Life is like a wave oscillating in its ups and downs. It is more of a sine wave that communicates a code to excite the cycle of life. The strength in signal to propagate its existence marks human’s character building significance.
Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave discusses the waves of changes and its effects in the society. Namely: The Agriculture Revolution, Industrial Revolution and the Information Age for the first, second and third wave respectively. These waves rippled from disadvantages of the previous to the advantages of the present.
The First Wave or Agriculture Revolution defined feudalism and slavery on one side while organized an effective way to gain large quantities of food that drove agricultural technology. This revolution from hunter-gatherer way of life provided opportunity to explore other able lands to till, domesticate plants and animals, trade, and gave birth to land lords. An intriguing theory, the Feasting model by Brian Hayden, suggests that ostentatious display of power, such as feast, to display dominance was the driving force behind the first wave.
The Second Wave was characterized by ‘bureaucracy’ by coupling mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction with standardization, centralization, concentration and synchronization. It institutionalized the women in the work force, resulting to suffrage, and maximized the use of resources to gain maximum profit. It demanded to finish more activities at the same time, routine for familiarity, and crave for a “costly” entertainment to relieve stress.
The Third Wave is coined by Toffler as the super-industrial Society, Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era, Global Village, Technetronic Age, or Scientific-Technological Revolution that has given us the following advantages. First, Information becomes the material resource that can bring wealth created everywhere (globalization), no where (cyberspace) and out there (outer space). Second, configuration system with the ‘just-in-time production’, or ‘do-it-yourself’ technology with user-friendly Software marks customization. Third, nanotechnology trespasses the smallest part of an individual and lets you know your inner self. Fourth, GPS synchronizes the precise time that enables the individual to be connected to political, social, economical, technological and educational advancements of the global community. As much as the third wave created a venue for one’s individuality with the prevalence of informed choice, security defines the drawback.
The fall of the chaotic hunter-gatherer gave birth to a relaxed, stable and domesticated way of life of the agricultural society. The lack of challenge in the first wave opens the door to quantify our way of life in the industrial society. The search for freedom from routine and commonality revolutionized individuality in the global arena. Each change evicts older society to give way to other value system. It requires openness, creativity, flexibility, responsibility and appreciation.
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