Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow. Future shock will not be found in Index Medicus or in any listing of psychological abnormalities. Yet, unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it, millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments. The malaise, mass neurosis, irrationality, and free-floating violence already apparent in contemporary life 18 are merely a foretaste of what may lie ahead unless we come to understand and treat this disease.
Future shock is a time phenomenon, a product of the greatly accelerated rate of change in society.
It arises from the superimposition of a new culture on an old one. It is culture shock in one's own society. But its impact is far worse. For most Peace Corps men, in fact most travelers, have the comforting knowledge that the culture they left behind will be there to return to. The victim of future shock does not.