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            Western society for the past 300 years has been caught up in a fire storm of change.  This storm, far from abating, now appears to be gathering force.  Change sweeps through the highly industrialized countries with waves of ever accelerating speed and unprecedented impact.  It spawns in its wake all sorts of curious social flora – from psychedelic churches and “free universities” to science cities in the Arctic and wife-swap clubs in California.

            It breeds odd personalities, too:  children who at twelve are no longer childlike; adults who at fifty are children of twelve.  There are rich men who play-act poverty, computer programmers who turn on with LSD.  There are anarchists who, beneath their dirty denim shirts, are outrageous conformists and conformists who, beneath their button-down collars, are outrageous anarchists.  There are married priests and atheist ministers and Jewish Zen Buddhists.  We have pop…and op…and art cinetique…There are Playboy Clubs and homosexual movie theaters…amphetamines and tranquilizers...anger, affluence, and oblivion.  Much oblivion.

Future Shock, Alvin Toffler, page 900