Time's Harvest Textbooks

Time's Harvest, Fall 1997

How the Texts Relate to Each Other

Many of you have commented on how the other texts that you have been reading -- The Road Ahead, Foundations of Futures Studies and In the Age of the Smart Machine -- are easier to read and understand than The Third Wave. There is a lot of truth in these comments, and perhaps the next time I teach Time's Harvest, I will put The Third Wave as one of the later books, instead of the first one. It is still the only book that I know of that successfully deals with the changes coming to the whole of society, and would continue to be the centerpiece. (In particular, I think Bill Gates does a terrific job in The Road Ahead of clearly explaining the changes coming in highly networked computers, and what they will mean. I am very glad to see so many of you agreeing.)

I would like to lay out how I see the other textbooks relating to The Third Wave. Each of them was picked as worthy on their own, and is more than one-dimensional, but each also goes into more detail in one or more areas that are integrated together in The Third Wave. So, here goes:

The Road Ahead lays out the changes coming in highly networked computer communications, and how we will be able to use that to customize our lives (what I have been calling "individuation").
In the Age of the Smart Machine describes the changes in the nature of work due to computerization, and makes the argument that using computers to empower workers ("informating") will be a superor business strategy, compared to using computers to control or even oppress workers ("automating").
Foundations of Futures Studies describes how futurists (including Toffler) view the future as being made or created as we go along. In particular, the 9 key assumptions in Chapter 3 are a detailed description of exactly how futurists think that we create the future. Futurists, at least those that I know of, feel that the future is not pre-determined, but is created by human choices. Of course, as the future unfolds, different choices become available to us, so this is a two-way street. ("Become available" includes at least two senses -- (i) some choices become possible for the first time, or at least more practical, and (ii) some areas of choice move to the front of our personal and social awareness and agenda. To expand on (ii), a choice that we could make but are not aware that we could make or do not believe that we could make, is not a choice that is really available to us.)
Being Digital goes into detail of the changes in communications that are coming, and how business pressures will most likely end up with citizens having the fullest possible use of communications. The author, Nicholas Negroponte, integrates all forms of communications, to a greater extent than Bill Gates does. Gates concentrates on computer communications.
Brave New World is a forecast of the future that, if the rest of the texts are to be believed, is way off base. Technologically, it is possible, but the social aspects are 100% industrial-age. So, by comparison with the other texts, it illustrates how technology is not an independent force; we cannot understand the impact or meaning of a technology all by itself, but only by also understanding its social context. (And remember, you heard this from a technology cheerleader!)
Society and Technological Change shows in detail how society directs and controls technology. It also shows how technology changes society, but acting as an co-equal social force. (In an extended interview, Toffler describes the major spheres of society that he sees interacting. I will have to put this up on the Web Site.)
Finally, in Social Futures/Global Visions, several futurists describe their own views about how the parts of society interact as humans act to create the future. Many of the futurists in this text are less optimistic about the future than the other texts are. But even so, the issues that Toffler raises in The Third Wave are still very much alive for the futurists in Social Futures/Global Visions.

So there it is, my view of how all of the textbooks are like spokes in a wheel radiating outward from The Third Wave. Actually, "spokes in a wheel" is too organized an analogy - the spokes are twisted and warped and probably some are missing, and they don't all point exactly to the hub. But here is the commercial: Future's Studies must be interdisciplinary, or even transdisciplinary. It fits very well into the Interdisciplinary Studies Program. If there is an advantage to being interdisciplinary, then the most interdisciplinary text, The Third Wave, must be the hub of the course.