Tom Joad Meets Alvin Toffler - Mike P

 Tom Joad meets Alvin Toffler

Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book, Future Shock, underscores the anxiety

people face grappling with change. Too much, too soon, unable

to process and adapt. This is the upheaval we feel when change

outpaces our ability to adapt. This, in turn, leads to feelings of

frustration, disorientation, and loss of control of our lives. Toffler

argued that such conditions leave people ripe for the picking and

susceptible to con artists and quick fixes.

I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath. The poor Joad family

faced their own future shock as the world changed around them.

Unable to adapt to the Great Depression, they lost their farm, their

home, their way of life. Oklahoma could now offer only death. Yet

the dream of a better life in California turned into a nightmare.

“Okies” were not wanted! They were derided, abused, and used

as the cheapest of labor. Frustration, disorientation, loss of

control, the family began unravelling and finally disintegrating by

the novel’s close.

I think future shock has always been with us. Only now does it

become so apparent with the ocean of information available with

the click of a mouse. Bob Schieffer, retired CBS Newsman, said

technology has made a publisher out of just about anyone with an

opinion and a computer. In the purest sense, more information is

fine. But is more always better? You can find someone or some

site to confirm just about any belief you have. Thinking the world

might be flat? There’s a site. Sensing that Dennis Rodman from

the Alpha quadrant? There’s a blogger. Believing that vaccines

cause autism? There’s a Kennedy. Knowing you’re a victim? Get

in line.

I try to arrive at conclusions based on at least some shred of

evidence. For instance, I believe we landed on the moon in

1969, I’m darn sure Elvis is dead, and lock-solid that 2 + 2 = 4.

However, when I was 17, I was convinced that Paul McCartney

was dead. Every kid in school knew it. You could tell! Clues

sneakily planted on the album covers from Sgt Pepper to Abbey

Road. Any fool could see that Paul was dead. But you had to

look long and hard! Connect the dots, see the evidence, and

expose the dark, shady men behind the curtain! We all knew the

truth—Paul was stone cold dead! Except for one small detail. He

wasn’t.

Future shock will always be part of our lives. The only question

is, are we grounded enough to manage it.