With the shock apparently wearing off, Toffler has been busy
accommodating himself to the future like a kitsch H. G. Wells. The
only big difference is that for Toffler, the future begins now. His
talent, if such it is, is for taking current ideas and turning them
into slogans; he's the Mad Ave. man of futurology. The "Third Wave"
is one of these. According to Toffler, the world has seen two great
"waves" of social transformation: the first was the Agricultural
Revolution which lasted from 8000 B.C. to around 1700 A.D., the
second the Industrial Revolution which took off from there. Now we
are on the threshold of the "Third Wave" - the Technological
Revolution. Daniel Bell and many others long ago called this the
"post-industrial" era, but you can't sell new books with old
descriptive titles. Toffler sees the current period as one of
struggle between Second Wave and Third Wave elites (a theme dealt
with in a serious manner by Mary Kaldor in The Disintegrating
West); and Toffler, naturally, is with the future. Whereas the
Second Wave has depended on non-renewable energy sources,
specialization, adherence to machine rhythms, the nation-state and
representative government, the Third Wave will see floating cities
utilizing oil "grown" in the sea, "flextime" working arrangements,
international (actually inter-regional) association, and
"participatory" government. Like a kid in a toy store, Toffler is
agog at the possibilities. In one passage, he describes the wonders
of his new "word-processor" and looks forward to the end of
secretaries; elsewhere he describes an "electronic cottage" where
people stay home to work on computer consoles and spiffy new
information systems. Toffler attacks "techno-rebels" for various
forms of primitivism, but his is the vision of the glassy-eyed
technocrat. While some of the phenomena he lists are either
realizable or actually in evidence - like flextime working hours -
other visions, one hopes, will remain just that; participatory
democracy by computer console is too scary for all but the most
sanguine technology-freaks. A flashy performance, though, that will
have its following. (Kirkus Reviews)
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