CHAPTER 11
Any author who calls attention to a social problem runs the risk of deepening the already profound pessimism that envelops the techno-societies. Self-indulgent despair is a highly salable literary commodity today. Yet despair is not merely a refuge for irresponsibility; it is unjustified. Most of the problems besieging us, including future shock, stem not from implacable natural forces but from man-made processes that are at least potentially subject to our control.
Alvin Toffler
Future Shock
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The future I foresee is a bleak one, what with its strikes and shortages, its hunger and uncertainties, its violence and hatreds. No prophet from Cassandra onward has enjoyed foretelling bad times, yet we are compelled by some perverse sense of duty to carry the alarm. Though we
