Alvin and Heidi Toffler – In Memory of the Deceased Future Part 1

Update 14 February 2019

Heidi Toffler, Obituary, Unsung Force Behind Futurist Books, Dies at 89, Keith Schneider, The New York Times, 12 February 2019

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To grasp what goes on today. Or even better. To get what NOT goes on or the massive contemporary confusion, it is helpful to study quite recent ideas and arguments about the future.

The true masterminds of to understand the next steps from the epoch of simple manufacturing were Alvin (1928–2016) and Heidi Toffler (1930–2019).

Alvin and Heidi Toffler wrote their books together, at least that is the information in the later interviews of Alvin, even if most of the books are presented as Alvin is the sole author.

Read all the books by the Tofflers as their message is all about the absolute need of to reach a Dynamic culture; a need that so far has been sabotaged by the Static ideals of the Academic cult.

It can in fact be said that absolutely nothing vital has happened since the Tofflers began to write.

The huge difference between the middle of the 1960s and now are more stuff and more problems. More than fifty years of extra concentrated stupidity.

Especially the books Future Shock and The Third Wave were at the time highly influential bestsellers.


The Most Essential Works by the Tofflers

The first article, as Pdf, The Future as a Way of Life, Horizon magazine (1965)

Future Shock (1970), Internet Archive

The Third Wave (1980), Internet Archive

Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990), Internet Archive

Revolutionary Wealth (2006)


The Tofflers Offers the Usually Missing Context

The Tofflers defines the historic background, at least a part of it, as well as what drives change in different forms or Dimensions in relation to the historic context.

And therefore could the Tofflers predict the need of and the innovation of services and products rather well.

As I understand it, is the main message of the Tofflers that real Change or development cannot take place if vital parts or Dimensions (of the society) resist change or is Static; as then will the result be the Social conflicts we experience today.

Here is a good example: 'Epidemic of stress' blamed for 3,750 teachers on long-term sick leave, Anushka Asthana, Mason Boycott-Owen, The Guardian, 11 January 2018.

Here is the first sentence in the Future Shock (1970).

This is a book about what happens to people when they are overwhelmed by change.

And just taste headlines, from the same book, like for example;

The Collapse of Hierarchy
Beyond Bureaucracy
The Industrial Era School
The New Educational Revolution
The Organizational Attack

The final sentences in the Power Shift (1990) are:

For it is now indisputable that knowledge, the source of the highest-quality power of all, is gaining importance with every fleeting nanosecond.

The most important Powershift of all, therefore, is not from one person, party, institution, or nation to another. It is the hidden shift in the relationships between violence, wealth, and knowledge as societies speed toward their collision with tomorrow.

This is the dangerous, exhilarating secret of the Powershift Era.

 One more time.

For it is now indisputable that knowledge, the source of the highest-quality power of all, is gaining importance with every fleeting nanosecond.

More Links

Obituary, Alvin Toffler, Author of ‘Future Shock,’ Dies at 87, Keith Schneider, The New York Times, June 29, 2016.

Future Shock at 40: What the Tofflers Got Right (and Wrong), Greg Lindsay, Fast Company, 15 November 2010.

Big Thinkers – Alvin Toffler (2002), YouTube.

The documentary Future Shock (1972), hosted by Orson Welles (1915–1985), is a definitive must-see even if the quality of this version on YouTube is poor.

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Reflect on Steve Jobs' Speech and the Other side of the Static Wall – In Memory of the Deceased Future Part 2, 30 March 2018