Alvin Toffler is an American philosopher and futurologist, one of the authors of the popular concept of post-industrial civilization, author of many books and articles. He holds honorary doctorates in literature and natural sciences. In the late 1960s, Toffler was commissioned by IBM to research the social consequences of the introduction of computer technology (Islas et al. 553). The author’s main ideas were first expressed in “The Future as a Way of Life” published during this period. This article refers to the speed of future changes related to the progress of society. Controversial ideas on accelerating the speed of progress were further developed in the author’s first work, The Future Shock.
The book became a bestseller and gained popularity in many countries of the world; it was primarily due to the work’s relevance. Toffler’s ideas, which will be discussed below, are the most adequate to the current development of society. Primarily due to Toffler’s work in industrial enterprises and his studies of the development of computerization in society, he was able to articulate and popularize his ideas to the masses. Toffler is quoted today even by those who have never heard his name, and had no idea that they lived with him at one time. His ideas and formulas have long ago become part of mass culture and have inevitably become kitsch. Toffler managed to articulate clearly and simply the theses, which to this day form the basis of one of the poles of both popular and scientific debate about the role of technology in human life.
Today Toffler can be called one of the most popular futurologists in the world. Reading scholars’ reviews of his book, it is noticeable that people agree that what Toffler wrote 40 years ago is the reality surrounding people today. The present work was first published in 1970 and became an international bestseller, and its title has entered the English language as an idiom (Islas et al. 560). It is the first part of a trilogy he conceived on the development of modern civilization. The author’s main idea is that society is experiencing extraordinary structural changes due to the revolutionary transition from an industrial society to a super-industrial society.
“Future Shock” is the psychological reaction of individuals and society to the rapid and radical changes in their environment caused by the accelerated pace of technological and social progress. In developing the concept of shock, Toffler sees the main danger not in the physical, biological, or social consequences of progress but in the objective inability of the individual psyche to function under the new conditions. Society and the individual are faced with the challenge of adapting not only to the changes that are taking place but also to those that are to come. The author hopes that the measures he proposes can help man survive in the new reality and prevent the shock of the future. The shock comes when the adaptation mechanism has failed, and the aggressive environment – in the form, above all, of new technology – without any warning or delay directly affects the individual. This is the position of techno skeptics, who believe that technological progress may be the cause and not the effect of the environment on humans.
When a person begins reading Future Shock, they are initially pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of the language used and the examples that made it easy to understand a particular thought. However, later in the reader’s opinion may be slightly changed. There is a sense that the author is trying to convey ideas so clearly that at some point, the reader is expecting a conclusion, but it slips away under the avalanche of popularization and simplification. The concept expressed in The Shock of the Future carries the central message of the accelerating and inevitable future and the colloquial changes associated with it. At the book’s beginning, Toffler introduces the concept of “future shock” by saying that the shock of the future is not a potential danger, but a real disease from which an increasing number of people are already suffering. “This psychobiological condition can be described in medical and psychiatric terms. It is a disease of change” (Toffler 15).
The shock of the future is the psychological reaction of an individual or society to rapid and radical changes in their environment brought about by the accelerating pace of technological and social progress. Some readers believe that the future shock should be called the present shock, as the shock is caused when a person is confronted with changes that have already taken place in his or her surroundings. In the first part of the book, Toffler looks at human development during the 800th period. Toffler writes, ‘…it has been observed that if the last 50,000 years of man’s existence were divided into periods of approximately 62 years each, about 800 of these periods would occur (75). From these 800 periods complete 650 have passed in caves. Only in the last 70 of these intervals of life has it been possible to transmit information from one generation to the next in an effective way, thanks to writing.
Only in the last six periods of life have the masses seen the printed word. For the last four, it has only been possible to measure time with any degree of accuracy. In the last two alone, someone has used an electric motor in some areas. Moreover, the vast majority of all the material goods we use in everyday life nowadays were invented during the present 800th period of life (Toffler 76). Toffler’s words, written decades ago, have an accurate reflection in today’s society. Remember, a decade ago, we had no idea, for example, about DVD players, and today we cannot even imagine our existence without such necessary household items.
Furthermore, in this work, Toffler, for the first time, introduces the concepts of changing waves-types of society. The first wave is the result of the agrarian revolution, which replaced the hunter-gatherer culture. The second wave is the result of the industrial revolution, which is characterized by the nuclear family type, conveyorized education, and corporatism. The third wave is the result of the intellectual revolution – the post-industrial society in which there is a remarkable diversity of subcultures and lifestyles. Information can replace vast quantities of material resources and become the primary material for loosely organized workers into associations. The third wave is otherwise known by a term that is now quite common – the “information society” (Toffler 80). People became dependent on the variety of information as a daily necessity. Newspapers, magazines, and, of course, the internet, which has become a second reality, replacing real life for many. At the same time, we can observe the reduction and sometimes complete absence of filtering barriers to obtaining this information. Without even realizing it, we are beginning to believe everything we hear and see on computer and television screens.
Toffler’s main scholarly contribution was to demonstrate to a broad audience the results of technological change. Perhaps more than any other, he succeeded in informing the business community of the hidden meaning of the continuous change taking place in the last third of the twentieth century. His intuitive understanding of the transformative power of the knowledge industry revealed at a relatively early stage what has since become one of the most significant development trends of our era. As early as the mid-1960s, E. Toffler argued that the future economy would be dominated by information technology (Jackson 110). Based on his speculation, he concluded that technological changes will now occur at a qualitatively higher rate than in the past.
A concept expressed by E. Toffler in the Future Shock conveyed his vision of a society increasingly torn apart by a prematurely advancing future. His idea that the pace of change was proving too fast for society’s perception reflected the mood of the 1960s (Jackson 111). After all, it was a time when the number of concepts taken for granted was constantly shrinking. Toffler argued that the institutions and value systems associated with industrial civilization were subjected to irresistible, knowledge-driven forces of change. The information explosion created an external environment in which the future became almost indistinguishable from the present. Rapidness has become a significant feature of our lives and has led to fundamental changes in all spheres of life, from the economic to the purely personal.
In “The Future Shock”, the main flaw is that so many different parts of society are brought together that it is impossible to reduce certain phenomena. For instance, it is unattainable to reduce changes in education systems, the breakdown of the family, the decentralization of political power, changes in lifestyles, and an abundance of subcultures to a single process (Jackson 107). There could be much more causes, and they cannot all be the result of the same process. One gets the feeling that Toffler attributes any phenomenon challenging to explain to its novelty in society rather than to a natural regularity. That means people cannot ignore the merits of Alvin Toffler’s ideas and concepts.
The changes taking place in our society are an integral part of it and a legitimate process. Toffler talks about the inevitability of future shock, but he mostly exaggerates its significance. However, generations have succeeded one another, and today people see another generation of people who have adapted to existing realities. A four-year-old child does not perceive computer technology as something unknown but as an everyday thing, not attaching the same importance to it as they did a few decades ago. Toffler’s predictions were correct in many aspects, but he failed to take into account that whatever technology one encounters, there will always be such things as love, honor, greed, and hope in one’s life. Times change, technology improves, the pace of life quickens, but man’s desire to live and his ability to adapt will always accept change as something natural.
References
Islas, O., Arribas, A., and F. Gutiérrez. “The Contribution of Alvin Toffler to the Theoretical and Conceptual Imaginary of Communication”. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, vol. 1, no. 73, pp. 648-661. n.d.
Jackson, Barry L. “Future Shock Revisited”. Postmodern Openings, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 102-116. n.d.
Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. Bantam Books, 1971.