system of values, as it does our physical nervous system by 
simply cooling off the onset of experience a great deal. For 
many people, this cooling system brings on a lifelong state of 
psychic rigor mortis , or of somnambulism, particularly 
observable in periods of new technology.

     An example of the disruptive impact of a hot technology 
succeeding a cool one is given by Robert Theobald in The Rich  
and the Poor . When Australian natives were given steel axes by 
the missionaries, their culture, based on the stone axe, 
collapsed. The stone axe had not only been scarce but had 
always been a basic status symbol of male importance. The 
missionaries provided quantities of sharp steel axes and gave 
them to women and children. The men had even to borrow 
these from the women, causing a collapse of male dignity. A 
tribal and feudal hierarchy of traditional kind collapses quickly