Futures
Studies: From Individual to Social Capacity
Abstract
Futures study
is not yet well established at the social level. Given the unstable
conditions of the late 20th century, and the challenging outlook of
the early 21st, this is a serious oversight. The paper considers how
futures studies can be progressively developed through five distinct
layers, or levels. First is the natural capacity of the human
brain/mind system to envisage a range of futures. Second, is the
clarifying, enlivening and motivating role of futures concepts and
ideas. Third are analytic gains provided by futures tools and
methods. Fourth is a range of practical and intellectual
applications, or contexts. When each of these levels functions in a
coordinated way, grounds for the emergence of Futures Studies as the
social level can clearly be seen. The paper concludes with a brief
summary of a preferred future that would arguably be within reach if
futures studies were to progress along such a path from individual
to social capacity.
Introduction
At
first sight the future is a highly problematic field of study. How,
it is asked, may one study something that doesn’t exist?
Futurists respond to this basic challenge in various ways.
For example, they may point out that Futures Studies deals with
intangible phenomena - as do aesthetics, law, ethics and religion.
Others suggest that Futures Studies is essentially about how
present-day ideas, feelings, goals etc. influence the future. Still
others focus on the creation of 'surrogate' -, or 'interpretative'
knowledge about the future that takes the place of future facts. In
this latter view the future can be said to exist - not as an
empirical, measurable realm, but as one of vision, will,
understanding and interpretation. Hence Futures Studies is more
closely related to the social sciences (and vice versa) than to the
so-called 'hard' sciences. It is therefore reasonable to think of
the future as 'a principle of present action', because this
highlights the way past, present and future interact.
However, for most people 'the future' remains an abstraction
that is vague and unfocussed. While stereotypical images of futures
are widely available in popular culture, few people take them
seriously or consider the much wider range of images and social
trajectories that are available. Equally, the rich links between
values, paradigms, ways of knowing and the future are overlooked -
even by some futurists. Thus, for the majority, the future might as
well be 'an empty space' for all the effect it has on their daily
lives and decisions, their personal and professional behavior.
It is for such reasons that governments around the world
still maintain their short-term time-horizons up to the next
election, with little or no thought for the longer-term implications
of the major shifts under way, the period of fundamental transition
collectively facing us in the 21st century and the plight of future
generations. How, then, could this apparent abstraction, 'the
future' be made more real, more accessible, more a part of daily
life? How can a technology-obsessed culture reign in its dynamism
and listen to the more subtle voices of the natural world and the
needs of future generations? I
do not think that such outcomes can be achieved by threats,
gloom-and-doom posturing, or any expectation that governance will be
transformed in the near future. A different strategy is needed: one
that recognises the layered
quality of futures understanding. This cannot be legislated into
existence. However, this paper explores the view that it can be
built up layer-by-layer over a period of time (see Figure 1).
*
(Figure 1 about here) *
Level
1: Human Capacities and Perceptions
A sound place to begin is with individual human capacities.
It is evident that the human brain-mind system is richly endowed
with the capacity not just for primary consciousness (seeing only
what is directly available to the senses) but with reflexive
understanding in time. This
higher-order consciousness is characterised by the ability to
remember and to learn, to roam consciously throughout a rich,
complex, extended present, to understand responsibilities and
consequences, and to speculate on futures yet to come. Edelman
characterizes it this way. He writes:
The freeing of parts of conscious thought from the
constraints of an immediate present and the increased richness of
social communication allow for the anticipation of future states and
for planned behaviour. With that ability come the abilities to model
the world, to make explicit comparisons and to weigh outcomes;
through such comparisons comes the possibility of reorganizing
plans. Obviously, these capabilities have adaptive value. 1
Human beings therefore have an innate
capacity for speculation, foresight, modelling and choosing between
alternatives. They are not stranded, willy-nilly, in a deterministic
world. Rather, they are
consciously located in a socially created, but self-actualised,
matrix of structures, understandings and forces. It is for such
reasons that human beings are able to think not only about 'the
future' but futures plural. Unlike the human body, which is
necessarily constrained in time by the close coordination of biology
(respiration, digestion, protein synthesis), the human mind,
imagination and spirit are free to roam at will among a stunning
array of different worlds and world-views, past, present and future.
They can also communicate directly with future generations.
Crudely put, the 'wiring' of the brain/mind system is
sufficiently complex and inclusive to permit at least three kinds of
journeys. It routinely permits consideration of past environments
that the body and perceptual apparatus were never present to
experience directly. It supports knowledge and understanding of
significant contexts in the historical present which are displaced
in space (eg. Chernobyl, Bosnia, Okalahoma City); and it enables the
forward view - a potentially panoramic outlook on a vast span of
alternative futures. Figure 1 therefore includes capacities and
perceptions as two of the 'building blocks' of futures study in
general and the future generations perspective in particular. The
ability to think ahead is grounded in these features. It is an emergent
capacity of this complex, elegant system. This is why all normal
persons are fundamentally capable of foresight, forward thinking and
responsible behaviour focused on long-term considerations. In
contrast to the professional (and professionalised) work of, eg,
forecasters and scenario analysts, one does not need a Ph.D. and an
academic base in order to engage in long-term thinking.
Level
2: Futures Concepts Enable a Futures Discourse
However, the raw capacity of the brain/mind system clearly
does not automatically lead to understanding and competence. The
rare stories of children raised by animals give weight to the view
that to become properly human, the young need to be nurtured within
a family and inducted into the symbolic social world of language and
culture. So far, so good. Unfortunately, however, those raised in
Western, or Westernised cultures, are likely to be imbued with the
characteristic Western outlook: nature is purely utilitarian - it is
merely a resource for human use; growth is seen as an unproblematic
and unquestioned good; science and technology are primary forces in
creating 'opportunity' and hence the future; the cultural past is
valued and tangible but the future is not similarly regarded. 2
Critical futures study makes it clear that such embedded
cultural commitments are complicit in the emergence of the global
problematique in all its many dimensions. Therefore, each generation
that takes on such commitments and assumptions, that regards them as
natural and normal, perpetuates an unsustainable world order at a
very fundamental level. However, as noted, higher-order
consciousness is reflexive. It can look clearly on its own
pre-suppositions and, where the evidence is clear, change them. This
work is obviously not easy, but it is certainly possible over a
period of time. As this occurs, so the 'mist' clears, and a
diagnosis can emerge about the global plight of humankind.
Unfortunately, this is as far as many scholars and others get. Yet
the next step is as simple as it is powerful: the development of a
personal futures discourse.
It is tempting to see such a discourse as simply a matter of
acquiring the appropriate language. There is some truth in this, but
it is not the whole picture. As a teenager I read a great deal of
SF. Without realising it at the time, I was learning a grammar of
futures imagery that subverted the usual default view of the future
as a blank space and instead populated it with an immense variety of
images, meanings and possibilities. Because of this variety, my
relationship to the future became active, rather than passive. For
example, I began to wonder why so many fictional futures were
populated by cruel aliens, implacably menacing super-computers,
rampaging robots and earthly catastrophes. Why, I wondered, could
the future not be a desirable place, even in imagination? The
answers to such questions led me to the futures field, its rich,
inspiring literature and, eventually, to some of the people who
created both.
When I later began to explore the world of Futures Studies, I
came to see that there was indeed a distinct discourse. As I began
to immerse myself in it, so many aspects of the futures dimension
began to clarify and to connect with features of the present that
implied particular directions, outcomes and scenarios. This provided
a new purchase on current affairs. Eventually I could see that
society is profoundly affected by a small number of dominant
discourses that, in no small way, condition the framing of current
issues and concerns - and hence the priorities and directions
adopted at any time. One of the dominant discourses is an economic
one. It heavily influences how governments govern, allocate
resources and make decisions. However, it is predicated on a range
of untenable assumptions that have been thoroughly critiqued by
futurists and others. 3 Another dominant discourse, not
unconnected with the above, is the commercial one. This is based on
equally untenable assumptions. It essentially says: 'buy, consume,
use and use up everything you want. Give no thought for tomorrow'. A
third discourse is academic. It is deeply conservative and committed
to boundary-maintenance. Here future-discounting is very strong.
Academia values the past much, much more deeply than the future. One
could go on, but I think the point is made.
Set against these are a number of newer discourses which are
engaged in a symbolic struggle for acceptance. For example, a peace
discourse, an environmental discourse, and discourse arising from
the women's movement. Each attempts to legitimise particular
concerns through language.
The futures discourse shares in the need to achieve
acceptance and legitimation. But it is less clearly focused on
achieving specific cultural goals. The most specific generalisations
that could, perhaps, be derived are the need for a shift from
short-, to long-term thinking and the notion of sustainability as a
social goal. 4 However,
beyond this it does not appear to be strongly prescriptive. One
reason may be that the core concept of 'alternatives' mitigates
against such an approach. Yet I think it true to say that the lack
of a futures discourse in society is one of the structural
impediments to adaptive change. Or, put positively, the wider
up-take of the discourse is one of the most powerful strategies for
dealing with the apparently intractable dilemmas of the present and
near-term future.
Without a futures discourse founded on the critical thinking
alluded to above, 'the future' is occluded, hidden, continually just
out of sight and therefore out of mind. People therefore just don't
think about it. I call this the 'threshold problem'. The many rich
possibilities for understanding the global predicament,
reconceptualising aspects of it and steering toward
consciously-chosen outcomes are therefore overlooked. So what can be
done? A number of
futures scholars have tried to make futures concepts and ideas more
widely available in the belief that, in so doing, the social
capacity to use and apply the discourse will be enhanced. 5
What evidence is there for this view? It is two-fold. First, there
is the personal experience of a dawning awareness followed much
later by a progressively deeper understanding. Second, there is the
experience of graduate students from around the world who came fresh
to futures studies and finished their courses with a much more
empowered and insightful view. I do not want to underestimate the
problems that students new to futures studies may experience, but I
have no doubt whatever of the enabling power of a futures discourse.6
Table
1
A
Sample of Futures Concepts
alternatives
and choices
breakdown
and renewal
cultural
editing
empowerment
extended
present
foresight
futures
in education
future
generations
reflexivity
social
innovations
sustainability
time
frames
vision
a
wise culture
The most broadly useful futures concepts are those which have
a certain 'amplitude'; that is, they can be approached and
understood on a variety of levels. They can therefore be introduced
to young children as well as adults. For example, the notion of
foresight may seem difficult. But it can be approached concretely by
observing its use in everyday life (walking, driving, sailing etc.).
Later, the notion of a 'loop of futures scanning' can be introduced.
Still later aspects of systems thinking and theories of human
perception come into view. For these and other reasons, foresight is
one of the most productive futures concepts I have ever encountered
(which is why I wrote a book about it). Some others are given in
Table 1.
It might be objected that not all such concepts are 'owned'
by futurists. Quite so. But when they are used in a sustained way
and in combination with others, as well as with the other resources
available through futures studies they do, I believe, permit a
distinctly futures-oriented quality of understanding to emerge.
It is this which is the goal and purpose of futures educators,
rather than the pursuit of this or that particular future scenario.
Thus, futures concepts enable a futures discourse. It is the latter
that provides the foundation for an applied futures perspective,
rather than techniques per se. However, as the following
section suggests, methodologies do have an essential role to play in
moving from an individual toward a social capacity for futures
studies.
Level
3: Futures Methodologies and Tools
If it is innate capacities that make futures thinking
possible and futures concepts that enable a futures discourse to
emerge, it is the use of tools and methodologies that raises the
power of a futures perspective to a new level. Some examples are
given in Table 2.
Table
2
Futures
Methodologies
backcasting
causal
layered analysis
cross-impact
matrices
Delphi
surveys
environmental
scanning
forecasting
scenario-building
strategic
management
trend
analysis
It is all very well to articulate futures issues and
problems. But at the end of the day discourse alone cannot deal
adequately with many broader or more complex futures concerns. For
example, take the practical need to assess if a power station or a
new major road is, or is not, necessary. To make a sound decision
depends not merely on ideas and discourse, but also on the extended
treatment of complex sets of data. This is where a purely
literary-based discourse reaches its limits: it cannot handle data.
But futures methodologies can. That is essentially why they been
developed and implemented. Table 2 lists some common futures
methodologies that are used to generate, manipulate and evaluate
information about the future.
In the case of building a major road or airport, much work
would be needed to collect time-series data from the recent past and
then subject it to various forms of mathematical extension. It is
here that scenarios can also be used to embed the raw data in
humanly meaningful contexts, ie, self-consistent pictures of
possible futures. From this kind of elaboration emerges a view of
the context in which the proposed project can be located. Does it
still make sense? Is it 'economic'? Are the trends likely to hold
up? What 'system breaks' can be envisaged? And so on. It is clearly
a very demanding and sophisticated exercise that requires expert
knowledge and understanding. In France the work of Michel Godet,
which goes under the heading of 'La Prospective', has carried this
kind of approach to its highest level of accomplishment. 7
It is both commercially and intellectually successful, providing
many companies with valuable strategic intelligence about their
business, products and markets. In other words, the manipulation of
large data sets in combination with conceptual sophistication allows
a kind of extended analysis to take place that deals successfully
with complex practical problems.
There is also another aspect to this level: futures tools. By
tools I mean much simpler strategies and procedures to extend
understanding in a wide range of situations. Table 3 gives some
examples. Such futures tools have been derived from the conceptual
and the methodological resources of the futures field by many
people: educators, social activists, workshop facilitators and
others. Metaphorically speaking they provide a very comprehensive
'tool-kit' for those working with young people or other enabling
contexts. Various attempts have been made to make some of the most
useful tools available in published form. 8
Even taken alone such tools can be extremely useful. Take the
futures wheel. It is a very simple idea. A possible future event is
placed in the centre of a piece of paper. Immediate consequences are
traced out in a rough circle. These 'first-order' items are then
explored in another ring and so on. Practitioners have found it an
ideal starting point to investigate the implications of many topics
with people of all ages, from very young children to corporate
executives. In other words, it has the 'amplitude' I mentioned
above. It can also be used as a mind-map, a counselling tool and a
way of exploring assumptions.
Table
3
Futures
Tools
assessing
global 'health'
brainstorming
the
critique of images of futures
dealing
with young people's fears
exploring
the extended present
futures
wheels
imaging
workshops
the
loop of futures scanning
questions
about futures
simple
cross-impact matrices
simple
scenarios
simple
technology-assessment
simple
trend analysis
social
innovations process
time
capsules
time
lines
values
clarification
But futures tools do not exist in isolation. They can be
assembled in many varied and productive sequences. This is partly
why they are such a useful and flexible educational resource. For
example, one can begin with an exercise dealing with optimism and
pessimism, continue with one dealing with young people's fears,
continue again with one on social innovations and end with another
using simple scenarios. From this basis, a second sequence could
examine some more advanced concepts and ideas: the critique of the
industrial worldview, the nature of a wise culture, communicating
with and caring about future generations. The subjects and
permutations are endless. Clearly such tools involve and complement
the use of futures concepts.
Thus futures methodologies and tools greatly enhance the
development of a futures perspective by extending the analytic,
cognitive and intellectual reach of those using them.
Level
4: Futures Applications
All the above would be very limited in scope if such
resources were only used in an ad hoc, informal way. But they take
on much greater force and power when embodied in specific contextual
applications. Some examples of the latter are given in Table 4.
Table
4
Futures
Applications
critical
futures study
future
generations studies
futures
in education
futures
research institutions
institutions
of foresight
strategic
foresight
twenty
first century studies
university
futures departments
There is some overlap here with the implementation of the
more sophisticated methodologies, since the latter obviously require
a context. But it is the term 'context' that is significant. It does
not matter how articulate we may become, or how far-reaching our
methodologies may be. If there is no supportive context, such powers
will be difficult to sustain; they may wither and die. This is the
fate of all-too-many futures-related educational innovations. So the
key to this level is the provision of an institutional or
organisational milieu where high-level futures work can thrive,
develop, be critiqued and implemented. I will now briefly discuss
the examples given.
Critical futures study uses the standard tools of scholarship
to raise the power of futures thinking to a higher level. 9
However, it cannot take place in isolation. There is no point in
gaining insight if the insights are private, unavailable and not
susceptible to the very necessary process of disciplinary criticism
and feedback. For me the key to implementing some of the insights
from critical futures study was to embed them in post-graduate
university courses. 10 This had the benefit of testing
them against the criteria of tertiary institutions and also against
the needs and perceptions of successive cohorts of post-graduate
students. It is essential that such work is openly tested and does
not become a private indulgence.
Future generations studies is a new field which has emerged
from futures studies per se and from the application of particular
values within a futures perspective. In this view, future
generations are radically disadvantaged by many present trends,
structures and practices. Therefore, ways are needed to raise the
profile of future generations, to give them a voice, and for
contemporary societies to recognise their needs in present-day
councils. This necessary social innovation is given even more weight
when it is realised that many traditional cultures in the past
already understood the necessity of so doing. 11
More generally, much of the foregoing can be implemented in
education at the school and college level. I have always argued that
instead of being seen as a brash newcomer, a futures perspective is intrinsic
to the tasks of teaching, learning, teacher preparation and
professional development (particularly for principals). Schools are
in the business of preparing the next generation for life in the
early 21st century. They are therefore one of the few social
institutions with a social mandate to think long-term, though few of
them yet know how to do it. Still, there are signs of progress. As
this paper is written, the Board of Senior Secondary School Studies
in Queensland, Australia, has started to trial a new, four semester
futures syllabus for year 11 and 12 students. I expect this kind of
innovation to become much more common as the new millennium draws
closer. The opportunities for productive work in this area are much
greater than is commonly recognised.12
Futures research institutes are organisations purposely
designed to facilitate the kind of extended, high-level, data-driven
work noted above. They have sprung up in many countries,
particularly in the USA, where a combination of wealth,
entrepreneurial drive and deep-seated perception of opportunities
and problems, has created a critical mass of expertise. Such
institutes tend, on the whole, to carry out work for government
departments, public utilities and corporate clients. What I all
institutions of foresight (IOFs) are closely related to them. They
may use some of the same methods. However their values tend to be
different and the focus is more in the public interest arena.
Depending on how they are defined, there are several hundred IOFs
around the world.13 They exist because perceptive people
in all regions have understood the drift of world events, have seen
the outlines of the 'great transition' that lies ahead, and have
realised that no country should simply drift into this most
dangerous and challenging time. This sense independent discovery
gives weight to what I think of as a growing 'congruence of insight'
about the fundamental problems facing humanity, as well as
long-term, systemic solutions. Hence the research institutions and
the IOFs play a potentially central role in helping to embed
society-wide changes of perception and practice.
Another milieu in which such work may be done is within the
strategic planning units of various organisations. While strategic
planning has not always lived up to the expectations loaded upon it,
most large organisations have discovered that they must try to
operate strategically. Those who do not are much more likely to
fail. So strategic planning is not likely to be abandoned. It can,
however, be improved by opening it up to the kinds of symbolic and
methodological resources outlined here, thus creating a new focus on
strategic foresight. Too often, for example, it is the case that
corporate approaches to futures are epistemologically and
ideologically naive, taking, for example, a particular corporate or
cultural ideology as 'given' and missing altogether the many options
for critical analysis and reconceptualisation upon which lasting
social innovations may depend. Some management books fall into
exactly this trap, eg., Hamil and Prahalad's Competing for the
Future. Others, such as Paul Hawken's The Ecology of
Commerce, deal with the coming transition in much more
conceptually adroit ways.14
The emergence of 21st century studies is potentially one of
the most significant developments in the field. A number of national
studies have been, and are being, carried out. A conceptual and
methodological tool kit has been developed, along with an enviable
grasp of the organisational and practical issues which can determine
success or failure.15 It is regrettable that only a small
number of nations have so far participated in this program. Many
rich Western nations, including Australia, continue to proceed in
blissful ignorance of the high-quality international 'conversation'
that they are missing. In time, the national studies will form the
basis of a global overview of perspectives for the 21st century. It
is a prospect that no nation on Earth can afford to overlook.
Finally, there is clearly a role for universities in the
development of an advanced futures discourse and the implementation
of foresight. It is a matter of profound regret that so few of them
have so far understood how thoroughly the prospects for humankind
have altered during the present century, and therefore remain
preoccupied with history, boundaries, subject areas and 'knowledge
for its own sake'. Yet departments of futures studies or futures
research in a number of countries are clearly viable; moreover many
futures courses are taught from within parallel disciplines such as
science studies, development studies, geography, sociology and
politics.
In summary, the implementation of futures thinking lags well
behind its conceptual and methodological development. However, as
the practicality and applicability of futures studies becomes more
widely known, this is likely to change.
The
Social Capacity for Foresight
At the human level foresight is a largely undeveloped human
capacity that is, nonetheless, used ubiquitously in everyday life.
At the organisational level, foresight is much rarer, being subsumed
into the limited operations of marketing, strategic planning and
organisational development. At the social level, a capacity for
foresight barely exists at the present time. The great social
institutions: government, business, education, commerce mostly
continue as though the particular trajectory of Western culture
could continue forever. Specifically, they do not incorporate a
clear understanding of the change of scale in human activity and
impact that has occurred in recent history. Thus, as Milbrath and
others have pointed out, the old trajectory cannot be maintained.
Business-as-usual thinking remains the norm. But we no longer live
in 'normal' times. It would be easy to conclude that the outlook is
therefore hopeless. But that is not the conclusion of this paper,
nor the collective one of the field of futures studies.
At first sight the possibility of seeing the future as
anything other than a blank, vaguely menacing space, seems
unavoidable. Few people have been exposed to futures ideas in their
formal education, and few encounter them in later years except in
the mostly degraded forms available through popular entertainment
and commerce. In the standard view, a common response is to work
hard for 'my family', 'my job' or perhaps 'my country', and to stay
clear of 'the big picture' because it is too challenging and
difficult. In this way, whole populations are de-skilled and
disempowered. Most young people grow up fearing the future and
therefore early on learn the comforts of denial, evasion and
avoidance. However, a wholly different outlook is not only possible,
it is feasible and, indeed, much more desirable. I will therefore
close this account with a brief summary of a preferred future. Much
more work is needed here. Positive visions are in short supply, but
they are badly needed to provide the young, in particular, with
antidotes to the prevailing mood of pessimism and despair. 16
A
Preferred Future
In my preferred future, schools and other progressive social
organisations take heed of the innate capacities and needs of human
beings according to a broader map of knowledge. The latter extends
vertically to embrace a number of ways of knowing so that empirical,
communicative and transcendent phenomena all have their place.17
It also stretches out horizontally and embraces aspects of
past and future, thereby greatly enriching the present and
clarifying the dense interrelationships between them. Elise
Boulding's notion of a '200-year present' is very helpful here.18
Then, given a clearly deteriorating world outlook, futures
concepts are taken up universally, integrated into many different
fields and also developed within an advanced futures discourse. The
latter influences other discourses - particularly those of politics,
business and education. The change is catalytic. Insights which had
been mulled over quietly by perceptive people all over the world
steadily emerge into the light of day where wider populations can
respond to them. The old idea of the future as an empty space fades
away and is replaced with a new set of reflexive understandings
about the constitution of human cultures and responses in space and
time. The future is no longer an abstraction. Rather, a 'grammar'
derived from a much wider range of ideas and images becomes widely
shared. This strengthens the newly-emerging futures discourse.
Suddenly the human race begins to grasp the predicament it is in -
and the many ways of dealing with it.
Futures tools and methodologies spring up everywhere. A whole
growth industry develops as a new, more enlightened generation of
consultants, motivational speakers and men and women in all
professions and fields begin to adopt, shape and apply these
resources in their own lives and work. It is a part of the dynamic
'service sector' which is based on qualitative growth, facilitative
processes, communication - and hence involving minimal environmental
impacts. The growth of social innovations accelerates and foresight,
futures thinking, is implemented just about everywhere. Governments
are startled out of their complacency and short-term habits. They
are not reformed overnight. But they do ensure that the very best
futures thinking is available to them at source. So a new generation
of research institutions and IOFs spring up, many sponsored by
anxious governments themselves.
As these social, cultural, organisational and other processes
flow together something quite new emerges. It is not the 'noosphere'
dreamed of by Teilhard de Chardin, nor the full-blown 'wise culture'
sought by visionaries and far-sighted observers.19 It
does not solve all the world's problems overnight, but it does
establish a different outlook and perhaps the preconditions of
humanly-compelling futures. The new quality is a collective capacity
for, and commitment to, long-term thinking. A foresight culture
therefore emerges at the dawn of the 21st century. It is a culture
that routinely thinks long-term, takes future generations seriously,
learns its way toward sustainability and brings the whole earth back
from the brink of catastrophe.
The old material growth economy is steadily replaced by a
'restorative economy'. Growth itself becomes a dubious concept -
unless it is preceded by the term 'qualitative'. Corporations become
intelligent, value-based and systems-aware. The earlier commercial
outlook disappears and re-emerges in notions of service and
long-term quality. Education is transformed. The schools are vital
nodes within the new culture, the springboards for society-wide
foresight. Universities finally get the message and begin to break
down the old inter-departmental barriers: interdisciplinarity
thrives. Futures study and research are seen to be one of the
emerging disciplines of the new century. A whole new generation of
scholars discovers a realm of enquiry that their ancestors would
have thought impossible. 20
The world is no Utopia. Wars still break out. Viruses ravage
certain areas. It is a nervous time and many species could not be
saved. There is a collective sense of loss and grief. But a
different sensibility is abroad. It is one that sees each generation
as links in a chain, not only as inheritors of the past but also as
guardians of the future. The species looks out on a newly-enchanted
world and universe. It grows beyond the primitive ego states and
destructive technologies that drove so much of earlier history.
Finally it grows toward maturity.
References
1.
Gerard Edelman, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire, New York, Basic
Books, 1992.
2.
Richard Slaughter, The Foresight Principle: Cultural Recovery in
the 21st Century, London, Adamantine, and Boston, Praeger, 1995.
3.
Hazel Henderson, Paradigms in Progress, London, Adamantine,
1994.
4.
Richard Slaughter, From Short to Long-Term Thinking, Futures,
Vol 28 No 1, 1996.
5.
See David Hicks, Teaching About the Future: A Practical Classroom
Guide, Godalming, Surrey, World Wildlife Fund, 1994. Also
Richard Slaughter, Futures Tools and Techniques, second
edition, (revised and expanded) and Futures Concepts and Powerful
Ideas, second edition (revised and expanded) Futures Study
Centre, Melbourne, 1996.
6.
Richard Slaughter, Critical Futures Study and Research at the
University of Melbourne, Futures Research Quarterly, Vol 8 No
4, 1992, pp 61-82.
7.
Michel Godet, From Anticipation to Action,
UNESCO, Paris, 1993.
8.
See note 5 above.
9.
Richard Slaughter, Probing Beneath the Surface, Futures, Vol
21 No 5, 1989, pp 447-465.
10.
Richard Slaughter op cit 1992, note 6.
11.
See Gerry Mander's reference to the Great Law of the Iroquois in, In
the Absence of the Sacred, San Francisco, CA, Sierra Club, 1991,
page 237.
12.
Richard Slaughter, From Fatalism to Foresight. A framework for
considering young people's needs and responsibilities over the next
20 years, Australian Council for Educational Administration
Monograph #16, Melbourne, 1994.
13.
See Slaughter 1995 op cit note 2.
14.
Gary Hamil and C.K. Prahalad, Competing for the Future,
Harvard Business School, Boston, 1994; Paul Hawken, The Ecology
of Commerce, Harper, New York, 1993.
15.
Martha Garrett (editor), Studies for the 21st Century,
UNESCO, Paris, 1991.
16.
See David Hicks and Catherine Holden, Visions of the Future,
Trentham Books, London, 1995.
17.
Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye. The quest for the new paradigm, 2nd
edition, Anchor/Doubleday, New York, 1990.
18.
Elise Boulding, The Dynamics of Imaging Futures, World Future
Society Bulletin, Vol 12 No 5, 1978, pp 1-8.
19.
The theme of a wise culture is explored in Part Three of Slaughter
1995 op cit note 2.
20.
See Richard Slaughter (editor) New Thinking for a New Millennium,
Routledge, London, 1996.
Figure 1
Futures
Study:
From
Individual to Social Capacity
Levels
Indicators
Level
5:
Social capacity for
Long-term
foresight as an
thinking becomes
emergent property
a social norm
Level
4:
Futures processes, projects
Foresight routinely
& structures embodied in
applied in most
variety of applications
organisations
Level
3:
Futures tools & methodologies
Widespread use
increase analytic power
of standards
tools & methods
Level
2:
Futures concepts
Futures concepts
& ideas enable
& ideas become
a futures discourse
influential via
discourse
Level
1:
Raw capacities &
Unreflective use
perceptions of the
of forward
human brain-mind system
thinking in daily
life of individual
Figure
1 illustrates the way that futures study is progressively enabled
level-by-level from a raw, under-utilised, potential to an applied
social resource. At level 1, futures thinking is virtually
impossible, and the future seems to be an 'empty space'. However,
concepts, methods and applications augment these capacities. The
future then emerges as an active social category brimming
with social implications.
