Wives are a special problem, we are informed, because they “don’t understand the protocol of office organization.” The successful man is advised to be patient with his wife, who may adhere to old relationships longer than he does.

In effect, we have applied the modular principle to human relationships. We have created the disposable person: Modular Man.

To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before. He must search out totally new ways to anchor himself, for all the old roots—religion, nation, community, family, or profession—are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust. Before he can

The very idea of obsolescence is disturbing to people bred on the ideal of permanence, and it is particularly upsetting when thought to be planned.

We have in our time released a totally new social force—a stream of change so accelerated that it influences our sense of time, revolutionizes the tempo of daily life, and affects the very way we “feel” the world around us.

We can, by analogy, think of transience as the rate of turnover of the different kinds of relationships in an individual’s life. Moreover, each of us can be characterized in terms of this rate. For some, life is marked by a much slower rate of turnover than for others. The people of the past and present lead lives of relatively “low

Change is the process by which the future invades our lives, and it is important to look at it closely, not merely from the grand perspectives of history, but also from the vantage point of the living, breathing individuals who experience it.

The fact remains, however, that family links are expected to be long term, if not lifelong, and considerable guilt attaches to the person who breaks off such a relationship.

His life represents a point touched by dozens of systems and hundreds of people.