The World Future Society at 40: First Impressions

By Lane Jennings

A staff writer and editor recalls the World Future Society’s humble atmosphere and grand aspirations.

The World Future Society was born on a back porch in Bethesda, Maryland, just north of Washington, D.C. Its founding staff consisted of journalist Ed Cornish (who had left his full-time job at the National Geographic Society to take this challenge on), his brave wife Sally, their three young sons, and a handful of neighborhood volunteers. By the time I arrived a decade later, the Society had graduated to a “suite” of offices above a beauty parlor several blocks closer to downtown. But the back-porch atmosphere remained. Creative chaos was the norm.

In the 1970s and 1980s, any visitor climbing the drab stairs to the Society’s few, dark, unair-conditioned rooms, piled high with boxes, papers, and equipment, saw at once that appearance mattered very little here. WFS devoted every inch of space and every ounce of effort from its staff and volunteers to producing THE FUTURIST magazine, a quarterly series of special-focus newsletters, and a long-term book project to compile a resource directory of individuals, organizations, books, films, and other learning/teaching tools for exploring trends and future social options.

WFS and the Future

The World Future Society might look rough around the edges, I decided, but its heart was in the right place and its priorities were clear—do the work of being a futurist and let others look the part. I began writing book reviews as a volunteer, and, when a paid job opened up, eagerly became a full-time copy editor.

The Society’s goal, as we then described it, was to be “an impartial clearinghouse for a variety of different views” on future options. Importantly, the Society declined to ever “take positions on what will or should happen in the future.”

I applauded this decision, and still do. It meant that all points of view—reactionary, radical, middle-of-the-road, and just plain wacky—would be welcomed (or at least not turned away without consideration) in WFS publications and meetings. Still I must admit the range of future possibilities being explored seemed far less ominous back then.

Optimists, like F.M. Esfandiary, were confident that worldwide progress in science and technology would quickly produce sweeping social change as material abundance and reasoned dialogue replaced outdated conservative right-wing vs. liberal left-wing worldviews with a unifying “Up-wing” focus on future opportunities for all.

Even pessimists, like Donella Meadows and others who warned of uncontrolled population growth, dwindling stocks of natural resources, and signs of spreading environmental damage, were also proposing policies and actions that might slow or even reverse the alarming trends their statistical models revealed.

Personally, I believed most likely futures fell somewhere between the voices of calm confidence and those of shrill alarm. For example, the Hudson Institute’s Herman Kahn seemed right on track. By daring to “think the unthinkable” and seriously explore how a nation might maintain itself even after a massive nuclear attack, he was performing an important futurist task: turning crisis into opportunity, or at least checking even the darkest cloud for its potential silver lining, not just running off to shelter from the storm.

Also, by pointing out the impressive cumulative achievements of humanity over centuries of time (what he called “the long-term multifold trend”), Kahn embodied another important futurist virtue: taking the long view, not demanding, or even promising, quick results.

I remember those early days at the Society as a time of optimism, belief that what futurists were doing mattered, that the world could change itself, and that we could help by stimulating people to begin envisioning their preferred future, then find or invent ways to make that desired future real. Despite minimal conveniences, tight spaces, hectic deadlines, and primitive equipment, somehow the Society kept producing and survived.

The World Future Society now has modern offices and up-to-date equipment. The staff still works long hours in surroundings that are far from elegant, perhaps, but at least professional. Publications and meetings remain at the heart of what we do. In some ways, the organization has not changed all that much in four decades.

About the Author

Lane Jennings, former editor of the World Future Society Bulletin, is the production editor of Future Survey and research director of THE FUTURIST. He has also spoken at several Society conferences and contributed essays to its conference volumes.