> That is, in a period of social upheaval such as we have experienced since the death of John F. Kennedy and the escalation of the Vietnamese war, conventional modes of behavior lose their appeal, and fascination with the bizarre, the alien, the unfamiliar , the strange, with all sorts of stimulation that provide escape from the realities of the moment, increases at a great rate.

Written in 1974, this comment still seems true today, although the means of escape is probably now social media, rather than the drugs being discussed by Silverberg