Book Review: Future Shock (Part 1)
This is article 1 of 7 for The Tech Progressive writers community, where we will post 1 article for the next 7 days.
Over 50 years ago, Alvin Toffler predicted everything happening today in the world of technology.
Future Shock, published in 1970, was a tour de force of eerily prescient predictions that have been completely borne out in the decades since. In it, he predicted the rise of the rental economy, digital nomads (long before the internet was invented), designer babies, virtual reality, the rise of “lifestyle designers,” increased tribalism, infinite entertainment, technology backlashes… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The book isn’t just a list of predictions, though. These disparate predictions all revolve around the singular idea of what Toffler calls Future Shock:
“It is the thesis of this book that there are discoverable limits to the amount of change that the human organism can absorb, and that by endlessly accelerating change without first determining these limits, we may submit masses 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.”
Future shock is a certain psychological state imposed on individuals and entire societies by rapid change. What does this state look like? Toffler describes two dimensions: the physical and psychological. He cites a number of studies purporting to show a link between rapid change and ill effects on health. In one study, participants were scored on the number and intensity of significant life changes (such as deaths in the family, moving, career changes, etc.) they had experienced. There was a correlation between the amount of change a person experienced and the likelihood of illness in the following year.
Another section describes the effects of sensory stimulation. External stimuli trigger an “orientation response.” The pupils dilate. Hearing becomes more acute. We lean towards sound and squint our eyes. Our palms sweat. These facts are well-known, but Toffler makes the claim that as the rate of change increases, people will find themselves spending more and more time in this mode.
I found this to be the weakest section of the book; the replication crisis in psychology has left me skeptical of these sorts of sweeping claims. That changed when I reached the next section.
He goes on to split the victims of future shock into various groups:
The Denier attempts to block out reality. He cannot accept the severity of the changes around him, and comforts himself with phrases like “young people have always been rebellious” and “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
The Specialist is a bit better - he keeps up with changes in a specific domain (often career-related), while ignoring changes elsewhere in society.
The Reversionist wants to turn back the clock to previous routines that are now inappropriate and irrelevant.
Conservative reactionaries are the obvious examples, but Toffler also points out that political liberals often have their own strain of reversionist thinking. He specifically predicts a resurgence in “Antique Marxist ideas.”
Finally, the Super-Simplifier attempts to shoehorn all the changes of the day into a single, tidy theory. All of our problems are caused by capitalism, communism, conformity, or a lack of “traditional values,” depending on one’s political bent. They believe in a silver bullet that would solve all of society’s problems, such as “participatory democracy” and “content moderation.”
This section was much harder for me to dismiss. When I read these descriptions, they map perfectly onto the current moment. I know people, many people, who fall neatly into these categories. It articulates something that I’ve been struggling to express - that the modern culture war is a reaction against the rapid changes that technology, and particularly the internet, have brought about.
Part 2 will cover the final section of the book - how to deal with a world of rapid change.