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The Future as Frontier

I began to see the future not as a totally impenetrable realm about which we can know absolutely nothing, but rather as an exciting frontier, offering enormous possibilities but also extraordinary dangers. We cannot possibly know everything that lies ahead, but with effort we can glimpse the possibilities of our future. This weak but incredibly valuable knowledge is critically important if we are to make wise decisions. Foresight is the secret ingredient of success.

Since I was a journalist, I began to think about how other people could be made aware of the possibilities of the future and perhaps could do a better job of dealing with the innumerable problems that humans must confront. Perhaps we could even find better ways to avoid future wars.

By 1965, I was mentioning to friends that I would like to start a magazine about the future. I knew that the Ford Foundation had put up the money to launch a magazine for the social sciences called Transaction. One of my friends, sociologist Hans Spiegel, arranged for me to meet with Fred Crosland, a Ford Foundation representative, who was attending a conference in Washington. However, Crosland told me that Ford was extremely unlikely to fund another magazine and there was little point in my applying.

After that disappointment, as well as several other efforts that went nowhere, I had another idea. Perhaps there was an association somewhere that served the needs of people interested in the future. Arthur C. Clarke had dedicated his book Profiles of the Future to his “colleagues in the Institute of Twenty-first Century Studies,” so I wrote to him inquiring about the Institute. But Clarke wrote back that the “Institute” was imaginary: He was simply referring to people like himself who were interested in the future.

I also wrote Dandridge Cole, a General Electric futurist who was forecasting future developments in space exploration at the company’s Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, research laboratory. Cole would certainly know if there was such a society, but he wrote back that he knew of no such organization, though he thought there should be one.

Sadly, the day after writing me, Cole died of a heart attack while doing calisthenics in his office. News of his death stunned me. I knew of no one else who might take the lead in establishing an association for the future. It also occurred to me that, even if there were someone willing to take on the task, just how would he find others to help him? People interested in the future were scattered across the world and they worked in many different occupations. I had thought that Dandridge Cole would already be in contact with future-oriented people and could readily assemble them, but I began to recognize that it might not have been easy for him to do so. Even if he knew such people, probably only a few would be willing to do the practical work of creating a society.

So, for a time, I thought that I would just have to forget about my idea for a magazine and a society for the future. But I also began to brood about trying to get such a group going myself. I knew nothing about how organizations get started—my sociology professors never discussed that topic—but I was sure you had to have people in contact with each other. I could see how a group of people living in the same community or working together daily could form a group, but people seriously interested in the future seemed to be few in number and scattered across the world. They also worked in many different fields. How could they be located, contacted, persuaded, and nagged into actually doing the organizational work?

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Future Shock or Future Prepared?

Submitted by pat (not verified) on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 9:30am.

One presumes that predictability is something that can never be known, and therefore, managing (and living) in the moment is all that can be required of anyone. But doesn't that premise defy logic?

If we rise everyday to a world of unpredictability, the world would be comfortable with chaos, and no institutional stability would be possible, let alone, useful.

Any nation can awaken and have a flood, earthquake, tornado - be here, today, and gone tomorrow - and some have, but that is not how most of mankind plans their existence, because no plans would be possible in such a negative view of the universe. Mankind cannot afford to operate with such a presumption that the future cannot be forecast, managed, or controlled to an extent that events proceed in the direction we hope and take steps to make them, rather than leaving to chance what will be the reality of any given day, in the present or in the future.

No need for management would exist in such a world.

Because that approach is inadvisable, if not folly for mankind, planning and direction management takes on a daunting task to which we are committed, if not sometimes also ruled, in our quest to create stability even while changes are possible within a framework of stability. America is no different in that regard than in any other nation because without that attitude, we would all exist by accident, or as an incidental life force in what we hope will be an ongoing natural universe.

Conducting a hit and run society, however, is always an option, and one which rewards ill advised, and short term wins, to sacrifice the future of others, for self enrichment or to exacerbate hoarding where persons hope they may reserve for their loved ones, an exceptional status never to be held hostage to the customs of the times of sacrifice or hardship that others must endure.

We may be in that sphere of deception where these forces impact our world much more than we realize, presently, and the degree to which the 1%/99% debate continues, or politicians and electors continue to bait the system with legislation favorable to one group or another ignores the obvious, of careless future deprivation for the greed practiced now.

Disrupted systems rarely produce benefits anticipated because components are interwoven within a fabric of stability where a tear in one part of the fabric may cause the entire fabric to unravel. That is particularly true with Constitutions, rights, liberties, and laws that govern them. Calculated once to work together, disturbances and stretching of the fabric often leaves an unusable fabric that is incapable of performing its original function. This is the danger, and has been, for some time in America that may contribute to its current woes, and it is the fear and mistrust that other nations have of America in its willingness to follow what amounts to the Pied Piper of the moment.

Without foresight, and forecasts, managerial efforts simply cannot accomplish what was intended to be accomplished at the outset as its reason for existence, and the bureaucracy that sets in provides a smokescreen of expertise where none really exists. It is not so much a veil of conspiracy in excellence as undue reliance on the fact that systems are in place when they really aren't. Such a veil of ignorance can harm more people more of the time than any procedural flaws that may arise in government.

Churches and Colleges do not have the same concerns as businesses and governments who operate in a live environment where changes have impact. They know what their program will be this year, next year, etc. They operate upon a simple construct but they are alone in that mission, and therefore insulated from the impact of mistakes, or misjudgements. They can recover by obtaining greater expertise or finding one with greater commitment to the original mission. It is a short walk from here to there.

Business and government are not so fortunate, however, being the multiheaded beasts they are, with many alliances, and many effects of the smallest things they do. They may not risk sinking the ship, but because their decisions impact many others, they can sink the ship if misguided, or negligent and disloyal to their mission/purpose for existence. Businesses die, are sold, and the people live on to do other tasks. Governments are never so fortunate. The impact of their harm far exceeds the momentary hardships that ripple through the universe affecting most. It's landscape has always been one of great prominence and earnestness therefore. All of its people, and other peoples, depend upon its legitimacy and credibility for the long term, not the short term. And this is the magnimity of the problem when governments don't work well, or work corruptly, or are operated in disshevelment for short term purposes.