【正文】
colorless men, without ideasand with no other passion but a craving for success, get on in this society,capturing one plum after another and taking the juice and taste out ofthem. Sometimes you might think the machines we worship make all thechief appointments, promoting the human beings who seem closest tothem. Between midnight and dawn, when sleep will not e and all theold wounds begin to ache, I often have a nightmare vision of a future worldin which there are billions of people, all numbered and registered, withnot a gleam of genius anywhere, not an original mind, a rich personality,on the whole packed globe. The twin ideals of our time, organization andquantity, will have won for ever.Future ShockWe all know the term culture shock,which denotes the psychological problems suffered by people who move to live in a culture very different from their own.But have you ever heard of the term future shock? Future shock is a time phenomenon,a product of the greatly accelerated rate of change in society.It is culture shock in one39。s own society.Culture shock is a mild disease in parison with the serious malady future shock, Travellers have the forting knowledge that the culture they left behind will be there to return to,hut victims of future shock do not.Unless we learn to fight future shock,millions of people will find themselves inpetent to deal with their environments.A knowledge of the causes and symptoms of future shock helps explain many aspects of contemporary life that otherwise could not be explained.Only when we understand the rate and scope of change can we cure future shock.