Four Essays and One Book

In this issue, we feature works by seven authors on a variety of theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical matters of concern to anyone interested in understanding and using futures studies. One of the goals of the World Futures Review (WFR) is to highlight the work of people and places that have been at the very forefront of futures studies from the beginning—as well as to spotlight the activities of scholars and practitioners new to the field.

“Futures Studies in Hungary,” by Erzsébet Nováky, Éva Hideg, and Klára Szita Tóthné, traces the outstanding pioneering futures work done in Hungary from the earliest days to the present. Reading it brings back very fond memories of when I first had a chance to engage with so many outstanding Hungarian futurists on their home turf during a conference on “Technology of the Future and its Social Implications” in Budapest, Hungary, September 1987. I then visited Hungary several times in preparation for and attendance during the outstanding XIth World Conference of the World Futures Studies Federation, in Budapest, May 1990. My paper for the 1987 conference had been titled, “Hanging on the Hinge of History.” By 1990, that title was a bit more prophetic than even I imagined at the time I presented it.

“Baseline Analysis: The Epistemology of Scenario Support” is by the founder of one of the major academic programs in the United States devoted to futures studies—Peter Bishop of the Foresight Graduate Program of the University of Houston, Texas. Dr. Bishop’s essay is focused entirely on one of the central issues in futures studies—the utility—indeed, validity—of predictions of single, most-likely futures versus the forecast of an array of alternative futures. As a strong advocate of the necessity of evaluating many alternative images of futures before attempting to envision and create preferred futures, this is a piece that I read with great interest from a person I have loved and admired for many years. I strongly disagree with many of the statements Dr. Bishop makes here when characterizing the field. I think he overstates the convictions and differences too starkly.

Bishop’s main point, that he repeats frequently, is that each of the alternative futures is based on “assumptions” and not on “evidence.” As he says, “Anyone’s GBN matrix is just about as good as anyone else’s. Anyone’s fixed scenario archetypes (e.g., best case, worst case, muddling through, transformation) are about as useful as the next one.” While Bishop does not specifically say he is referring to the four alternative generic images of the futures of the so-called “Manoa School,” and because only one of the four types he lists, “transformation,” is also one of the Manoa School’s four generic images, perhaps he has something else in mind. But as the four Manoa images are, indeed, thought to be “fixed archetypes”—generic—perhaps he does.

If so, he is mistaken. Bishop seems to fail to notice that the Manoa School’s four generic futures are images of the future, beliefs people hold and express about “the future.” They are four alternative images of the future, not four different futures. Moreover, these four images are empirically based on “evidence”: they resulted from the longtime, continuing collection and analysis of actually existing images of the future. They are the result of an attempt to reduce to a manageable, essential few, the huge number of images of the futures that actually exist in the thoughts, statements, and images of the futures that different people hold (often holding contradictory images of the futures about themselves personally, for example, and their community). I continually go to great lengths to make it clear that the four generic images we use are empirically based. I did not make up the four categories. Moreover, I typically include empirical evidence for each of them in anything I publish based on the four generic images. For example, see the references supporting each of the four images of the futures here (Bengston et al. 2016). While the specific form of each image is our creation, the “facts” contained in each form, and the underlying logic of each, are based on that of each archetype and/or the specific references cited.

We insist that people we work with consider the four images because real, serious, scholarly (and/or practical) humans believe one or the other of the four images correctly captures “the future,” as they understand it, and that we, as futurists, cannot chose one as being correct, while instructing our students or clients to ignore the other three. We feel we have an ethical, professional obligation to require people to consider all four images seriously by examining one version of the “evidence” presented by advocates of each of the four, and then either concluding for themselves which is correct, if they wish to play God, or, preferably, devising preferred futures that seek to be robust over all four futures, and not just one.

Bishop makes a strong case for considering only “the most probable” future, but I, like Herman Kahn (whom he quotes), insist that past history makes clear that “the most likely future isn’t” and so most likely “won’t” be either. So, to be safe, we should consider futures that other people feel are “most probable,” too.

Continuing the theme of “facts” and “evidence,” “Report on a Study of Counterfacts as a Futures Research Technique for Forecasting Future Global Developments” is written by a relative (but not absolute) newcomer to futures studies, Mariana Todorova, a futurist in Bulgaria and a member of the National Assembly, together with another pioneer in the field, Ted Gordon, a member of RAND in the early 1960s, founder of The Futures Group in 1971, and a key affiliate of Jerry Glenn’s Millennium Project now.

In the current environment of contested facts and “alternative facts,” their data, relying on a survey-based exploratory study of “counterfacts,” raise some very important questions about where evidence for matters of great importance for the future—but of little or no importance in the present—might be found. For example, how many futurists a decade ago “predicted” that Donald Trump (or someone very much like him) would be elected president of the United States as a Republican? Indeed, how many are willing even now to accept that such an election did, in fact, happen—that it is not a dark dream from which we soon will awaken?

The report by Todorova and Gordon can be read as a counterbalance to that of Peter Bishop. It is also a treatise on what I call “emerging issues” (or that they and others call “Black Swans”)—and certainly it exemplifies part of the rationale behind “Dator’s Second Law of the Futures,” which is that “any useful idea about the futures should appear to be ridiculous.”

Finally, Dennis Morgan’s “Conducting an Innovations/Issues Change Tracking and Forecasting Term Project in an Undergraduate Futures Studies Course” describes the experience of an absolute newcomer to futures studies who introduced a futures course into his teaching at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, in Korea. Morgan shows that he relied heavily and well on pedagogical examples from scholars teaching futures courses at many universities around the world. His example should provide guidance and courage to others who wish to enter the field without prior formal academic training in futures studies.

In addition, for the first time, I will use this editorial as an opportunity to review a book that deserves special attention from futurists old and new, and the general public alike.

The book is The Future: A Very Short Introduction by Jennifer M. Gidley (Gidley 2017), president of the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), and an absolutely splendid book it is. As it is part of the Oxford University Press’s vast Very Short Introduction series, it is physically quite small in size. The font size is tiny as well—not quite small enough to have published the book on the head of a pin, but pretty close to it. The page count is small as well—138 pages of text and 164 overall. But its contents are huge—there is a lot of information packed into this small, valuable book.

In the very front of the book, there are seven pages of titles that are published in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series on every possible subject—except futures. Dr. Gidley’s book is the only one on futures. Indeed, I could not find even one other that was clearly devoted to some kind of a futures-oriented theme.

My son, Mack, caught a glimpse of me reading the book and exclaimed, “Dad! The title is The Future!! Wha . . . ?” He was speechless.

I do not know what the reaction of Peter Bishop was on seeing the title, but as many futurists (and their families) know, “The Future” does not exist. Rather, many images of alternative futures do. I knew that Dr. Gidley most certainly was aware of this, and so I was puzzled by how she could possibly have allowed the title of such an important book to imply a singular future. One of the very first things I did before committing to becoming editor of the World Future Review was to get the managing editor of Sage to agree to change the title to World Futures Review. The editor not only immediately agreed with no resistance whatsoever, but also the title was, indeed, changed as promised at the first opportunity.

The mystery of the title of Gidley’s book is not solved until page 44, where, under the subtle subtitle, “The Urge to Predict the Future,” she explains why the title is singular:

It was initially a challenge for me to accept the publisher’s suggestion [sic?] to use the singular form: future. On reflection, I took the challenge as it enables me to clarify how the concept of a singular future is inherently power-laden,

and she does, indeed, spend a great deal of space making clear that the futures are plural, open, and possible, and not singular, predetermined, and inevitable.

Indeed, Dr. Gidley makes this clear at the very beginning of the book when she mentions the WFSF (pp. 7–8). Unfortunately, she did not have the space, I assume, to give my favorite example of how the matter is truly “inherently power-laden.”

One of the original reasons for the creation of the WFSF in the late 1960s–early 1970s was to provide a place where people from all sides of the Iron Curtain could meet and talk safely about futures that were better than the present for everyone. After several preliminary conferences in Oslo, Kyoto, and Paris, a world conference was held in Bucharest, Romania (a socialist country), where a committee drafted the constitution for WFSF. I was on the drafting committee. In the room where we worked were not our usual fellow futurists from the Soviet Union (such as Igor Bestuzhev-Lada), but rather a person we did not know who looked like he was a stereotypical “secret agent” from Hollywood Central Casting, complete with overcoat and hat, chain-smoking foul-smelling cigarettes.

He said never a word while the rest of us passionately discussed the words and paragraphs of the constitution for what we agreed (with no discussion there that I recall) would be named The World Futures Studies Federation—a federation of groups and people around the world engaged in futures studies.

Somehow, I was asked to present the draft constitution to the members of the Conference as a whole for their debate, modification, and ultimate approval. I had gotten only a few paragraphs into that task when the person from the Soviet Union raced down the center aisle of the auditorium, leapt to the stage, brushed me aside, and (stopping short of doing an imitation of Khrushchev banging his shoe on the podium) began shouting—“Future, future! There is only one future—that of Communism! There are no futures! Change the name or no person from any socialist country can become part of this organization!”

Because one of the main goals of the WFSF was to be a place where all peoples of the world could meet and discuss the futures without regard for their ideology, religion, culture, ethnicity, or gender, we dutifully agreed to erase the “s” wherever it appeared in the document, and so WFSF began as the World Future Studies Federation.

As I happened to be president of the WFSF when the Berlin Wall fell, I quietly and without consulting anyone put the “s” back in, and we have been the World Futures Studies Federation ever since.

Gidley’s book proceeds in a straightforward manner, in six cleverly titled chapters, a short conclusion, a helpful appendix, which is a “global futures timeline,” references, and further readings and websites.

Chapter 1 is exactly what the title states: a summary of “Three Thousand Years of Futures.” Chapter 2, titled “The Future Multiplied,” discusses the title of the book, why there is this “urge to predict the future,” and the emergence among those who devote themselves largely to the study of ideas and actions about things to come that, while “prediction” of a single future is impossible, “forecasting” of many alternative futures and “envisioning and designing” of preferred futures is possible and necessary.

In chapter 2, Gidley captures the essence of the origins and evolution of the social sciences and of futures studies very well, including many of the variations of alternative futures theories and methods within the futures field. Chapter 3, “The Evolving Scholarship of Futures Studies,” extends and deepens our understanding of the academic and applied aspects of the field.

Gidley correctly notes that while futurists and “the future” seem to be everywhere now, enjoying a new spurt of popularity, our social, political, economic, and cultural structures still force almost everyone to think and act narrowly in the very short term, often meaning today and not even tomorrow, much less next year or twenty years hence. Perhaps, as a consequence, many things still seem to move from worse to still worse because of our lack of consistently applied broad and long-range foresight.

In these three chapters, her summary of the long history of ideas about time, the future, preferred futures, utopias and dystopias, progress and chaos, to planning, she skillfully weaves many resources into a fluid, coherent narrative. She offers an excellent summary of a long and complicated story, endeavoring with considerable success to be global and multicultural, not just western-centric in the telling as so many tellings of the tale often are.

In my editorial for Vol. 9, No. 1 of WFR, an issue entirely devoted to essays about “Time and Futures Studies,” I criticized many futurists for failing to make a critical analysis of the most basic concepts in the field: “time” and “future.” I certainly cannot make this criticism of Gidley. To the contrary, she provides excellent if necessarily brief discussions of time (pp. 10–22, 77–80, and 108). I hope that she will expand on these ideas in a contribution for the next issue of WFR on “Time and Futures Studies.”

Chapter 4, “Crystal Balls, Flying Cars, and Robots,” discusses some of the common tropes in the media about futures studies that most infuriate its serious scholars and practitioners. Even after having been briefed by futurists on what futures studies is and is not, many stories about the field in the popular media persist in repeating the same old stereotypes over and over: where are your crystal balls? Where are the flying cars? Would you allow your daughter to marry a robot? All designed to make the field seem misguided and frivolous.

I am looking forward to reading other reviews of Gidley’s book to see if and how they exhibit these tendencies, as some almost certainly will.

This is bad enough in the popular media, but when futurists read the work of otherwise serious scholars who have somehow decided to turn their attention to “the future,” we discover they also often write in complete ignorance of the field, in spite of its seventy-five-year-old history as a serious academic discipline and applied field, with its conferences, journals, academic programs, consulting firms, blogs, and websites. Not only am I editor of WFR, but I have served for many years as a reviewer of manuscripts for almost all of the major academic journals in the futures field. As such, I constantly am obliged to read papers written by people who wish to publish in these journals but who have not read a single scholarly paper on the subject—even in the journal in which they wish to publish! At best, they refer to only one or two very well-known popular futurists, but typically they cite no one but themselves. I cannot imagine this happening to reviewers for history, philosophy, psychology, biology, or physics journals, but willful refusal to engage in futures research before writing about “the future” is rampant in the halls of academe.

Gidley suggests that part of the problem might, indeed, be that the existence of journals specializing in futures isolates discussions of the futures in our own little silo (p. 82). I wonder if that matters anymore. Do not people search the Internet by subject matter, and so find material wherever it is? Does anyone read specific subject-matter journals only? Does anyone read journals at all? These are issues that I discussed with the Sage editors before I took over this job.

In chapter 5, “Technotopian or Human-Centered Futures,” Gidley addresses one of the many differences of values and opinion within the futures field—the role of technology vis-à-vis humanity.

First of all, in so doing, Gidley makes it clear that, unlike many academic areas, the discussion of ethical, moral, cultural, and other values is not only permitted, but also encouraged in futures studies. While some scholars under the broad umbrella of futures studies may choose to attempt to be “value free” in their work, many—I would say most—understand that this is probably not only impossible, but also not desirable. One of the major points of futures studies is to envision and create “preferred futures,” and what is one person’s preference may be another person’s worst nightmare. Many futurists acknowledge and embrace this fact as important features of the field.

Near the end of the book, Gidley provocatively defines futures studies as “the art and science of taking responsibility for the long-term consequences of our decisions and actions today” (p. 136).

This definition makes clear that futures studies typically are profoundly values-based. While most futurists attempt to be fair, they do not and should not shrink from being, and urging the people they work with to be, “aspirational”—to use the word guiding the futures work of the Institute for Alternative Futures. Different futurists and futures groups work from and toward different values, and often take potshots at other futurists with differing values—as perhaps I have done above with Peter Bishop. This is absolutely acceptable. It has characterized the field from the beginning from Johan Galtung, Robert Jungk, and Eleonora Masini (and many others) through Alvin Toffler and John Naisbitt (and many others) to Herman Kahn and the Heritage Foundation (and many others who often have been far more influential in actually impacting policies toward their preferred futures than were any in the first two groups I mentioned).

Gidley’s view of the relationship between technology and humanity is starkly revealed in chapter 5, “Techno Dehumanization,” she calls it. In this regard, she shows that she is more on what might be called the “spiritual” end of the futures spectrum than I am. She sees much technology as dehumanizing.

I see all technology as rehumanizing; as mutating; that, as Buckminster Fuller put it, we are not human beings but human becomings. As I have tried to make clear in many places, most recently in Mutative Media (Dator et al. 2014), I have concluded that human values are derived in part from biology, culture, and technology, and in part from the behavior that our biology, culture, and technology enables or thwarts. However, new technologies typically allow new behavior that challenges old values based on the behavior enabled by the old technologies. New technology, thus, redefines what it means to be human, upsetting some people while pleasing others (and totally ignored by most people).

Gidley’s “anti-technology” position is widely shared within and without the futures community. It is absolutely proper that her perspective shows through brilliantly in her Very Short Introduction, especially as uncritical, commercialized, culture- and environment-destroying pro-technology views dominate the media and public consciousness. But there are other views on the relationship than just these two, pro and con.

Indeed, the more I become involved within the space community, the less “humanistic” I have become. Life as it emerged on Earth is marvelous, but it is not suitable in its present biological form for survival in any other part of space we know of so far. I learned initially from John and Magda McHale (McHale 1969) and their other publications that life and consciousness are worth saving by evolving and transforming, and not only by preserving in their current earthly biological forms alone.

Nonetheless, at the same time, Gidley seems to avoid discussion of the biological basis of human’s values and actions, saying, for example, that “social, political and economic structures limit some [choices] more than others.” That is true, but so also human biology both enables us in some ways and restrains us in others, and how we deal with that fact is also a value issue. Some say humans are naturally selfish killers and that we must design futures on that basis. Others insist we have the capability to hoard and kill or to share and love, and which we do and how we do it is significantly a cultural matter subject to values-based social system design.

So also, whether we can or should tinker with our biology to enhance some features and suppress others is another technology about which futurists differ. Gidley seems to oppose any tinkering as dehumanizing. Again, I see it as rehumanizing in ways that are neither good nor bad nor neutral, but are just what evolution does to all life all the time—mutate. In the mean time, it is perfectly OK for futurists and other humans to fret and struggle about it.

The final chapter, chapter 6, is titled “Grand Global Futures Challenges” and is both about that subject and about various futures-oriented organizations that are trying to address the challenges. Gidley focuses on “Environmental Trends and Surprises,” “Trends and Twists in Global Power,” “Socio-Cultural Trends and Counter Trends,” “The Grand Urbanization Challenge,” “The Grand Educational Challenge,” and “The Grand Climate Challenge.” I agree these are major issues of global concern (and vastly appreciate the fact that she implies that “surprises,” “twists,” and “counter trends” are equal in importance with the “trends” of the “most likely future”). While climate change might well have been folded into the environmental section, I agree that it deserves consideration in and of itself as one of the greatest novel challenges for recent humanity, especially given America’s grossly irresponsible refusal to even think about the new Anthropocene Epoch, much less to address its consequences—which also add another “twist” to America’s rapidly vanishing role as a positive force in creating preferred global futures.

While Gidley cannot reasonably be faulted for not including everything about all aspects of the vast futures field, especially given the restraints on word count she was laboring under, there are two omissions that I do regret. While discussing “participatory futures” (p. 70), she failed to mention the many “Anticipatory Democracy” (AD) activities, spurred by Alvin Toffler and advanced by Clem Bezold and others (although Bezold’s Institute for Alternative Futures is listed on p. 144). Those AD activities were extraordinary events carried out in the very early days whose depth and breadth of futures-oriented popular participation has never been duplicated, much less exceeded, to my knowledge (Bezold 1978, 2010).

In addition, although “future generations” are mentioned several times, the considerable literature and global activities of the Future Generations Alliance and other groups, carried on currently by J. C. Tremmel and the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations and the Intergenerational Justice Review and others, are not mentioned.

One tiny but (to me) important correction. I did not found Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. As an outgrowth of the extensive “Hawaii 2000” AD activities of 1970 and beyond, the Center was created by law of the Hawaii State Legislature and placed in the University of Hawaii for administrative purposes. I knew absolutely nothing about its creation, and would have chosen a less cumbersome title if I had been asked. It is true that I was named its first director, and served as such until I retired from the University in 2014. But the credit goes to the citizens of Hawaii who sponsored the “Hawaii 2000” activities and supported the many resulting projects. So, the chart (p. 144) needs to be changed in any revision of the book. I thank Dr. Gidley for her good summary of the four generic images of the futures of the Manoa School (p. 74).

We all should give Jennifer Gidley a standing ovation. This is an absolutely wonderful source, as a basic textbook about the field, and as a very good short introduction about the futureS for everyone.