Future Shock

I first met Al and Heidi Toffler in 1966 when they came to Washington to do research at the Library of Congress. They were working on a book about “future shock” — the disorientation that rapid technological and social change was having on people in modern society — and they sought me out because they had seen my prototype issue of THE FUTURIST.

The three of us had supper at the Hay-Adams Hotel on Lafayette Square across from the White House. We discussed our future-oriented projects and parted company as new friends and allies. I looked forward to reading their book.

When the book, Future Shock, finally appeared in 1970, I found it even better than I anticipated, but I still was astounded at its phenomenal success. Overnight, everybody seemed to be reading it — even people caught up in the hurly-burly of the White House where I was working as a consultant. One reader was the head of our section, Leonard Garment, who later was suspected (erroneously) of being the “Deep Throat” who exposed the Watergate scandal.

Future Shock’s extraordinary success recalled Rachel Carson’s 1962 best-seller, Silent Spring, which triggered the environmental movement of the 1960s. Silent Spring vividly described how pesticides were poisoning the songbirds and toxic wastes were killing fish in rivers and streams. Activists all over America quickly rushed to Mother Nature’s defense, and politicians responded with new laws to protect the environment. In 1970, President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency.

Future Shock sold millions of copies, but it failed to stir up a similar mass movement because it did not provide a suitable target for social activists. The “enemy” in Future Shock was simply rapid technological and social change, but most people want change in the form of more comfortable homes, higher quality food, better health care, etc. So nobody picketed the White House with signs saying, “STOP PROGRESS!” and the U.S. government never established a “Future Protection Agency.”

On the other hand, Future Shock did a lot to develop future consciousness among thoughtful people, and so proved an extraordinary boon to the young World Future Society. In 1966, when my colleagues and I organized the Society, we felt we had to constantly stress the scientific legitimacy of our enterprise. But after the appearance of Future Shock in 1970, many people began to view futurists as cutting-edge thinkers who should be listened to with respect.

This improvement in the image of futurists helped the Society to grow rapidly during the 1970s, but for me personally, it was a bit unsettling. I regarded myself simply as a journalist reporting on what scientists and scholars were saying about the future. I did not think of myself as an “expert” on the future. Yet, suddenly, I found people viewing me as someone who could tell them all about what was going to happen in the future, as if I were some kind of wizard!

I began receiving invitations to give speeches about the future, and it was often hard to beg off. One of the first invitations was more of a command from my wife to speak to her mothers’ group at the local Unitarian church. I solved that problem by simply telling the ladies some of the things Al Toffler said in Future Shock.

A more difficult problem came when I got an invitation to lecture at Columbia University. The professor apologized for the small size of the honorarium — $50 — but, at the time, it seemed like big money to me, so I accepted his invitation. I went to Columbia, despite my discomfort with my new position as an “expert” on the future.

Once in the lecture hall, I became further unnerved when I found the famous architect and city planner Percival Goodman sitting in the front row. (I thought I would only be speaking to students.) Goodman interrogated me sharply during my talk, making me feel even more foolish.

I managed to survive that occasion and continued to give speeches, but I never came to think of myself as a “real” expert on the future — not even now, after having written or edited about a dozen books on the subject. The future is just too vast and mysterious to permit the exactitude and certainty expected of an honest-to-God expert.

On the other hand, good foresight — the goal of futuring — is so critically important for people’s chances of success in work and life that what futurists have to say is, I believe, still worth listening to.