The Big Answer

To link to this article from your blog or webpage, copy and paste the url below into your blog or homepage.

As society’s systems analysts, the Tofflers detect the patterns which connect things (Gregory Bateson and Fritjof Capra also used this context in their work), and think in terms of a multiplicity of forces interacting. In this interview, they also look at how Newt Gingrich was a lightning rod and since Newt was recommending that everyone read the Tofflers’ books, the Tofflers thought of themselves as the people standing next to that lightning rod, gaining a lot of extra attention. Heidi Toffler says that: “. . . we’ve struggled for 30 years to get our ideas recognized. And they are, everywhere else in the world. They aren’t here. It’s too big a country. I think we also don’t have a tradition in this country of revering the intellectual.”

Newt Gingrich recommended that everyone read the Tofflers’ books

Although academia is too caught up in egos and Second Wave thinking to integrate Tofflerian ideas into their agendas (a terrible, unforgivable error, in our opinion), there are countless individuals who’ve read and profited from Toffler books in the U.S., many companies that have benefited from Toffler-think, and many leaders who have used Toffler-think as an important factor in their thinking. Gingrich isn’t the only Toffler reader around, as the incredible sales of Toffler books demonstrate. Everyone should definitely read The Third Wave.