6 posts tagged “future”
In four respects Today stands in contrast to Yesterday (about 1750 – Today). First, the future has regained some of the inscrutability it possessed during the Distant Past (up to about 1750). Second, the marriage of science and technology has revealed dangerous and dehumanizing consequences that were only intuitively glimpsed, not yet experienced, by our forbears of Yesterday. Third, the new socioeconomic order proved to be less trustworthy than when it appeared during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And last, the political spirit of liberation and self-determination has gradually lost its inspirational innocence. Hence the anxiety that is so palpable an aspect of Today, is sharp in contrast with both the resignation of the Distant Past and the optimism of Yesterday.
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During this long, slow, and often errant march I think we can gain strength by reflecting on the Distant Past. For countless millennia humanity found courage to persist, the inspiration to produce extraordinary works of art, the will to create remarkable civilizations, the strength to endure miseries, and the appetite to savor triumphs, all without the support of the vision of a living future that would be superior to the past. There is no reason why the same resilience should not support humankind if it now sets its sights on the Distant Tomorrow of our imagination.
It is enough that we can see the future as containing such imaginable possibilities. Openness and potential, without assurance of outcomes, are substitutes for Yesterday’s bright hope for Progress and our consolations for Today’s more knowing anxieties. These words may reflect easily trivialized sentiments, but I put them forward at the conclusion of this very short, extremely long survey of how the future has appeared and now appears, as a salutation to my fellow voyagers who wonder, along with myself, what humankind can accomplish.
Robert Heilbroner in Visons of The Future, 1995
Yet great and grave though the problems that confront us are, mankind has a powerful armamentarium with which to engage them – its collective genius and its seemingly unquenchable spirit. That spirit and that genius, nonetheless, can wither and come to naught without both a feasible plan and the will to carry it out. And they can work at cross purposes where combined with arrogance in seeking the conquest of nature rather than a harmonious balance with it. Instead intellect and spirit must be joined with historical perspective, a keen awareness of limitations, and a clear perception of the relevance of all strands in the web of life in generating a formula for the bounteous, long-term continuance of our species on an uncrowded and ecologically wholesome earth. Better management of the planet and its resources at all levels is called for. That starts with a flexible, legislatively based agenda for action, arrived at by way of a searching and balanced discussion and assessment of alternatives and their consequences. I have sought in these last chapters to contribute to such a discussion. I also suggest some interim actions. But a public will to equal the task at hand is of the essence. And the tides of time are running low.
Preston Cloud: Cosmos, Earth and Man, 1978
A coldly rational individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future. By contrast, those who, for whatever reason, regard the resources at their disposal as an inheritance from the past that they feel obliged to pass on to their descendants, have a better chance of producing future generations prosperous enough to be able to continue to wrestle with the problems of increasing the quality of life.
Continuity is at the heart of conservatism; ecology serves that heart.
I am not optimistic that the plea to use much less energy will be heeded by governments, and certainly nothing I have written here will be welcomed by the global corporations, whose extinction I am explicitly calling for, but I know for a fact that there is already people all over the world, and especially in North America, who wan to be part of reversing the course we are on. We know that we must start sharing as if our lives depended on it – because they probably do.
For those who want to act, I hope this book will give you some useful facts, some good arguments, and a large dose of inspiration. We’re going to need all we can get. And don’t give up – we haven’t got time. Millions of people want action, want to do something, want it to mean something, and want it to last. The time is to act now, but not alone, like Gary Cooper; rather we must work together, in small groups and large, and start replacing the future with something that makes sense on a planet we have abuse for far too long.
Finally, we should try other solutions than those presented by the current rulers as the one and only possibility and thus as truth. Will anything be a truth because it always was so? How would you prove a truth, without risking to try something or somehow different? It cannot presently be expressed more beautiful than by the minister Karl Marti in his short poem:
Where would we end,
when everybody said:
Where would we end,
and nobody went
looking for the end
available where we may go.
We should go and look! Would you join?
Hans A Pestalozzi: Nach uns die Zukunft (After us the Future), 1979
Now we turn to the really big issues, getting rid of war and poverty, establishing a decent world order. This also becomes a matter of organization, and an appreciation that the common cause is to the benefit of every individual in the long run. It is the mass of individual human who own the world, and they must decide how to run it. If enough people use their combined buying and voting power and moral influence, and trust on real democracy, the necessary changes will become possible. They will happen. Politicians and responsible business respond to well organized public opinion when it becomes large enough and insistent enough to outweigh the influence of special interests.
Colin Mason: A Short History of the Future, 2006
