Word: toffler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Third Wave, Toffler...
Arguing that "to understand today's colliding waves of change we must be able to identify clearly the parallel structures of all industrial nations," Toffler fills the first 140 pages of his book with an explanation of the Second Wave, born of the Industrial Revolution. The subtitles that break up the copy every page or so yield the basic scheme, not to mention mentality, of Toffler's discussion. "The Technicians of Power." "Mechano-Mania." "The Streamlined Family." "The Paper Blizzard." "The Progress Principle." Under industrialism, he argues, life is as nasty, brutish and short as it ever...
Take the corporation, for instance. Stung by the realization that they have raped the earth and exploited its people, corporate managers even today are in an "identity crisis," Toffler reports. From it will emerge humane, "multi-purpose," productive enterprises, as concerned with helping the poor and aiding the environment as with turning profits. Toffler points to the "distinct upgrading of the status and influence of executives concerned with the environmental consequences of corporate behavior. "Some now report directly to the president. Other companies have set up special committees on the board of directors." Some observers, still mired in Second Wave...
ANOTHER EXAMPLE--the nation state. It is disappearing, Toffler argues in the 16 pages he allots to the subject, to be replaced by transnational organizations and a "planetary consciousness." As proof, Toffler cites the hot flames of--nationalism. In Corsica, in Scotland, in Wales, Cornwall, Essex, Belgium, Switzerland, the Sudetenland, the South Tyrol, Austria, the Basques and Catalan, Quebec, Western Australia, the South Island of New Zealand, even Puerto Rico, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, patriots are going their separatist ways, he says. Some, perhaps those who reset their watches every spring with an easy conscience, might protest that this...
With the rise of "prosumerism" and more interesting work, Toffler reports, a "personality of the future will be born." This 11-page discussion ends on a cheery note. "We shall create not a utopian man or woman who towers over the people of the past...but merely, and proudly, one hopes, a race--and a civilization--that deserves to be called human." These new human beings, in turn, will engage increasingly in minority politics, necessitating a change in the Constitution, which Toffler chummily outlines in a letter addressed to "The Founding Parents." The new race will get more...