability to cope simply falls apart. Future shock is the response to overstimulation. It occurs when the individual is forced to operate above his adaptive range. Considerable research has been devoted to studying

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uncontrolled acceleration of scientific, technological and social change subverts the power of the individual to make sensible, competent decisions about his own destiny. VICTIMS OF FUTURE SHOCK When we combine the effects of decisional stress with sensory and cognitive overload, we produce several common forms of individual maladaptation. For example, one widespread

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with change will come in the form of a single massive life crisis, rather than a sequence of manageable problems. A second strategy of the future shock victim is specialism. The Specialist doesn't block out all novel ideas or information. Instead, he energetically attempts to keep pace with change—but

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one morning to find his specialty obsolete or else transformed beyond recognition by events exploding outside his field of vision. A third common response to future shock is obsessive reversion to previously successful adaptive routines that are now irrelevant and inappropriate. The Reversionist sticks to his previously programmed decisions and habits with

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defined values and priorities, his reliance on such techniques will only deepen his adaptive difficulties. These preconditions, however, are increasingly difficult to meet. Thus the future shock victim who does employ these strategies experiences a deepening sense of confusion and uncertainty. Caught in the turbulent flow of change, called upon to make

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these young people, and millions of others—the confused, the violent, and the apathetic—already evince the symptoms of future shock. They are its earliest victims. THE FUTURE-SHOCKED SOCIETY It is impossible to produce future shock in large numbers of individuals without affecting the rationality of the society as a whole. Today, according to Daniel

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the level of novelty, and the extent of choice, we are thoughtlessly tampering with these environmental preconditions of rationality. We are condemning countless millions to future shock. Part Six: STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL Chapter 17 COPING WITH TOMORROW In the blue vastness of the South Pacific just north of New Guinea lies the

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highly salable literary commodity today. Yet despair is not merely a refuge for irresponsibility; it is unjustified. Most of the problems besieging us, including future shock, stem not from implacable natural forces but from man-made processes that are at least potentially subject to our control. Second, there is danger that

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, it would be moral lunacy as well. By any set of human standards, certain radical social changes are already desperately overdue. The answer to future shock is not non-change, but a different kind of change. The only way to maintain any semblance of equilibrium during the super-industrial revolution will

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must employ not merely personal tactics but social strategies. If we are to carry people through the accelerative period, we must begin now to build "future shock absorbers" into the very fabric of super-industrial society. And this requires a fresh way of thinking about change and non-change in our

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Mystic, however, through which visitors stream at a steady and rapid clip, tomorrow's enclaves of the past must be places where people faced with future shock can escape the pressures of overstimulation for weeks, months, even years, if they choose. In such slow-paced communities, individuals who need or want

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. Today one billion human beings, the total population of the technology-rich nations, are speeding toward a rendezvous with super-industrialism. Must we experience mass future shock? Or can we, too, achieve a "soft landing?" We are rapidly accelerating our approach. The craggy outlines of the new society are emerging from

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, what it will sound and smell and taste and feel like in the fastonrushing future. To create such images and thereby soften the impact of future shock, we must begin by making speculation about the future respectable. Instead of deriding the "crystal-ball gazer," we need to encourage people, from childhood

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third, and perhaps central, mission of the super-industrial revolution in the schools. Education must shift into the future tense. Chapter 19 TAMING TECHNOLOGY Future shock—the disease of change—can be prevented. But it will take drastic social, even political action. No matter how individuals try to pace their lives

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in the network of causes; indeed, it may be the node that activates the entire net. One powerful strategy in the battle to prevent mass future shock, therefore, involves the conscious regulation of technological advance. We cannot and must not turn off the switch of technological progress. Only romantic fools babble

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for Jews in the concentration camps. Sick societies need scapegoats. As the pressures of change impinge more heavily on the individual and the prevalence of future shock increases, this nightmarish outcome gains plausibility. It is significant that a slogan scrawled on a wall by striking students in Paris called for "death

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opportunity that comes along. Even sharper differences would develop between the society in which the pace of technological advance is moderated and guided to prevent future shock, and that in which masses of ordinary people are incapacitated for rational decision-making. In one, political democracy and broad-scale participation are feasible;

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we must pose a question that until now has almost never been investigated, and which is, nevertheless, absolutely crucial if we are to prevent widespread future shock. For each major technological innovation we must ask: What are its accelerative implications? The problems of adaptation already far transcend the difficulties of coping with

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the techno-societies, even comparatively small ones like Sweden and Belgium, have grown too complex, too fast to manage? How can we prevent mass future shock, selectively adjusting the tempos of change, raising or lowering levels of stimulation, when governments—including those with the best intentions—seem unable even to point

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technocracy. Nothing could be more dangerously maladaptive. Whatever the theoretical arguments may be, brute forces are loose in the world. Whether we wish to prevent future shock or control population, to check pollution or defuse the arms race, we cannot permit decisions of earth-jolting importance to be taken heedlessly, witlessly,

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the same revolt to break out in other world capitals as well, once again drawing a line between technocrats and post-technocrats. The danger of future shock, itself, however, points to the need for new social measures not yet even mentioned in the fast-burgeoning literature on social indicators. We urgently

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not time to examine these basic assumptions of our political systems? Post-technocratic planning must deal with precisely such issues, if we are to prevent future shock and build a humane super-industrial society. A sensitive system of indicators geared to measuring the achievement of social and cultural goals, and integrated

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" guesstimates of large numbers of experts. The work on Delphi has led to a further innovation which has special importance in the attempt to prevent future shock by regulating the pace of change. Pioneered by Theodore J. Gordon of the IFF, and called Cross Impact Matrix Analysis, it traces the effect

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goals, a greater transience of purpose. Diversity or fragmentation leads to a relentless multiplication of goals. Caught in this churning, goal-cluttered environment, we stagger, future shocked, from crisis to crisis, pursuing a welter of conflicting and self-cancelling purposes. Nowhere is this more starkly evident than in our pathetic attempts to

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alter the gene, to create new species, to populate the planets or depopulate the earth, man must now assume conscious control of evolution itself. Avoiding future shock as he rides the waves of change, he must master evolution, shaping tomorrow to human need. Instead of rising in revolt against it, he

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guide our evolutionary destiny, before we can build a humane future, is to halt the runaway acceleration that is subjecting multitudes to the threat of future shock while, at the very same moment, intensifying all the problems they must deal with—war, ecological incursions, racism, the obscene contrast between rich and

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this wild growth, this cancer in history. There is no magic medicine, either, for curing the unprecedented disease it bears in its rushing wake: future shock. I have suggested palliatives for the change-pressed individual and more radically curative procedures for the society—new social services, a future-facing education system

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change, the guidance of his evolution. For, by making imaginative use of change to channel change, we cannot only spare ourselves the trauma of future shock, we can reach out and humanize distant tomorrows. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Among the more hallowed clichés of our time are the notions that an author's life

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the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004). 5. Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Random House, 1970); Warren Bennis, The Temporary Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); Henry Mintzberg, The Structuring of Organizations: A Synthesis of the

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Information Seeking and Use: Documents Retrieved Versus Documents Viewed.” In 4th International Conference on Internet Computing, Las Vegas, NV, pp. 65–69. Toffler, A. 1970. Future Shock. New York: Random House. Johnson, C. H. 2009. Google’s Economic Impact United States 2009. Mountain View, CA: Google. Word cloud generated by Wordle 2

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. 37–72. [14] Schwab, V. O. 1962. How to Write a Good Advertisement: A Short Course in Copywriting. Chatsworth, CA: Wilshire. [15] Toffler, A. 1970. Future Shock. New York: Random House. [16] Simon, H. 1981. The Sciences of the Artificial, 2d ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [17] Ghose, A. and Yang, S

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, 7(2), 137–157 Tiesdell, S (2002) New Urbanism and English residential design guidance, Journal of Urban Design, 7(3), 353–376 Toffler, A (1970) Future Shock, Random House, New York Tolley, R (2008) Walking and cycling: Easy wins for a sustainable transport policy? in Docherty, I & Shaw, J (2008) (editors) Traffic

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, “Informed Heart,” 3. 33. Warshall, “Informed Heart,” 6. 34. Ibid., 7. 35. Schwartz, and Brand, 1989 GBN Scenario Book, 1; Einstein, “Think Tank Helps Prevent Future Shock.” [ 284 ] N o t e s t o Pa g e s 1 9 3 _ 2 0 2 36. Hoyt quoted in Stipp, “Stewart Brand

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1974): 40 – 44. Ehrlich, Paul R., and Richard W. Holm. The Process of Evolution. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. Einstein, David. “Think Tank Helps Prevent Future Shock.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 10, 1995, D1. Ellis, David, Rachel Oldridge, and Ana Vasconcelos. “Community and Virtual Community.” In Annual Review of Information Science and

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Romance Not the Finance That Makes Business Worth Pursuing’: Disclosing a New Market Culture.” Economy and Society 30, no. 4 (2001): 412 –32. Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. New York: Random House, 1970. ———. The Third Wave. New York: Morrow, 1980. Tomkins, Calvin. The Bride and the Bachelors: The Heretical Courtship in Modern Art

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