Future Shock

by Alvin Toffler

What they offer is not simply a skin show or a new soap or detergent. They offer not a product, but a super-product. It is true they hold out the promise of human warmth, companionship, respect, a sense of community. But so do the advertisers of deodorants and beer. The "miracle ingredient," the exclusive component, the one thing that subcults offer that other hawkers cannot, is a respite from the strain of overchoice. For they offer not a single product or idea, but a way of organizing all products and ideas, not a single commodity but a whole style, a set of guidelines that help the individual reduce the increasing complexity of choice to manageable proportions. Most of us are desperately eager to find precisely such guidelines. In the welter of conflicting moralities, in the confusion occasioned by overchoice, the most powerful, most useful "super-product" of all is an organizing principle for one's life. This is what a life style offers.

Super Products alleviated the stress of overchoice