April 2, 95I just finished reading "Creating a New Civilization - Third Wave Politics" by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay I found this in the bookstore last week and I think it just came out. It has a foreword by Newt Gingrich and he waved it in front of the US Congress, insisting that everyone read it, from what I understand, which in itself should be enough to make it a best seller. I'm not exactly a Republican and I haven't had any favorable impressions of Newt Gingrich, but this forces me to reevaluate my opinion a bit. This is a rather subversive and revolutionary book, actually, predicting a total change of society as we have known it, and the collapse of more traditional power structures, to be replaced by something new. Toffler has written about what he calls the “Third Wave.” ” before, and this is after all just a further elaboration. But it's putting it in a context that makes it hit very well. The First Wave was the agricultural society. The Second Wave was the industrial revolution. The Third Wave is the information society. The Second Wave is symbolized by the factory model. Everything is mass-produced by centralized, hierarchical and bureaucratic institutions. Most of our known ways of producing things, of education, of finance, and of government are based on Second Wave principles. We have centralized governments that try to set rules for everything and manage things from one place. We send our children to learning factories where they are all treated equally and spat out as standardized products. The third wave is inevitably upon us. It's driven in part by the greater speed of everything, greater interconnectedness and vast amounts of information. Information is becoming increasingly more important than physical goods. Second wave institutions cannot keep pace with third wave society. Governments, centralized mega-corporations, educational institutions and the mass media are largely unable to keep up with the speed at which things are developing. And to this extent they are failing. The third wave is represented by smaller teams, flexibility and the ability to change, reduced overheads and just-in-time principles. Second wave institutions will not voluntarily relinquish control, even when they fail to provide what is needed. There is therefore a struggle between the 2nd and 3rd wave institutions, which the 3rd wave will inevitably win in the end. In 2nd wave politics there was the idea of ​​the “majority”. If we let most people choose a few representatives and let them make rules that apply to most people, then things will remain fairly well organized and acceptable. In the 3rd Wave there is no longer any significant “majority”. Society is increasingly divided into special interest groups. There are a large number of minorities, rather than a majority. And almost no one really likes what governments are doing. Second wave politicians try to reverse the change and turn back the clock. If we could all have good, decent family values, protect the country's manufacturing facilities, and spend more money on education, then everything would be fine. The mass media are increasingly unable to show what is really happening. They will mostly provide the history of the second wave, showing us what centralized power figures are doing and saying. But this is no longer the case.