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FUTURE SHOCK


	Our  world  is changing at rate faster than some people think
other people can adapt  to.    Between  1890  and  1920  technolgical
changes  were having drastic effects on the daily lives of the middle
and upper classes and with some delay on the  lives  of  the  working
class  too.    Today  and for the last 30 years, technological change
affecting people's daily lives has been much slower,  and  for  about
the  last five years, rapid social, political, and ideological change
has been the source of much stress.  Part of this stress  comes  from
the  mis-identification  of  its  source as technological rather than
social.  This causes the mistaken remedy to be  proposed  of  slowing
technical  change  rather  than adapting to the social changes.  Most
likely, we shall re-enter a period of rapid technological  change  in
living  patterns  in  another  five to ten years.  Note that the view
just expressed is contrary  to  that  expressed  in  numerous  recent
articles and the recent book "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler.

	In  order  to  see the point, we must distinguish between the
pace of scientific and technological change itself and  the  rate  of
change  in  the  way  people  live.  For example, atomic power plants
represent a technological change of great importance, but it makes no
difference  to  me  when  I  press  the  light  switch,  whether  the
electricity was produced by burning coal or by fissioning uranium.

	Between 1890 and 1930, the  following  inventions  came  into
common  use by great masses of people: electric lighting in the home,
central heating, telephones, automobiles, movies, and radio.    These
inventions  made  the  small  middle  class  family  without servants
feasible, allowed the middle class to move to the suburbs, gave  each
person  free physical access to the region of the country in which he
lives, and allowed  immediate  communication  with  one's  relatives,
friends,  girl friends, and business associates.  The effect of these
innovations was very large.  The style of relations between the sexes
was  changed  as  the  car  expanded  the  scope of dating.  Servants
disappeared from the families  of  the  middle  classes,  the  modern
nuclear  family  developed,  reliance on the passive entertainment of
radio and movies became possible.

	The recent effects of technological  change  have  been  much
smaller.      Most   of   the   innovations  of  greatest  importance
scientifically have had little social effect.  Mass air  travel  came
in  the 1950's, but had much less social effect than mass rail travel
almost a century earlier.

	Television  came  in  the 1950's, and color television in the
1960's, but the social effect was only a strengthening of the earlier
introduction of radio.

	The  pill  came  in  the  1960's  but  adequate contraceptive
devices already existed and were in widespread use  by  middle  class
women  who  wanted  sex without babies.    Reliable female controlled
contraception came in the 1920's.  The big step will be  the  morning
after pill that will obviate the need for planning.