DECODING THE NEW RULES
The fact is that what we are seeing is not merely the classical confrontation of romantic youth and realistic elders. Indeed, what was once realistic may no longer be. For the basic code of behavior, containing the ground rules of social life, is changing rapidly as the onrashing Third Wave arrives.
We saw earlier how the Second Wave brought with it a “code book” of principles or rules that governed everyday behavior. Such principles as synchronization, standardization, or maximization were applied hi business, in government, and in a daily life obsessed with punctuality and schedules.
Today a countercode book is emerging—new ground rules for the new life we are building on a de-massified economy, on de-massified media, on new family and corporate structures. Many of the seemingly senseless battles between young and old, as well as other conflicts in our classrooms, boardrooms, and political backrooms are, in fact, nothing more than clashes over which code book to apply.
The new code book directly attacks much of what the Second Wave person has been taught to believe in—from the importance of punctuality and synchronization to the need for conformity and standardization. It challenges the presumed efficiency of centralization and professionalization. It compels us to reconsider our conviction that bigger is better and our notions of “concentration.” To understand this new code, and how it contrasts with the old one, is to understand instantly many of the otherwise confusing conflicts that swirl around us, exhausting our energies and threatening our personal power, prestige, or paycheck.
THE END OF NINE-TO-FIVE
Take the case of the frustrated parents. Second Wave civilization, as we saw, synchronized daily life, tying the rhythms of sleep and wakefulness, of work and play, to the underlying throb of machines. Raised in this civilization, the parents take for granted that work must be synchronized, that everyone must arrive and work at the same tune, that rush-hour traffic is’unavoidable, that meal times must be fixed, and that children must, at an early age, be indoctrinated with time- consciousness and punctuality. They cannot understand why their offspring seem so annoyingly casual about keeping appointments and why, if the nine-to-five job (or other fixed-schedule job) was good enough in the past, it should suddenly be regarded as intolerable by their children.
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