Futures Volume 8 issue 6 1976 [doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2876%2990081-1] I.F. Clarke -- 15. The idea...

8/11/2019 Futures Volume 8 issue 6 1976 [doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2876%2990081-1] I.F. Clarke -- 15. The idea of the future, 17841984

1/7

Futures

Essay/From Prophecy

to Pmdiction

537

present material pertaining to indivi-

dual human, social, or technological

advancements without considering the

interrelations between these three

factors.

Research should continue into the

the delineation of specific, basic human,

social, environmental and technological

determinants. These should be defined

qualitatively, quantitatively, and in

terms of rate of change. A more difficult

task would be to forecast the inter-

relationships of these determinants.

This will demand parameters of measur-

ment that express mutually influencing

forces. The aim should be to improve

forecasts of individual and group needs,

and to educate the public into a wider

appreciation of human needs.

References

1 S Lesse,

The psychosocial future of

man-golden age or stereotypy, Pro-

ceedings of the 1970 International

Future Research Conference; Kodansha,

Tokyo, 1971.

2. E. R. Dewey, Role of the foundation

for the study of cycles, Journal

of C h

Research, 10 {97),

1961.

3. S. Lesse, Placebo reactions and sponta-

neous rhythms,

American 3ournal of

Psyclwthrupy,

18 (99), 1964 (supplement

1).

From Prophecy

serialised survey of the movement

to Prediction

of ideas, developments in predictive

fiction, and first attempts to forecast

the future scientifically.

15. The idea of the future, 1784-1984

I. F. Clarke

THIS

series of articles began in February

1974 with the proposition that social

fiction is in its way as effective a means

of communication as that other intel-

lectual invention-the research paper.

The subsequent articles have argued

that about 200 years ago the then-new

device of futuristic fiction began to

record the earliest responses to that

great regulator of human affairs-

technological progress. About 100 years

later, after Marx and Darwin had

revealed the origin and destiny of the

human race, the first essays in fore-

casting the most likely course of future

developments - social, technological,

I.

F. Clarke is Professor in the Department of

English Studies, University of Stratbclyde,

Scotland. He is author of 2 Tale

of the Ftcturc

(London, Library Association, 1970) and Vakes

Fr+eg-kg War London, Oxford University

Press, 1966).

political-began to appear in the

professional journalsand themiddleclass

magazines of the industrial countries.

Since then an ever-increasing volume

of publications has shown that predic-

tive literature is the principal means by

which intellect and imagination can

comprehend, consider, and coordinate

the bewildering multiplicity of innova-

tions that go by the names of social

progress and technological develop-

ment. That is, during the past 200

years, the arts of fiction and the tech-

niques of prediction have laboured to

create images of the future and to

establish conclusions about coming

things. From time to time these have

had immense effect in changing the

mood of millions through dramatic

visions of the things-to-come and in

promoting a lively awareness of future

possibilities through their forecasts of

FUTURES December 976


2/7

538 From Prophecy to Prediction

the changes to be expected in the next

decade or the next century.

So, it seems appropriate to conclude

this series with another set of proposi-

tions. First, the idea of the future is an

evolutionary device of the industrial

nations; its.special task is to stimulate

thinking about the process of adapta-

tion that is the constant of an ever-

changing world. Second, no matter

what ideas a writer may form about the

future, the general rule is that these

have their origins-direct or indirect-

in the scientific theories and technologi-

cal capacities of their time. Third, the

frequent shifting in these patterns of

expectation, the rise and decline of

enthusiasms or apprehensions, the ap-

pearance of new considerations, and

the introduction of novel propositions-

all these variations mark the successive

stages through which industrial civili-

sation has laboured to control the

human environment. Finally, there is

what can, with reason, be called the

Futures proposition: that during the

past 200 years the idea of the future

has advanced from fiction to prediction,

and that this movement is essentially a

progression from interested amateurs

to dedicated professionals.

all who wrote about the shape of

things-to-come was to begin from the

apparent connections between con-

temporary science and future possi-

bilities.

The beginnings

Some of the earliest ventures in the new

literature of the future came from

Germany. In 1800 A. K. Ruh, the

author of Guirlanden urn die Urnen der

kunft, looked ahead to the life of

the 23rd century when self-propelled

balloons would be the main means of

communication throughout the world.

In 18 10 an officer in the Prussian army,

Julius von Voss, produced his vision of

the future in Ini: ein Roman aus dem ein

und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert; and in his

preface he showed how the universal

expectation of progress had found an

appropriate means of revelation in the


3/7

.

. _

A lady

period /

of the

Britain

By the

playing

moon

s fan of the Napoleonic

(above)

was a visual fantasy

coming conouest of Great

1880s

science fiction was

with the

I dea of getting to the


4/7

By the early 1900s the inven-

tion of the mator car had

inspired forecasts of motor-

ways through central London

The dream of the conquest

of space was taken up by the

film industry in the 1930s.

The spacecraft (betowf in

T ings to ome prepares to

take 08


5/7

From Prophecy t o Predict i on 541

to manufacture synthetic diamonds.

There are diving machines for deep-

sea work, and a fast postal service

operates by means of cannon that

shoot the mail in containers from town

to town.

These happy expectations increased

both in numbers and in the scale of

their ambitions, as the great techno-

logical advances of the 19th century

encouraged all to think of the future as

a sequence of most-beneficial develop-

ments. Thus, the idea of the future

reached the first major phase of its

evolution about 1870, when the period-

ical press introduced the practice of

including occasional articles about the

changes to be expected in the coming

decades. For the readers of

MacMil lans

M agazi ne

there was Charles Kingsley

The natural theology of the

Fzture (March 1871) and Sir George

Chesney on The advance of science in

military organization (May 1872).

The other major periodicals--Black-

w oods Edinburgh Revi ew Contemfi orary

Review The

Cornhill-provided similar

forecasts: everything from Stanleys

discoveries and the future of Africa to

The schools of the future and The

military future of Germany. Even the

most restrained and circumspect of

these forecasts took it for granted that

the march of progress would continue,

and at their most hopeful they echoed

the sentiments of Winwood Reader in his

very popular publication of 1872, Th

Martyrdom of Man:

Earth, which is now a purgatory, will be

made a paradise, not by idle prayers and

supplications, but by the efforts of man

himself, and by means of mental achieve-

ments analogous to those which have raised

him to his present state. Those inventions

and discoveries which have made him, by

the grace of God, king of the animals, lord

of the elements, and sovereign of steam and

electricity, were all of them founded on

experiment

and observation. We

can

conquer nature only by obeying her laws,

and in order to obey her laws we must first

learn what they are. When we have ascer-

tained, by means of Science, the method of

natures operations, we shall be able to take

her place and to perform them for ourselves.

When we understand the laws which regu-

late the complex phenomena of life, we shall

be able to predict the future as we are

already able to predict comets and eclipses

and the planetary movements.

For close

on half a century writers on

both sides of the Atlantic continued to

prophesy and predict the constant

improvement of the human condition.

It was, for example, an article of faith

that the new technologies would moder-

ate the effects of warfare. A vast new

literature about the next great war

poured out, giving the nations the

good news that campaigns would be

swifter than ever. And then the

Europeans discovered the hard way

what the general staffs of the great

powers had failed to foresee. In 1914

they had blundered into the war of the

entirely unexpected. In the words of

Winston Churchill2 the First World

War differed from all ancient wars

in the immense power of the combatants

and their fearful agencies of destruc-

tion

. . .

All the wars of the world

could show nothing to compare with

the continuous front which had now

been established. Ramparts more than

350 miles long, ceaselessly guarded by

millions of men, sustained by thousands

of cannon, stretched from the Swiss

frontier to the North Sea.

The First World War caused a

profound shift in the pattern of ex-

pectation. The idea of the future

changed direction. The old belief in

the uniform rate of social and material

progress was modified to include the

proposition that, although science may

be neutral and universal, the inclina-

tions of men are local, particular, and

prejudiced.

A new generation of

prophets and predictors took on the

task of matching their theories of

technological development with their

intuitions of the proper evolutionary

programme for mankind. By 1930

these new-style prophecies and predic-

tions had become a popular and at



6/7

542

From Prophecy to Prediction

times a most powerful means of look-

ing into the possibilities for good or ill

in the social or technological conditions

of the day.

The postwar period

An earlier article3 in

Futures

has looked

at the major prophecies of the 1920s and

193Os- We Brave New World First

and Last Men-which gave warning of

the dangers that could affect the world.

They make a grim contrast with the

frequent optimism of the forecasts that

were then coming out in large numbers.

The most sanguine of these was

The

World in 2030 which appeared in 1930.

It makes for salutary reading today.

The author was the Earl of Birkenhead,

a notable barrister and a one-time Lord

Chancellor, who had been at the centre

of national affairs since the beginning

of the century. What Birkenhead had

to say about the next century lacked all

originality. He repeated the popular

assumptions

of the 1920s-atomic

energy,

wind, and tidal power will

provide unprecedented quantities of

energy; stereoscopic television in full

natural colours in every house; the

abolition of epidemic diseases will have

been achieved and rejuvenation injec-

tions will retard the onset of old age;

and in any future war, tanks and

aeroplanes will prove decisive. There

will not be any form of European

union before the year 2030 and the

British Empire will continue intact.

Did Ghandi or Nehru ever reflect on

these forecasts* of an English lord?

British rule in India will endure. By 2030,

whatever means of self-government India

has achieved, she will still remain a loyal

and integral part of the British Empire.

Many longing eyes are cast upon her.

Russia especially would be gratified to see

the patient work of Bolshevist agents

crowned by a successful Communist out-

break on a large scale. This outbreak will

not occur. The future of India presents

vast difficulties and anxieties, but the

devoted careers of both Englishmen and

Indians, working side by side, will surmount

them, and India

will

grow to be a bulwark

of strength and an example of prosperity

to the whole empire.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the

Atlantic, preparations were going on

for what was to be the first major

advance in the business of prediction.

In 1929 the President, Herbert Hoover,

had appointed a Research Committee

on Social Trends. For the first time in

human history the head of a large

nation had called on experts to

examine and to report on social trends

. . . with a view to providing such a

review as might supply a basis for

formulation of large national policies

looking to the next phase in the

nations development. Their findings

provided the chapters of a large two-

volume publication of 1933-from the

first on The population of the nation

to Trends in economic organisation,

down to the last paragraphs of the

concluding chapter on Government

and society in the USA:5

We face then a major and unavoidable

problem of modern social life in the further

development of American government, and

in the period immediately before us we

must deal with these fateful questions:

How shall we establish types of social

control . . . with power, prestige and wisdom

enough to maintain the indispensable inner

structure of political cohesion and authority

without which no nation can survive?

How shall we blend the skills of govern-

ment, industrial and financial management,

labor and science in a new synthesis of

authority, uniting power and responsibility,

with a vivid appeal to the vital issues of the

day, able to deal effectively, with the

revolutionary developments of our social,

economic and scientific life, yet without

stifling liberty, justice and progress?

When the Americans read those words

for the first time, Roosevelt had suc-

ceeded Hoover as President of the

United States. He had been elected on

the promise of a New Deal, and for

the rest of his life he was to aim at

dealing effectively with the revolu-

tionary developments in the social and

economic life of the nation. What he



7/7

did and how the world since the 1930s

has sought to work out a new synthesis

of government, labour, and manage-

ment-that is the history of the still

unfolding idea of the future and of the

great flood of prophecies and predic-

tions that followed after the Second

World. Some of those developments

have brought the world to the imagined

brink of despotism in the year of 1984.

It remains to be seen whether Orwell8

had history on his side when he had

OBrien tell the wretched Winston:

The old civilisations claimed that

they were founded on love or justice.

Ours is founded on hatred. In our world

there will be no emotions except fear,

rage, triumph, and self-abasement.

From Pro@ecy to Prediction/Books

543

References

1.

2.

3

4

5

6

Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man

(London, Simpkin

Marshall, 1972),

page 512.

Winston Churchill,

The Wor ld Crisis

(London, Thornton Butterworth, 1923),

page 11.

I. F. Clarke,

Science and society,

1840-1940,

Futures 8

(4), August 1976,

pages 350-356.

Earl of Birkenhead,

The Wor ld i n 2030

(London, Hodder Stoughton, 1930),

pages 155-156.

Wesley C. Mitchell, Charles E. Merriam,

and others, Recent Social Trends i n th e

Uni ted States 2

volumes (New York,

McGraw-Hill, 1933), volume 2, pages

1540-1541.

George Orwell, Jvineteen

Eighty-four

(Lon-

don, Penguin Books, 1959), page 214.

BOOKS

Europe Plus Thirty

A plan for a European forecasting instrument

Mark brams

The Fu t u r e s

of

u r ope

by Wayland Kennet

242 pages, E6.50 cloth, London, Cambridge

University Press, 1976

In his preface H, G. Schuster, Director

General of the Commission of the

European Communities for Research,

Science and Education, describes the

origins of this book. After nearly 30

years of existence the Commission and

Council of the European Community

thought it was time that the Com-

munity should set fresh goals as it

moved towards economic, monetary,

Dr

Abrams was Research Director of the Social

Science Research Councils Next Thirty

Years Committee; he is vice chairman of

Political and Economic Planning, London and

is currently directing research for Age Concern

on long-term social and psychological deter-

minants of successful adjustment to ageing.

and political union, and that these

goals should be based on assessments of

likely long-term developments. To this

end, in January 1974 the Council of

Ministers of the community passed a

resolution prepared by the then Com-

missioner Ralf Dahrendorf. The resolu-

tion raised two questions:

a Should the European Communities

undertake a study entitled Europe

Plus Thirty concerning the fore-

seeable or possible developments over

the next 30 years which are likely to

affect Europe; and, if so, will this

study make it possible to create a

forecasting instrument which can be

constantly up-dated ?

Should the European Communities

create their own technology assess-

ment office in an attempt to evaluate

FUTURES December IS 8

Futures Volume 8 issue 6 1976 [doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2876%2990081-1] I.F. Clarke -- 15. The idea...

Documents

Transcript of Futures Volume 8 issue 6 1976 [doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2876%2990081-1] I.F. Clarke -- 15. The idea...