Word: toffler
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...Toffler is being quite pretentious. He has not only not worked as hard as Karl Marx, but he also made a fair amount of money from Future Shock (only a fraction of the size of Das Kapital) while Marx died in penury. But Toffler has some points. Why should society's malaise be confined to "alienation" the way Marx narrowly defined it? Toffler takes the broader view that the problem is more profound than simply the inability of man in modern society to objectify himself through his activity (or labor). Man, Toffler says, developed certain biological equipment long...
...TOFFLER IS a renaissance man of the social sciences. Actually more than a pop sociologist, he is a social theorist, if you will. By this nothing more is meant than simply that Toffler works economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, a meager portion of history, and whatever else there is into his all-encompassing scheme of the modern world. For instance, one part of his hour-long speech last week was devoted to explaining changes in family structure through the different historical epochs. Toffler explained that the family has traditionally been a large, stable economic unit. But now in technological society...
Typically, Toffler's 90-second explication about what precipitated the transformation from feudal to industrial society would take the breath away from quite a few Harvard historians. It's simple, Toffler says, the society and economy, which was relatively easy to regulate during the feudal age, became too complex to be run by a handful of feudal barons. The inexorable trend toward modernization forced this small, powerful elite to involve more people in the decision making processes. Voila! The bourgeoisie...
...radicalism is a measure of sapience, then Toffler is the apotheosis of wisdom. You name it, he wants to change it--values, mores, political systems, economic organization, religion, democracy, the Constitution. Although Toffler's proposals are extreme. It is refreshing to hear a speaker who is not afraid to get up in front of an audience and to go beyond the parameters of what is commonly perceived as permissable discussion. Toffler not only asserted that a technological revolution was upon us, he advocated helping it along and shedding the shackles of the past, that is, industrial society, as quickly...
Fortunately, however, Toffler is probably doomed to be lost in the annals of pop sociology. There does not seem to be enough evidence to indicate that industrial society is in its death throes. The new technological society that Toffler heralds seems a lot like the old industrial society we all have known. About the only thing that is going to save Toffler from future anonymity is a cataclysmic breakdown of society within the next few decades. But in the meantime, Toffler will be doing a commendable service by allowing us momentarily to break out of traditional patterns of thinking about...